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A DESCRIPTION OF THE EFFECTS
OF CERTAIN SPATIAL VISUALIZATION TECHNIQUES
ON THE COMPOSING PROCESSES
0F SELECTED Two YEAR COLLEGE STUDENTS
By

Fred Barton

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1989

 

 

6,001,! ‘14

 

ABSTRACT
A DESCRIPTION OF THE EFFECTS
OF CERTAIN SPATIAL VISUALIZATION TECHNIQUES

ON THE COMPOSING PROCESSES
OF SELECTED TWO YEAR COLLEGE STUDENTS

By

Fred Barton

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of
certain non-linear organizing strategies such as clusters
and hierarchical maps on the composing processes of students
enrolled in a two year college.

This investigation was specifically interested in the
decisions students writers made with the information
provided by these strategies; the effect these decisions had
on the degree of control student writers’felt they had over
the development of the essays they wrote; and the
relationship between the permanent nature of the
visualizations and the demands made on short term memory by
the composing process.

The study was conducted using the Participant/Observer
approach as discussed in WORKING TOGETHER: A GUIDE FOR
TEACHER RESEARCHERS by Mohr and Maclean and RECLAIMING THE
CLASSROOM: TEACHER RESEARCH AS AN AGENCY FOR CHANGE by
Goswami and Stillman. Each student kept a log of classroom

activities as well as writing topical journals throughout

 

 

the course. The students were interviewed using guidelines
discussed by Graves and verbal protocols were taken at
several points throughout the term. In addition, the
instructor also kept a research log.

The data collected revealed that maps do help writers
act on their thoughts in a positive way. Visualizations
play a role in increasing students' feeling of control over
the composing process and they help ease the burden placed
on short term memory, particularly throughout the early

invention stages of composition.

Copyright by
FRED BARTON

1989

iv

To Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Chess,
Jim, Alice and Kathy
Who became my family when I needed one,

and set me on the road that led to this place.

 

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work would not exist were it not for the patience
and strength of my wife Susan, who is probably the only
reader to be truly impressed (in the military sense of the
word) by this work. I am also indebted to my graduate
committee consisting of Dr. Larry Landrum, in whose class I
saw the first, dim outlines of what would become my topic;
Dr. Jay Ludwig, who rode with me through the bumpy stages of
invention; Dr. Marilyn Wilson, who gave me articles and
sources that answered questions I did not know I had; and
Dr. Stephen Tchudi, the Chair of my committee, but more
importantly, my guide through the dangerous and occasionally

unfriendly jungle of dissertation writing.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One: Review of the Literature

Introduction ..................................... 1
Metaphor and Psychology .......................... 9
Metaphor and English ............................ 35
Visualizing Metaphors ........................... 42
Summary ......................................... 85
Chapter Two: Methods
Introduction .................................... 86
General Principles .............................. 93
The Study ....................................... 99
The Data Gathered .............................. 119
Chapter Three: Description of Results
Introduction ................................... 124
The Reader Speaks .............................. 129
The Complication of Readers .................... 130
The Reader's Response .......................... 132
The Reader's Gift .............................. 136
The Process is Initiated ....................... 140
Thoughts into Substance ........................ 144
Midcourse Corrections .......................... 148
The Captains of their Ships .................... 151
The Society of Writers...... ................... 153
The Method in the Madness ..... , ................ 155
The Reason for it All...... .................... 158
The Wider World ................................ 160
Chapter Four: Description of Results
Introduction..... .............................. 164
Clusters and Composing ......................... 166
Maps and Priorities............. ..... . ..... .....169
The Reader's Voice.. ........................... 176
A Coda for "Traditional" Maps ....... ...........185
"New Age" Mapping .............................. 187
Prewriting Electronically............ ..... .....188
The Computer as Coach..... ..................... 190

The Computer as Template.......................193
The Computer as Lawgiver.......................200

Computers and "Productivity"...... ........ .....202
Chapter Five: Indications...........................211
Selected Bibliography.................. ..... ........233
Appendix

Sample student clusters and maps

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Chart of the relationship of open journal
topics ................................ 127

viii

CHAPTER ONE: READINGS

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this study is to describe the
interaction between student writers and certain
organizational schemata I have classified under the rubric
spatial visualizations. I call these strategies spatial
because they are not limited to the traditional linear
development seen with other organizational devices such as
outlines. Instead. they give writers more creative control
over the use they make of the space with which they work:
the empty page. This enables writers to shape their ideas
into personally meaningful structures.

I refer to these devices as visualizations because they
may give the writer the ability to work with developing
abstract relationships between ideas, as well as with order
of presentation, or degree of detail. They are intended to
be snapshots of thoughts, particularly in the initial stages
of the composing process.

Traditional outline techniques resemble maps of the
sort I am describing here because they provide the writer
with a prioritized list of details contained in the essay,
but they cannot be created until those details have been
somehow collected and recorded. Spatial visualization
techniques, on the other hand, operate at the level of idea:
attempt to provide a picture of the relationships that make

up the essay as they are discovered; and, give the writer a

 

 

“ho-‘4'"

 

means of recording and focusing the ideas generated during
the composing process. Included in this category are
techniques variously called, clusters, maps, hierarchies,
cognitive maps, storyboards, ideagraphs, patterned
notetaking, Construct Procedure, graphic overview,
networking, webs, flowcharting and semantic mapping among
others. Spatial visualization then, is a personalized
record of thought and a picture of the relationship between
ideas, rather than for instance, a vertical list of details.
The techniques may provide the writer with a tangible image
of the abstract, often fleeting nature of compositional
thought.

