Backpacking from Process to Cognition

I must've missed that turn back at "Schema."

            Building an interactive map was a really useful tool for Charise and I to find connections and situate ourselves with the readings for Week 6.  I know that one of the more challenging aspects of the course so far is identifying theoretical turns.  I had difficulty grouping some of the readings together based on their overarching research questions, methodologies, or concepts. Not being able to see the connections made the material feel overwhelming, and I was worried that I would get lost. I needed a map. When we filled in the grid together as a class, I think that something clicked. I would by no means consider myself an expert at identifying theoretical turns, but I certainly feel more comfortable trying! That being said, building our tool to help navigate the turn from process to cognition was a solid, practical application for reinforcing my newly acquired “skill.”             
            Conceptualizing our interactive map forced me to draw on connections that I might have otherwise overlooked and think critically about the purpose each theorist had when composing. For example, when we were identifying key terms for each of the Week 6 articles, we pulled out "evaluation" for both Murray's "Finding Your Own Voice" and Elbow's "Ranking, Evaluating, Liking," both in reference to the teacher's role in the classroom. Murray explicitly lays out the four responsibilities of both students and teachers. In so doing, he explains that "evaluation" is both external and internal. Evaluation, then, is both a process of understanding and discriminating one's surroundings and a process of assigning value and critiquing. For instance, students internally "evaluate" their world in a way unique to them: "The teacher cannot see the student's world with the student's eyes and evaluate it with the student's mind" (119). Murray also speaks to the value of external evaluation, or feedback, from one's own peers as a way of learning to be a constructive and critical audience member (120). In regards to the role of the teacher, Murray explains that one responsibility for teachers is to "cultivate a climate of failure" because writer's must fail in order to succeed (121). He associates this climate of failure with what is in his opinion, the absurdity of grades. Grades harm the productivity of students and decrease the overall quality of work. However,  Murray states that when a final standard is needed, "it is easy enough to evaluate papers chosen by students at the end of the course" (122).  The word evaluate, I think, implies something very different from grading or ranking. Evaluating means listening and thinking critically about what works and doesn't work. It takes a more individualized approach to each student's writing, rather than just assigning a generic, numeric value. 

Next stop, Peter Elbow!

            Similarly, Elbow uses "evaluation" externally and considers it one of the teacher's responsibilities. Elbow defines "evaluating" as "the act of expressing one's judgment of a performance or person by pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of different features or dimensions" (188). Like Murray, Elbow sees evaluation as a welcome alternative to ranking or grading. He sees it as the teacher's role to thoughtfully consider student writing in order to make meaningful distinctions. Doing so allows for "different readers [to] have different priorities, values, and standards" (192). Elbow offers some strategies for incorporating more evaluation into pedagogy, which corresponds nicely to Murray's detailed outline of student-teacher roles and responsibilities. Together, the two serve as a road map leading toward a student-centered classroom. Through the use of our interactive map, we could even also see a connection between the two based on their notions of the classroom "environment" with Murray's "climate of failure" and Elbow's "evaluation-free zones." Though they are differently named, one could perceive their goals as being similar, if not the same.
           We even saw a connection to "A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing" by Flower and Hayes through the word "evaluation," although their connection was not explicitly to the role of the teacher, but rather to the role of the student. They explain evaluating as a sub-process of reviewing that can "interrupt any other process and occur at any time in the act of writing" (374). Evaluation is a way for writers to generate new ideas and think critically about the ideas they have already written. It should be noted, however, that there is enough ambiguity in the role of monitor that it could extend evaluation to the teacher.
              The above connections, and many more, would not have been as easy to trace without the exercise of building our interactive map. We see its potential for becoming a versatile way to make and explore connections with different theorists in the midst of the turn from process to cognition. Because our tool allows for user contributions, we imagine it growing and developing through the addition of other articles that are representative of this theoretical movement and with new searchable key terms to help guide searchers through the available data.

Works Cited

Elbow, Peter. "Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking: Sorting out Three Forms of Judgment."NCTE 55.2 (1993): 187-206. Web.

Flower, Linda, and John R. Hayes. "A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing." CCC 32.4 (Dec. 1981): 365-387. 

Murray, Donald M. "Finding Your Own Voice: Teaching Composition in an Age of Dissent." NCTE 20.2 (1969): 118-23. Web.