Hearing Ourselves Think SOCIAL AND COGNITIVE STUDIES IN WRITING AND LITERACY Linda Flower, Series Editor Oxford University Press and The Center for the Study of Writing at Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon A series devoted to books that bridge research, theory, and practice, exploring social and cognitive processes in writing and expanding our knowledge of literacy as an active construction process-—as students move from high school to college and the community. The Center for the Study of Writing (CSW), with the support of the Office of Educa- tional Research and Improvement, conducts research on the development of writers and on writing and literacy as these are taught and learned in the home, in elementary and secondary school, in college, in the workplace, and in the community. In conjunc- tion with schools and teachers, CSW develops projects that link writing research to classroom practice. A list of publications is available from CSW at the University of California, Berkeley, 5513 Tolman Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720 Reading-to- Write: Exploring a Cognitive and Social Process Linda Flower, Victoria Stein, John Ackerman, Margaret J. Kantz, Kathleen McCormick, Wayne C. Peck Hearing Ourselves Think: Cognitive Research in the College Writing Classroom Edited by Ann M. Penrose, Barbara M. Sitko Hearing Ourselves Think Cognitive Research in the College Writing Classroom Edited by ANN M. PENROSE BARBARA M. SITKO New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1993 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Kuala Lumpur Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland Madrid and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1993 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Much of the work reported here was initially performed pursuant to a grant from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement/ Department of Education (OERI/ED) for the Center for the Study of Writing. However, the opinions expressed herein do not necessar- ily reflect the position or policy of the OERI/ED and no official endorsement by the OERI/ED should be inferred. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hearing ourselves think : cognitive research in the college writing classroom / edited by Ann M. Penrose, Barbara M. Sitko. p. cm. — (Social and cognitive studies in writing and literacy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-507833-0 1. English language—Rhetoric —Study and teaching. 2. English language-Rhetoric-Research. 3. Cognition-Research. I. Penrose, Ann M. II. Sitko, Barbara M. III. Series. PE1404.H395 1993 808'.042'07-dc20 92-23469 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Foreword This volume marks a significant coming of age in a number of ways. It is edited and written by a group of promising young researchers, who have already received a handful of well-deserved honors and awards for their work. And, as the book will show, it is written by equally talented and dedicated teachers, who see these two commitments going hand in hand. These writers are challenging some of the old boundaries that have sepa- rated teaching and research — boundaries that reflect not only patterns of power and status in English departments and education, but ones that reflect old assumptions and stereotypes — that theory is impractical, that research is irrelevant, and that good teaching keeps a savvy distance from both. These writers are not only challenging the wisdom of that boundary, but arguing that it needs to be reconceived as a two-way street. That is, theory- guided, research-sensitive thinking can make us better teachers. And by the same token, the practice of observation-based theory building, situated in our teaching, can make us better researchers. The close collaboration on the agenda that marks this book began in 1986 with the founding of the Center for the Study of Writing at University of California, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon. Ann Penrose, and later Barbara Sitko, worked with the other authors of this volume to develop the traveling Research-For-Teaching Seminar Series at Carnegie Mellon. The designers and presenters of this series, who met with faculty from high schools, writing projects, colleges, and universities around the country, set a goal that was not always easy to meet. They wanted each seminar to present new research on issues, such as writing and learning, reading and writing connections, and at the same time convincingly to demonstrate ways research-based thinking could be woven into better teaching. If we began with the idea of research designed for teaching, as the work and as this book matured, the other lane of the two-way street began to widen, as classrooms became sites for inquiry by teachers and students alike. vi Foreword There is nothing new about the desire to translate research into good prac- tice. What is most exciting about this book is its attempt to blaze a new trail by which teachers and students can become more acute observers of teaching, learning, thinking, and writing. This book also helps mark a coming of age in the field more generally of cognitive rhetoric and social/cognitive theory. Cognitive rhetoric envisions writers and readers as rhetors, social beings standing within the circle of other people, their discourse, and their culture. And at the same time it reveals them as individual agents and thinkers, engaged in personal/public acts of interpreting and constructing meaning. As part of the larger community of social/cognitive research, it is asking how these twin dimensions of meaning making co-construct not only written meaning but one another. Answering questions like these takes a boundary-crossing frame of mind that bridges traditional perspectives. SOCIAL AND COGNITIVE STUDIES IN WRIT- ING AND LITERACY, of which this book is a part, was initiated by Oxford University Press and The Center for the Study of Writing to encourage just such bridge building. Hearing Ourselves Think is a model of what is possible when some exceptional younger scholars try to create portraits out of their own practice, in which teaching, research, and theory become interconnected roads to understanding. Linda Flower Preface This project began at Carnegie Mellon University in 1986 with the establish- ment of the Center for the Study of Writing at UC-Berkeley and at Carnegie Mellon. Sponsored by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (U.S. Department of Education), and recently renewed as The Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy, the Center is a collaborative research initiative that brings together teachers and researchers from the fields of English, rheto- ric, linguistics, computer science, psychology, anthropology, and education. The Center's dual goal has been to foster "research-sensitive practice" and "practice-sensitive research," a goal that can only be achieved through collabo- rative interaction between teachers and researchers. The contributors to this volume were part of an early dissemination project for the Center, the Re- search-for-Teaching Seminar Series at Carnegie Mellon, through which they developed and conducted seminars at local and national writing conferences, state teachers meetings, and at individual colleges and universities nationwide. They currently teach at a variety of universities across the country, where they continue to study writing and reading in new institutional settings, with varied student populations, and in the company of faculty colleagues of diverse in- terests and backgrounds. They have continued to develop and test their ideas and activities in these new contexts, as well as in print and at national confer- ences. The topics and concerns of the seminar series reflected Carnegie Mellon's emphasis on cognitive research on reading and writing processes. In develop- ing this collection, we asked former seminar leaders to reflect on this research from their perspective as teachers — to examine their own courses and describe the principles and practices that govern their teaching. In short, we wanted them to try to articulate the insights gained through their research experiences and to show us how these insights have influenced their writing classrooms. This occasion for reflection and articulation has been an invaluable opportu- nity for all of us. viii PPreface Many people helped bring this project to completion. We are indebted to our Center colleagues, especially Patricia Combies, Alexander Friedlander, Margaret Kantz, and Joseph Petraglia, whose valued commentary helped shape the work presented here. We have benefited also from interaction with the many teachers and researchers in our seminar audiences; their lively re- sponse and suggestions energized the seminars and helped our ideas develop. Our special gratitude goes to Linda Flower and John R. Hayes, who first introduced this line of inquiry and who have inspired and nurtured much of the research that followed, including that represented in this volume. Raleigh, N.C. A.M.P. Pullman, Wash. B.M.S. August 1992 Contents 1. Introduction: Studying Cognitive Processes in the Classroom, 3 ANN M. PENROSE AND BARBARA M. SITKO Why Study Reading and Writing Processes in the Classroom?, 5 Principles of Cognitive Process Theory, 8 Issues for Classroom Research, 9 The Advantage of the Research-Based Classroom, 13 I Interpreting Reading and Writing Tasks 2. Beyond "Just the Facts": Reading as Rhetorical Action, 19 CHRISTINA HAAS Aspects of Reading: Insights from Theory and Research, 20 The Act of Meaning Construction: Three Reading Strategies, 24 Expanding Students' Views of Reading, 28 3. Exploring the Relationship Between Authorship and Reading, 33 STUART GREENE How Reading Can Inform Writing, 34 Examining How a Sense of Authorship Can Inform Reading, 37 Teaching Students to Mine Texts, 42 x Contents 4.