These activities are metaphors. Just as a rose can be
a visualization for love in a poem, spatial visualizations
can be metaphors for thought in an essay. In addition,
these techniques can also stand for the relationship between
the individual ideas and the course those ideas take on the
way to completion of the work.

For these reasons. the introduction to my study of
spatial visualization is most comfortably contained as an
aspect of the study of metaphor and thus, that is where this
discussion starts. The initial authors whose work I discuss
deal almost exclusively with the relationship between
metaphor and the mind. While their individual purposes may
vary, the reason I have included them here is to show the
close connection between the device of metaphor and the

nature of thought. Later, the nature of thought will

provide the underpinning upon which I will construct a
description of the function of spatial visualizations in the
composition class. As my discussion progresses, the role of
thinking will rise again, contained in the question of where
meaning is made for a receiver, and how meaning is produced
in a sender. Again, the larger issues of meaning generation
and transmission will provide the frame for a specific
explanation of spatial visualization techniques.

I will also discuss, through the readings, the role of
metaphor in the issue of control. That is, how do language
users make sense of the stimuli around them; how do they
choose what to remember, and what to forget; how do they
organize their memories for later recall and transmission.
In the early part of the discussion, the authors may have
wider purposes than a discussion of spatial visualization as
it relates to composition, but the point of their inclusion
is to show the strong, and sometimes very direct
relationship between the construction of metaphor and
activities the mind undertakes to make meaning that, while
not always specific to composition, are often just as
important when writing papers as when remembering loved
ones' birthdays.

Closely related to the issues of where meaning resides
and how it is organized in the mind is the issue of
confidence. In other words, how comfortable do meaning
makers feel about their ability to produce meaningful

discourse. Several authors discuss the importance of the

 

 

 

concept of confidence from different angles. My specific
interest is more closely related to what others have
referred to as an aspect of "authorship," but I have
included these authors to give a wider understanding of the
strength of the connection between students' role as meaning
makers, which they have to recognize in themselves, and the
awareness they have of their own role as a user of
metaphors, or later, more specifically, spatial
visualization techniques.

Generally I have organized the chapter from larger
issues centered around the concept of metaphor as a whole,
to the more specific issues that concern the role of spatial
visualization in the composition classroom. It is my hope
that the wide open nature of the first part of the chapter
will provide the reader with a cantext in which to fit the
later, more specific discussions. As Several of the authors
to follow will point out, the effectiveness of metaphor is
often directly related to the ability of the bearer, or
reader to place it in a context familiar to him.or her.

THE IMPORTANCE OF METAPHOR

The idea of metaphor as a language element that stands
for something other is the oldest view of metaphor. In his
POETICS, Aristotle wrote, "Metaphor consists of giving the
thing a name that belongs to something else..." (pg. 1657)
Later, in RHETORIC, he discussed the usefulness and dangers

of metaphor when he wrote, "Use metaphors and epithets by

5

way of illustration, taking care however to avoid what is
too poetical." (III, iv, 6)

Closer to our own time, in the 1860's, Max Muller, in a
series of lectures later gathered into a book titled
LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE stated, "Metaphor
generally means the transferring of a name from the object
to which it properly belongs to other objects which strike
the mind as in some way or other participating in the
peculiarities of the first object." (pg. 369) While his
definition of metaphor was similar to Aristotle's, Muller
saw a greater function for it in language development.
Later in the same lecture he states, "No advance was
possible in the intellectual life of man without metaphor."
(pg. 379)

I. A. Richards writing in the early part of this
century, blurred the line between what a metaphor is and
what it does. In THE PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC he wrote, "When
we use a metaphor we have two thoughts of different things
active together and supported by a single word or phrase
whose meaning is a result of interaction." (pg. 93) In his
view the word stood for part of a context or combination of
events, thus form and function were intermixed. Northrup
Frye, a contemporary of Richards writing during the same
time, was not so sure. In ANATOMY OF CRITICISM he writes
that a metaphor is "...the identification of two things, of

which each retains its own form." (pg. 33b) Unlike Richards,

Frye believes that the theories of Aristotle provide the
best description of metaphor.

In 1962 Max Black wrote MODELS AND METAPHORS in which
he built on the work done by Richards and inspired some of
the later investigations discussed in this chapter. Like
Richards, Black saw form and function of metaphor as very
closely related. Like Richards, he concerned himself with
contexts instead of isolated occurrences, and like Richards
he saw metaphor as playing a larger role in the relationship
between thought and language than was previously supposed.

The next attempt was to develop a theory that contained
previous thought rather than excluded it. That task was
undertaken by Paul Ricouer1 who. quoted in THE PHILOSOPHY OF
PAUL RICOUER, edited by Henry Regean and David Stewart
wrote, "...metaphor as a pair of contrasting traits: the
meaning is carried by a specific structure, that of the
proposition, which involves an inner opposition between a
pole of singular identification (this man, the table, Mr.
Jones, London), and a pole of general predication (mankind
as a class, lightness as a property, equality with such and
such as a relation, running as an action). Metaphor, as we

shall see, relies on this 'attribution' of characters

 

1. I chose these six men not because they have anything
more or less valuable to say about metaphor than others who
have done work in this field, but as six who represent the
range and breadth of thinking on the subject. Their
function here is that of greeters, welcoming us to the
subject. Later I will write in more detail about some of
these men whose thoughts can help with the topic at hand:
spatial visualization.

to the 'principal' subject of a sentence. (pg. 136) In
other words, word and context play a role in metaphor.
Ricouer sees metaphor as a cooperative, inclusive, synthesis
of language and thought rather than an exclusive one.

