A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing

Flower, Linda, and John Hayes.
"A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing."
College Composition and Communication 32 (1981):365-87.

Flower and Hayes reject theories of stages of the writing process; to them seeing writing as individual stages, exercises kept succinctly separate from each other, autonomous activities that lead to perfect writing--prewriting, then writing, then rewriting, then I'm done--oversimplifies what writing really is and reduces the mental activities that comprise writing. Stage models are inadequate in representing the 'moment by moment' process of writing. They find four principles in the cognitive process model which describe the actual process of composing.
1. "Writing is best understood as a set of distinctive thinking processes which writers orchestrate or organize during the act of composing." That is, the mental processes are devised while the writing is actually being done.
2. "The processes of writing are hierarchically organized, with component processes embedded within other components." The mental activities occur in no particular order, with the mind being unpredictably associational rather than linear.
3. "Writing is a goal-directed process. In the act of composing, writers create a hierarchical network of goals and these in turn guide the writing process." Writers create goals, but do not always state those goals.
4. "Writers create their own goals in two key ways: by generating goals and support goals which embody a purpose; and, at times, by changing or regenerating their own top-level goals in light of what they have learned by writing." Writers go back and revise those goals as necessary.
Flower and Hayes' Cognitive Process Model [not pictured] has four items:
The Task Environment, which encompasses the writer, the problem, the text. Long-Term Memory, the storehouse of knowledge about the subject, the problem, and the writing process. Writing Processes, where the goal setting, planning, and reviewing take place. Monitor, the writing strategist which determines when the writer moves from one task to the next.


Flower, Linda and John R. Hayes. “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing.” College Composition and Communications, 32 (1981): 365-87