AnnoBib -- “Studying Cognition in Context:"

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Flower, Linda “Studying Cognition in Context: Introduction to the Study (Reading to Write Report No. 1). Technical Report No. 21.” (May 1989). Print.
    Examining the cognitive processes of reading-to-write as they are embedded in the social context of a college course, this introduction to and overview of an eleven-part Reading-to-Write Project study focuses on the study as a whole by sketching the reading-to-write task as one of practical importance, as a window on how students integrate reading and writing, and as a rhetorical act occurring in the charged context of entering college. Research was organized into two phases – exploratory and teaching. The teaching study involved four sections of a freshman course called Reading-to-Write, with a total of 72 students. Procedures are described in terms of five questions the research hoped to answer. Also traces the history of the collaborative research project, reflecting on the process of research itself and sharing some of the problems and issues that arise in attempting to study cognition in context. The introduction concludes with a preview of six key observations that emerged from the study: students understand tasks differently; these differences cause problems; task representation needs to be matched with introduction and support of academic discourse community; but academic discourse is diverse; college composition is both cognitive and social; and watching writers negotiate the cognitive and social expectations indicates that strategic knowledge is just as important.

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