My immediate concern is with the aspect of that
synthesis represented by spatial visualization, and its
function in a composition classroom. Like Richards and
Black with metaphor. I intend to blur the line between what
spatial visualization is and what it does. Along with these
two men I see metaphor, and more specifically spatial

visualization, as involving the totality of both users and

receivers. In other words, human beings communicate with
metaphor. Therefore, as a foundation for this
investigation, and to establish a context for my ideas, I

begin with a discussion of the writings of language
psychologists such as Black2 and Ortony.3 These theorists
were interested in the role metaphor plays in the language
process, as well as the effect it has on its users. Their
writings helped lay the groundwork for later, more formal

investigations by authors such as Verbrugge.“ among others,

 

2. Until his death earlier last year, Max Black was
Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University. His writings
on language are widely quoted in the literature of several
different disciplines.

3. Andrew Ortony is Assistant Professor of Educational
Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana. He has
published both empirical and speculative work on the
importance of metaphor.

a. Robert Verbrugge is Professor of Psychology at the
University of Connecticut and Haskins Laboratories. His
study, discussed in this chapter, was cited numerous times
as a seminal work in the area of metaphoric comprehension.

into specific uses and results of metaphoric language.
At times their findings surprised even them. They found
metaphor a much more central, perhaps indispensable, part of
language, and people, than they had imagined. Metaphor was
more than a tool pulled out of the linguistic tool box when
the occasion demanded, it may be the tool box itself,
providing the shape and limits within which the other tools
are contained.

In the second part of the chapter, I return to
theorists and investigators closer to the traditional field
of English and find that their thoughts and investigations
are leading them down a road parallel to that of the
psychologists. The limited idea of metaphor as a literary
device utilized by a selected clientele is soon overshadowed
by the growing realization that metaphor may make language
possible. Following the thought of people like Richards,
Berthoff and the like, investigators began to look closely
at metaphor in an academic setting. Since my purpose is to
investigate metaphorical activities in the composition
classroom, I focus on people like Flower, Daiute, Dilworth
and others whose investigations share some of the same goals
as my own. Like the psychologists before them these
researchers find that metaphor invites itself into a
composition classroom, welcome or not.

Like many in years past who warn about the destructive
nature of metaphor, these investigators found that, when not

welcomed, or acknowledged, metaphor can be as

counterproductive as authors back to Aristotle warned. It
can confuse the students, cast a pall over the relationship
between the teacher and the pupils, and truncate any
information the students may snatch from the class.

In the last part of the chapter I focus on studies that
discuss spatial visualization as a way of welcoming metaphor
into the writing class. The findings in this section
indicate that these techniques allow students to discover
meaningful relationships in their writings, provide them
with a way to record those relationships, improve the
climate of learning created by their instructor and increase

the students' confidence in themselves.
METAPHOR AND PSYCHOLOGY

In MODELS AND METAPHORS Max Black has written that
"Metaphors plug the gaps in literal vocabulary." (pg. 44)
(See Iser's THE ACT OF READING for a similar discussion of a
theory of reading.) By this he meant that metaphors allow
language users to go beyond mere empirical descriptions of
the environment to levels of abstraction that allow for the
discussion of ideas and the linking of unobservable
characteristics. To illustrate this point he uses Richards'
metaphoric example, "the poor are the negroes of Europe."
The.point of Richards' metaphorical description carries a
meaning that transcends the parts that comprise it. The

comparison of two seemingly different elements creates a new

10

level of meaning which goes beyond the idea that the poor
are not well off. The statement carries implications
concerning their relationship to the rest of European
society. It even implies an attitude towards their future
and what it may hold.

Thus the metaphor becomes an economical and forceful
comparison in which a great deal of, not only information,
but opinions and attitudes can be transmitted. In addition,
metaphor allows language to Slip the bonds of the here and
now. One statement, referring to the situation of a present
day group in Europe, also encompasses aspects of European
social history as its ground. and the future according to
the views of the speaker, all at the same time.

Black realizes however, that in order for the metaphor
to work certain conditions have to be met. He sees that
metaphor involves the speaker and the listener as active
participants in the language transaction. "Metaphor must be
classified as a term belonging to semantics and not to
syntax...," he says. (pg.28) In other words, metaphor
operates beyond the frame of grammar, and larger cultural
backgrounds are necessary to interpret it. Black refers to
these backgrounds as "associated commonplaces" which he
describes as meanings, not necessarily true, shared by
members of a particular culture. As a semantic rather than
a syntactic term, the rules for the usage of metaphor are,

to use Black's term, "loose." Admittedly borrowing from

11

Richards, Black establishes three categories of metaphor,
only one of which he finds valuable.

Black rejects the classical Aristotelian substitution
and comparison views of metaphor as being too narrow. He
thinks they do not go far enough in describing the
capabilities of metaphor. The substitution view limits
metaphor to a mere decoration, or deviation from the plain
literal style, in his view. Comparison, which in his
opinion is a special case of the substitution view, reduces
metaphor to a closed simile. AS he says, "Metaphorical
statement is not a substitute for a formal comparison or any
other kind of literal statement, but has its own distinctive
capacities and achievements..." (pg. 37)5

Another metaphorical theorist, Paul Ricouer, was not so
quick to dismiss Aristotle. Quoted in THE PHILOSOPHY OF
PAUL RICOUER, edited by Henry Regean and David Stewart he
writes, ”Even if the remainder of the analysis tends to show
there are no metaphors, in the sense of metaphorical words,
without certain contexts, even therefore, if we shall have
to speak of metaphorical statements requiring at least the
length of a sentence, or a phrase, nevertheless, the
'metaphorical twist'...is something which happens to words:

the shift of meaning which requires the whole contribution

 

5. Black's contribution to this field is substantial.
In addition to the text cited here he is the author of

several other books and numerous articles. He devoted a
sizable part of his professional life to the investigation
of metaphor. After I.A. Richards he is the source most

often quoted by authors I studied.

