Context in Writing

Although the study of writing isn't as popular as chemistry or physics may be, some writers are bringing the research back to the forefront. In the introduction of Landmark Essays on Writing Process, Sondra Perl questions how the writer writes. What does the creator do when they create a piece, while they're creating the piece? Her curiosity brought more writers out to share their studies on this phenomenon. Perl summarizes the angles of the other 21 essays by various writers testing this hypothesis. Some researchers used tape recorders for results while others talked about their personal step-by-step processes in writing. Perl believes the most effective way to study research is to go into the assignment with no assumptions, ready to learn from the writer.

Maxine Hairston questions not only the writer, but the people who teach the writer in her essay "The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the Revolution in the Teaching of Writing." She believes that competent writers know what they're going to say before it gets on the page. She argues that writing (for the traditional paradigm) is a linear procedure, starting from prewriting to writing to rewriting. Finally, "teaching editing is teaching writing" (pg. 115). She debates that the approach of English teachers to teach writing when they do not have sufficient writing experience makes about as much sense as someone teaching a Chaucer course when they aren't familiar with his work. Because of this teaching style, trained teachers may not realize that their students have a long way to go in the writing department. While they are teaching procedure, they cannot teach the skill of writing.

An Anglo-American seminar on the Teaching of English, held at Dartmouth College in 1966 helped to change the way teachers conditioned their students. The teachers went from looking for grammar and punctuation mistakes to paying attention to the way that their students wrote. After that, more researchers came out to also show that the writing process does not just consist of crossing the t's and dotting the i's. Hairston points out that writing is a discovery for both skilled and unskilled writers, and most writers don't necessarily know exactly what they want to write when they start a piece. Twelve new steps have been reached on how the new writer writes, including the discovery; process; modes; and creativity involved in organizing a piece. The paradigm is shifting and the more it moves, the more the teaching process will be changed for the better.

In "Writing and Knowing: Toward Redefining the Writing Process" by James A. Reither, he introduces readers to Composition Studies which concentrate on "process not product" (pg. 141). He debates that belonging to a discourse community will allow writers to share their knowledge and learn more about the subjects that they write. He deliberates on scholarly work being read to become a scholarly student, as well as a skilled writer. He believes that reading scholarly works will compliment the writers' works. Academic writing, reading, and inquiry are joined together purposely and should be taught in such a way, not just one by one. He discusses the idea that teachers should be just as concerned with thinking as well as teaching, when writing about creative ideas or analytical academic papers.

Lester Faigley questions both the community and the teachers in his essay "Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal" about whether the context matters over the abstract view of a writing project. He argues about the writing process being different to various different writers quoted within the essay, such as Flowers and Hayes, but believes that the different views of writing will bring different results. He separates each writing process into three categories: The Expressive View, The Cognitive View, and The Social View. But he takes an untouched area of the writing process than the other writers in this book by questioning the geography of the writing in addition to the actual writing. He questions why it is that the composition writing procedure is so readily accessible in the United States rather than other parts of the world. He comments on how standard usage and changing social order are emphasized in Northern European writing as well as rhetoric.

Patricia Bizzell's argument in "Cognition, Convention, and Certainty" directly clashes with the results of Flower and Hayes essay. She starts off explaining the differences between inner-directed theorists and outer-directed theorists, then gradually progresses into the way that the two must combine in order for the teaching of writing to advance. In Flower and Hayes essay, she debates whether the authors were fair in their analysis of how writers come to the end of their writing procedure. Do they already have internal knowledge of the Standard English process and a Discourse Community before they start the essay or do they attain those skills while writing these pieces? According to Bizzell, they already have the knowledge that would go along with writing an article such as the one for Seventeen, whereas many students come from discourse communities that do not. Instead of saying one way is wrong and the other is right, professors must understand the different discourse communities and from that research, learn how to teach students the cognitive mechanics as well as accepting their different ways of communicating.

Both Reither and Bizzell point to discourse communities as a way to both understand and improve teaching a Writing course. Faigley backpacks off of this idea by stating that different communities will have different results as to what they write and how they go about writing, which directly contradicts Flowers and Hayes, who believes that writing is a learned process that is similar for everyone. Perl wraps up all of the writers' essays by stating that if the researchers go into a writing community with no preconceived notions of how writers will write, they may learn different aspects of how each writer writes on an individual basis (i.e. discourse communities) instead of believing that each student (or writer) has the same process in common.