Flower and Hayes: Cognitive Theory explorations

I found The floower and Hayes' article to be enriching because it specifically addresses a cognitive process. Although it is a personal view, its clearly defined concepts were easy for me make sense of. In summary, Flower and Hayes have theorized the process through 4 main principles, these being: the process of writing is best understood as a set of distinctive thinking processes which writers organize during the act of composing, these processes have a hierarchical organization in which any given process can be contained in any other, the act of composing itself is a goal-directed process determined by the author, writers create their own goals two different way: by generating high-level goals and supporting goals, and by changing/remaking goals based on what has been learned .(thanks to Katie for the specifics, I looked at her post!). Moreover, these points seem to exist in realm of three core foundations, as I like to think of them. The task environment, which is the where it happens; the writer's long-term memory, and the writing process; which is the closest thing to what we have been studying lately. A closer looks at these foundations reveals several important assumption(not proofs!):
First, every successive word used in writing, will help determine what word comes next. Obviously, in terms of what is pertinent and practical. Secondly, the writer stores knowledge of audience and writing plans in his long term-memory. This helps the writer improve upon what he/she has already written, both in content and the way it is addressed. Flower and Hayes take up two main issues with long-term memory. Finally, Flower and Hayes say that planning, translating, and teviewing is all apart of one process of which writers internalize all the arbitary symbols by which they will communicate their thoughts . Furthermore, during the writing process, writers are constantly monitoring and revising their works, as to decide when and how themes should be transitioned etc.

I thought the article was interesting and specific, which helped me understand what they were trying to depict. I did only read it once, so I also bounced from my classmate's blogs too. It seems the general consensus is that everybody understands. I see this article as applicable enough to most writers, both basic and advanced because it revolves includes elements that all writers have or have had. As Flower and Hayes seem to suggest, there seems to be specific ways that all writers go about their cognitive process; yet these ways are certainly up to interpretation; because after all, we're talking about theory.