12

of the context affects the word; it is the word that

has a 'metaphorical use, or of a non-literal meaning, or a
novel Jemergent meaning' in specific contexts. In that
sense the definition of metaphor by Aristotle--as a
transposition of an alien name (or word)- is not cancelled
by a theory which lays the stress on the contextual action
which creates the shift of meaning in the word. The word
remains the 'focus' even if this focus requires the 'frame‘
of the sentence, to use the vocabulary of Max Black." (pg.
135)

Without stating it exactly, Ricouer has raised an
important point concerning theories of metaphor. From
Aristotle to contemporary thinkers, theories of metaphor
seem to be placed along a continuum with the new growing out
of the old. Most important, therefore is the realization
that new theory need not negate old, but can compliment and
expand it. That is the approach I wish to take in this
discussion.

Interaction is the name of the view Black favors most.
Admittedly, he again draws from Richards. His associated
commonplaces and Richards' ground are similar concepts.
Both men rely on a cultural component for understanding
metaphor. This separates them from people like Northrup
Frye and Max Muller who took a more textual view of
metaphor. Quoted in Shibles' AN ANALYSIS OF METAPHOR IN
LIGHT OF W.M. URBAN'S THEORIES, Black explains that in the

interaction view "the new context, (or frame) imposes

13

extension of meaning upon the focal world; the old and new

meaning must be attended together; two thoughts are

connected and active together, inter-illuminate and
cooperate." (pg. 153) As his example he uses the metaphor
"Man is a wolf." In this usage the concept man is

"filtered" through the concept wolf. Wolf has a set of
associated commonplaces in our society, both true and untrue
which are made, by the listener, to fit into the set of
commonplaces for man. The process reveals new aspects of
man and provides new insights. In addition to literal or
informational elements, this interaction also produces new
emotional and attitudinal positions on the part of the
listener.

Interaction differs from the substitution and
comparison views because it is much more idiosyncratic.
depending on the listener rather than prestructured general
categories from which similarities are picked. Also, it
works both ways in that, as man is seen more wolf-like,
wolves can also be seen as more man-like. Black and
Richards differed on the degree of emotional shifting that
went along with this interaction view, but both men saw
metaphor as a means of economically transmitting great
amounts of linguistic and emotional information. Both men
also saw metaphor as an essentially slippery concept. As
Black said, in MODELS AND METAPHORS, "There are, in general,
no standard rules for the degree of weight or emphasis to be

attached to a particular use of an expression." (pg. 29)

 

14

Verbrugge is another of the psychologists who have
begun to investigate metaphor. He has collected the various
theories put forth on the workings of metaphor into four
categories. The first one is called substitution,
borrowing directly from Aristotle, and is described as the
case of one idea being put in the place of another to allow
a sentence to make sense, beyond the literal. Generally a
symbolic idea is signaled by a literally meaningless
statement. This is the simplest and most straightforward of
the categories and has been around the longest. Verbrugge
goes beyond Aristotle in accepting that metaphor can be made
by more than nouns and verbs, but the underlying notion of
replacing one idea with another remains essentially the
same. As he says, in Honeck and Hoffman's COGNITION AND
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE, "To comprehend this underlying intent,
a listener must invert the substitution, replacing the
intruder by a literal term (or concept) compatible with the
rest of the sentence. In comprehending 'Highways are
snakes,’ one might (with luck) obtain something like
'Highways are long and thin,‘ or 'Highways are curvey'" (pg.
198)

Verbrugge's second category is comparison, which, he
explains, is a special kind of substitution. . In
substitution the metaphorical term is thought to substitute
for the literal term because the literal term renders the
sentence meaningless unless it is seen as a flag signifying

the sentence is not to be interpreted in the usual manner.

15

With the example "The highways are snakes" the listener
substitutes long and thin or curvey for the literal "snakes"
to produce a meaning. In the comparison view, however, the
entire sentence is treated as a unit and, instead of
replacing a term the listener must reconstruct the entire
idea. Thus "The Highways are snakes" might become "Highways
are similar to snakes in that they both have property X."
Black, also quoted in Honeck and Hoffman, sums up
classification this way: "The comparison view is a special
case of the substitution view focusing on the equivocality
of sentence form (rather than word form) in the
specification of meaning, and emphasizing that both domains,
not just the topic, must be included in sentence meaning."
(pg. 63). In other words, the listener does not simply
remove one term and replace it with another. The meanings
of both the topic and vehicle must be considered in the
process of making metaphorical meaning.

The next two categories, Interaction and Transformation
represent quantum leaps from the first two. Substitution
and Comparison imply meaning is accomplished by application
of the proper\process. In the interactive category though,
are the first inklings that meaning is created in a dynamic
process between metaphor maker and listener. Verbrugge's
use of Black's work in this area, makes specific reference
to his idea of filtering. Verbrugge explains this as the
process of identifying the literal aspect of the metaphor in

terms of the abstract. In other words, Highways are now

 

16

viewed through a snake filter. The aspects that highways
share with snakes are brought into prominence, and other
aspects are suppressed. In this way the listener interacts
with the sentence and establishes a meaning based on his or
her particular understanding of snake characteristics-~what
Black calls the associated commonplaces. Verbrugge is not
able to agree completely with Black in this area. He still
sees this process as too much of a categorization,
relegating the listener to picking meanings off of a shelf
and combining them, rather than engaging in a dynamic
process. While he agrees with Black that the two elements
of the metaphor do not "fuse" and disappear into each other
to create an entirely new entity, he is concerned that
Black's idea still separates them too much. As he says,
"Total separation and total fusion are not the only
theoretical options available; indeed, they are only the
endpoints on a continuum of possibilities." (pg. 201)

These concerns lead him to his last category,
Transformation which he defines as "[perceiving] familiar
structures or transformations in an unusual context."(pg.
202) Here the listener transforms highways into snakes.
This is a partial transformation because highways do not
become snakes, yet the process produces a "virtual
experience" which leads to a permanent changev in the way
both objects are perceived, rather than being a one time

utilization of prestructured classifications that are then

17

stored until 'needed again. Transformation is a dynamic
semi-idiosyncratic process.

These categories appear to be different masks on the
same face. If metaphor is dependent on context, as some
would argue, then the device is bound to have different
functions at different times and with different
participants. Indeed, later some authors, most notably
Petrie, will argue that what is comparative for some, may
be interactive for others. These classifications of
Verbrugge's are perhaps better described as he said, by
being locations along a continuum, rather than separate
entities.

Seventeen years after the publication of Black's MODELS
AND METAPHORS, Ortony wrote in METAPHOR AND THOUGHT that
"Any serious study of metaphor is almost obliged to start
with the works of Aristotle." Later in the same passage he
says, "A more contemporary influence on the theoretical
study of metaphor was that of I. A. Richards." (pg. 8) Most
scholars I read would agree with his statement, but Ortony
himself has done considerable work in the area of metaphor
which deserves attention.

Ortony's ruminations on metaphor develop from his
reading of people like Wittgenstein, whose view was that
experience does not come in discrete packets, but flows from
one state to another. As an example, in an article titled
"Why Metaphors Are Necessary And Not Just Nice," Ortony

describes the phenomenon of being awakened by an alarm

18

clock. "Thus when suddenly awakened by a hostile alarm
clock or telephone hell we frequently feel that the noise
was part of a dream--as though our unconscious had

constructed a bridge to take us more smoothly from one state

to another." (pg 46) According to Ortony, our language
reflects this flow of experience. "Words do not have
distinct, sharply delineated meanings," he says. (pg.46)

Language, like the experience it describes, must be loose
and sufficiently flexible.

Metaphor, in Ortony's view, provides this flexibility.
He says, "The continuity of experience therefore, is not
just a temporal continuity; it is, as it were, a continuity
in referential space and it is the total continuity of
experience which at once underlies and necessitates the use
of metaphor in linguistic communication." (pg. 46) Ortony
sees language as a discrete symbol system trying to
encompass the information in a continuum. Without metaphor,
language would be "deficient" in capturing all of the
elements of things or events in experience. Metaphor gives
a dimension to language that enables it to fit the flow of
events and make that flow meaningful to speakers and
listeners. Metaphor is one of the ways we structure new
experience to give it meaning.

Like Verbrugge, Ortony classifies the various theories
of how metaphors work into categories which he calls the
theses of metaphor. The first thesis is compactness. He

attributes this thesis to a "reductionist" view of language

19

which states that to produce language one must break down
experience, and to understand it one must rebuild. Of
course, the two processes are not 100% effective so gaps are
left in the transmission and reception which must be filled
in order for meaning to occur. Ortony calls this
"partiCularzation" and offers as an example, a newspaper
report of a man swimming the English Channel in mid winter.
He says, "I build a representation which evokes what I know
about men and their capacity to swim, about what I know or
believe (or even imagine) to be some of the characteristics
of the English Channel and so on. What I evoke is largely
experiential, perceptual and cognitive, and to this extent
generally similar, but probably almost never identical, to
what others evoke. I infer that the man was probably
covered with oil, that he was strong and muscular, that the
sea was likely cold and rough, that the sky was perhaps gray
and gloomy. I might also invoke my knowledge of likely
public reaction, a reaction of admiration, incredulity,
indifference, or even alleged insanity. All these things
and a host of others 'come to mind,‘ or many do. Perhaps
the best way to construct such a representation furnished
with details not specified in the literal message is to form
a 'mental image.'" (pg.h7) Ortony suggests that the
metaphorical process guides particularization and allows for
large "chunks" of information to be transmitted indirectly.

He calls it the "language users digital-to-analog converter"

 

20

taking him or her closer to the experience of the event and
farther from the discrete symbol system of language.

The similarities between Ortony's position and
Verbrugge's transformational category, as well as the
reliance on what Black called associated commonplaces, are
strong. Ortony's reader transforms the swimmer and the
swimming according to what he or she knows about these
concepts. A person reading the account in Bejing would
construct a different experience than a person in Wales. To
paraphrase Richards, each has a different universe of
discourse in which to plot this event and locate its
meaning.

Ortony calls his second thesis inexpressibility which
is established with two types of arguments. "The first is
that the continuous nature of experience precludes the
possibility of having distinctions in word meanings capable
of capturing every conceivable detail that one might wish to
convey--and this in spite of the flexibility of individual
word meanings. The second is that it would appear more
reasonable to hold the inexpressibility view than its
alternative that there is nothing that cannot be conveyed
literally in a language." (pg. 69) The first argument for
the inexpressibility thesis contains resonances of the
compactness thesis and, in fact, Ortony describes
inexpressibility as a "combination" that leads to a
transference of "chunks" that would include many attributes

of experience not capable of being represented by a discrete

21

symbol system. AS a further argument, he says that
information is not transmitted in bits at all, but chunks.
Some experience is not able to be broken into discrete
units, hence, the need for metaphor which allows the
transmittal of large meaning units of this type. "People
simply do not use metaphors to transfer one characteristic,
even if it is a distinctive one, when there is a ready
literal way of making the point." (pg.50) (See Frank
Smith's READING WITHOUT NONSENSE for a discussion of the
role of "chunking" in making understanding from text.) As
comparison was a special variety of substitution in other
classification systems, it seems the inexpressibility thesis
is a special variety, or perhaps a continuation, of the
compactness thesis.

The vividness thesis is Ortony's third, and last,
classification. Metaphors have a stronger effect on
listeners because they come closer to the actual experience
than literal language. This foreshadows his explanation of
the academic usefulness of metaphors. He says, "The
educational power of metaphor is thus twofold. The Vivid
imagery arising from metaphorical comprehension encourages
memorability and generates of necessity a better, more
insightful, personal understanding. But also it is a very
effective device for moving from the well known to the less
well known, from vehicle to topic." (pg.51) Here he touches
on the major themes of metaphor throughout the ages. As

early as the time of Plato and Aristotle arguments for

22

caution with metaphor were made because it was viewed as
such a powerful device, having the ability to excite and,
according to some, confuse. In his second argument Ortony
anticipates the studies done by Verbrugge, among others,
which document the usefulness of metaphor in an educational
setting.

Anticipating people like Petrie and Sticht, Ortony
explains ways teachers can help students learn through the
use of metaphor. He favors assisting the students in
constructing the "grounds" of the metaphor by ascertaining
how much they know about a subject in advance, then
"...incorporating literally applicable qualifiers and by
building up larger metaphors out of smaller ones." (pg.51)
(See Anderson's essay "Role of the Reader's Schema in
Comprehension, Learning and Memory" in Anderson, Osborn and
Tierney's LEANING TO READ IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS for a similar
discussion in terms of the teaching of reading) He provides
a sample lesson using Longfellow's "The Spirit of Poetry" as
his text and concludes by saying, "A metaphor used
successfully can give insight and comprehension; used
unsuccessfully it can generate confusion and despair."
(pg.52)

The process by which this comprehension, or confusion,
is generated in the listener is separated into three areas
by Ortony. The first is anomaly, in which the listener
realizes the statement does not make literal sense. This

creates the second phase, a tension which can only be

23

resolved by viewing the statement in a metaphorical light.
The realization of anomaly leads to a search for like
characteristics between the topic and vehicle. To use
Verbrugge's earlier example, the listener must first know
that highways are not snakes in the literal sense. Knowing
this creates a tension within the listener, which is the
second step toward comprehension. To resolve the tension
the listener searches for ways that highways and snakes can
be alike and, in the process, comes to Ortony's third step,
creation. The listener may decide that snakes are long and
thin, highways are long and thin. Now the statement makes
sense, the tension is removed and the listener has a new
view of highways.

Petrie and Sticht6 pick up from this point and discuss
the pedagogical implications of metaphor in more detail.
Borrowing from Piaget, Petrie classifies knowledge into two
categories: assimilation and accommodation. Literal
language requires only the assimilation of existing
frameworks of understanding, but accommodation requires

movement in those frameworks, or even the creation of new

 

6. Petrie and Sticht, as well as being guest essayists
in Ortony's book, are also authors in their own right.
Their discussions in Ortony complete the general/theoretical
to specific/practical flow of the work. In a sense, the
plan of Ortony's book parallels my own in this chapter.
Unlike Ortony however, I see the theoretical as introducing
the practical and, as a result, I am more interested in the
things Petrie and Sticht have to say. I will return to
their ideas later in the chapter.

2Q

frameworks. This echos Herbert who, writing in 1898 in
LETTERS AND LECTURES ON EDUCATION said, "New things are
learned by being related to things already known." (See
also Wittgenstein, cited earlier) He called the process
"appreception." (pg 24) Petrie describes it as providing a
bridge between the known and the unknown for the purposes of
comparison, requiring that the student act rather than hear
and understand literally.

The teacher produces the metaphor and students must act
on it to discover its meaning by shifting their frames of
reference around to accommodate the new data. Metaphor
begins a process Petrie calls "Triangulation" that leads a
student from an old framework to a new one which is shaped
by further metaphors from the teacher. Even though Petrie
describes metaphor as a process of comparison, he realizes
that the process is often an interaCtiye one. Using the
example "Virginity is the enamel of the soul" he describes
how that could be a comparative metaphor for someone
familiar with the background of the quote, or an interactive
one for someone who, because of a lack of familiarity, was
forced to build the meaning from the literal. The listener
must perform an act on the statement, and from that act
meaning emerges. The complexity of the act is dependent on
the contextual knowledge the listener has.

With this in mind Petrie counsels caution when using
metaphors in an educational setting. What may work

extremely well in one setting may become disastrous in

25

another depending on the types of knowledge frameworks
brought to the class by the students. Reverberations of the
thought of people like Black, and warnings that go clear
back to Plato echo through Pertie's discussion. Still, in
his view, the risks are worth the benefits. Using a physics
class as his example he describes, in Ortony's METAPHOR AND
THOUGHT, a four step process for teaching the relativity of
motion. First an anomaly is introduced in the form of a
chair placed in front of the class. Is the chair moving?
No, the students respond. Yes it is, because the earth is
moving through space and the chair is on the earth. Step
two is to make the anomaly explicit which is done with the
example of a book on the seat of a car that is moving. Is
that book moving? Yes it is. Now the anomaly can be solved
by a discussion of motion relative to frames of reference.
The last step is called adjustment in which any lingering
confusion is cleared up by using more examples of the car
and book type. During this exercise the students are
talking and writing as they accommodate the new information
into their own frames of reference. This discussion
anticipates studies by Verbrugge and McCarrel, as well as
Ortony that showed not only was metaphorical learning no
harder for students than literal learning, it was remembered
more explicitly and for longer periods of time.

Sticht's discussion parallels that of Petrie's, but
emphasizes that students who are allowed to produce their

own metaphors get a higher level of understanding from the

26

lesson than those who have metaphors produced for them. He
quotes from "On Going Beyond the Literal, " a 1976 study by
Silverman,7 cautioning that teachers must know what
background knowledge their students possess in order to
construct useful metaphors, and to provide the context in
which students can construct metaphors on their own. Since
I see spatial visualizations as a kind of metaphor
constructed by the students, these discussions were of
particular interest to me. I also saw shadows of schema
theory as explained in Adams' "A Schema Theoretic View of
Reading"; Rosenblatt's "Toward A Transactional Theory Of
Reading": and Langer’s "Facilitating Text Processing: The
Elaboration Of Prior Knowledge.

Sapir reflects the semantic view of metaphor in the
1977 book THE SOCIAL USE OF METAPHOR. He says, "Metaphors
are tropes. Tropes operate on meaning." (pg 8) His views
are similar to Black, Ortony and Richards. Instead of
topic, vehicle and ground he refers to the elements in his
discussion of the workings of metaphor as departure,
intermediary and arrival. His example, "George is a lion,"

describes George as the departure, the proper characteristic

 

7. There are literally hundreds of studies on a
multitude of aspects concerning metaphor, but it is the
areas in which Petrie and Sticht focus their discussions
that are of most concern to my study. I mention Silverman's
study here over other studies because it focuses on areas
(metaphoric comprehension and its use in the classroom) that
are central to my investigation. I will review these
concerns in more detail later in the chapter, specifically
in the discussion of Berthoff.

 

 

27

of lionness (mammal, courage etc.) as the intermediary
and lion as the arrival. The intermediary defines the
relationship between the departure and the arrival.

Whether semantic, pragmatic, or philosophical the
authors I read concurred that metaphor is an effective and
valuable, if sometimes dangerous, device. Another idea most
of the authors I read concurred with was the seminal nature
of two studies, one by Verbrugge, one by Ortony, which began
to document in empirical terms what observers of metaphor
had long discussed in theory.

Verbrugge, along with Nancy McCarrell, conducted a
study in 1977 titled "Metaphoric Comprehension: Studies in
Reminding and Resembling" in which they attempted to
demonstrate the superiority of metaphor as a long term
learning device. Using Richards' characterizations of the
elements of metaphor as topic, vehicle and ground Verbrugge
and his associates read sentences of the form "Topic is like
Vehicle" to listeners. A sample statement was "Skyscrapers
are honeycombs of glass. ("are partitioned into hundreds of
small units" is an example of the ground that would go with
this statement.) "In most cases the statement of the
implicit resemblance (the ground) was very effective in
prompting recall of its related metaphor." (pg.505)
Sentences were judged correct if the listener recalled both
topic and vehicle.

Two lists of topics and vehicle sentences were read to

groups of undergraduate psychology students. Then they were

28

given slips of paper on which were written the ground
sentences and asked to match the topic/vehicle statement
that seemed most appropriate. Variations of this procedure
using different combinations of prompts and statements and
even metaphors that were very unusual, "Tree trunks are like
babies with pacifiers," for instance, produced similar
results. The mean proportion of sentences recalled ranged
from .70 to 1.00 depending on which of the elements of the
metaphor (topic, vehicle, or ground) was used in the
statement, and which in the prompt. When the lists of
topic/vehicle statements were paired with the set of grounds
which did not coordinate in meaning, the mean proportion of
sentences recalled dropped from .22 to .26.

Verbrugge suggests several explanations for these
results; that they are "consistent with the hypothesis that
subjects infer a resemblance during their initial encounter
with a metaphoric sentence and that resemblance is integral
to what is stored as a memory of that experience;" (pg 505)
that "The vehicle plays a critical role in comprehension and
recall of metaphoric topics;" (pg 510) that "the
comprehension process results in a partial identification
(or fusion) of the topic and vehicle domainsz" (pg 522) and
that "the hypothesis of pre-existing associations between
grounds and topic/vehicles provides little explanatory
power. Neither the overall level nor the specific
configuration of recall can be accurately estimated from the

strengths of such associations. At the very least, this

29

confirms our intuition that recall of a metaphoric sentence
cannot be ascribed to a direct prompting of component terms,
but involves some kind of match between relationships
experienced at the invitation of those terms and the
relationship specified by the ground." (pg 523)8

While Verbrugge's study mirrored several others, most
notably Tulving and Thompson in 1973 and Lakoff in 1972,
this was one of the first studies to actively investigate
how unusual metaphoric combinations affected listeners, and
how listeners would react to being unable to find an
appropriate meaning after hearing a topic/vehicle phrase.
He was also one of the first to infer that the comprehension
process was a transactional one in which the listener was
"invited" by the metaphoric statement to develop a meaning
from the relationships illustrated in the statement. In a
sense, the results of this study were-predicted by Paul
Ricouer who, quoted in THE PHILOSOPHY OF PAUL RICOUER edited
by Henry Regean and David Stewart, wrote, "I agree entirely
with the 'interaction view'...the metaphor is -more than a
mere substitution for another literal word which an
exhausting paraphrase could restitute at the same place.
The algebraic sum of these two operations, of substitution

by the speaker and of restitution by the bearer or the

 

8. Not everyone agrees with the behavioral premises
that underpin some of Verbrugge's work. This study is
important to my purposes because it follows a direction
established by Richards, that is, context plays a role in
comprehension.

3O

reader, equals zero. No new meaning emerges and we
learn nothing." (pg. 140) Of course the fact that these
metaphors were recalled better does not necessarily mean
that they would be understood better, but, I believe before
a lesson can be learned it must first be recognized as such.
Frank Smith came at the situation from a somewhat different
angle when he said students learn in the absence of the
expectation that there is nothing to learn.

Investigations into the process by which metaphors are
understood seem to center around Ortony's 1978 study
entitled "Interpreting Metaphors and Idioms: Some Effects of
Context on Comprehension." Ortony draws on the work of
Verbrugge and Searle, among others, to provide the
foundation for his investigation. He agrees with Verbrugge
(and Richards) that comprehending a metaphor involves
determining the ground. He says, "These results
[Verbrugge's] suggest that the comprehension of metaphors
requires subjects to make inferences about what the ground
of a metaphor is--inferences that would not be necessary in
the comprehension of literal statements..." (pg 466) In
discussing Searle, Ortony mentions a 1975 study by Lucy and
Clark which tested the three step process of comprehension
Searle posited. According to Searle, the listener first
determines the literal meaning of the utterance, then checks
that meaning against the context and, if there is a conflict
between the literal meaning and the context, the statement

is reinterpreted. Lucy and Clark gave their subjects tasks

31

which involved determining if different requests had been
carried out. These requests were direct, indirect, positive
and negative in nature. They then compared the response
time of the subjects to predicted verification times. As
Ortony says, "Clark and Lucy interpreted their results as
strong, direct support for Searle's first and third
predictions, and as reliable indirect evidence for the
second." (pg 466)

The point of these studies, in Ortony's view, is that
they both infer an increased processing time for
metaphorical statements over literal ones. Whether one
argues that the increased time is a result of the listener
moving through certain stages, as Searle, Lucy and Clark,
do, or that it is the result of "elaboration processes that
are constrained by the context," (pg 467) as Verbrugge does,
the result is still the same: metaphor seemingly takes
longer to understand than literal statements. This is the
hypothesis Ortony wanted to test and to do that he gave
"vignettes" to groups of undergraduate students along with a
"target" which was to be used as a literal or metaphorical
interpretation of the vignette.

For example, one target read "Regardless of the danger,
the troops marched on." The vignette that was constructed
to produce a literal interpretation of this statement read,
"Approaching the enemy infantry, the men were worried about
touching off landmines. They were very anxious that their

presence would be detected prematurely. These fears were

32

compounded by the knowledge that they might be isolated from
reinforcements. The outlook was grim." The metaphorical
vignette read, "The children continued to annoy their
babysitter. She told the little boys she would not tolerate
any more bad behavior. Climbing all over the furniture was
not allowed. She threatened to spank them if they continued
to stomp, run and scream around the room. The children knew
her spankings hurt." (pg 476)

Subjects were placed at a computer terminal and shown a
vignette followed by a target sentence and asked to press
the space bar when they felt they understood how the
elements related. The time it took to press the space bar
was recorded for each reading, whether metaphorical or
literal. A variation of this approach using idioms such as
"let the cat out of the bag" was also done. Ortony found
that the greatest difference in time between when a subject
understood a literal statement and a metaphorical one was
about .8 seconds, dropping to .3 seconds in some cases.
Ortony also found that the degree of context given with the
statements had an effect on comprehension times. The more
context, the less time to interpret the metaphor. This
helps confirm Petrie and Sticht who, earlier argued for
establishing common understandings in the classroom before
building metaphors.

Of his own study Ortony concludes, ”Our explanation of
these results is that where there is little context the

expectations that arise from it [context] are insufficiently

33

specific for the hypothesis/test process to be effective.,
and metaphors suffer significantly more than literals.
Where there is an abundance of preceding context, the
process is hardly less effective for metaphors that for
literals." (pg 473) In other words, given a proper context,
metaphors do not take appreciably any more time to be
understood than literal statements, suggesting the
comprehension processes may be similar and metaphor may be
more a natural element of language than was previously
thought. Ortony concludes that "...when context is read a
number of schemata are activated, at least some of which can
be used to account for the target....The position that we
are advocating suggests that, in general, figurative
language is processed in much the same way as literal
language. What determines the difficulty of processing is
not the nonliteralness, but relatedness to context." (pg
475)

From Aristotle's nouns substituting for nouns and verbs
substituting for verbs, to modern psychologists' idea that
metaphor may not be fundamentally different from literal
language in terms of the process by which it is understood,
this trope has remained a centerpiece in language
investigation. For my purposes there are two important
points to be drawn from the ideas presented by these men.
The finding that, given the proper preparation, metaphor is
not significantly more difficult to deal with than literal

language makes its value as a pedagogical tool rise even

 

 

34

higher, because, and this is the second point, it allows
writers a metalinguistic ability that is important when
discussing language uses such as writing.9 Terms that have
become commonplace in composition classrooms such as
cohesion, unity and style are actually metaphorical in
nature.

These terms are language used about language. They do
not represent actualities, but relationships between
elements in an essay. Spatial visualization may be a way to
build the ground for an understanding of these metaphors
that, as the above authors indicate, is essential to

successful processing.10

 

9. By metalinguistic ability I mean that metaphor
gives writers a vocabulary with which to discuss their
language. If we could not do this, writing instruction

would be limited to marking grammar, spelling, punctuation
and the like, because those are the tangible, localized
elements of essays. However, Chomsky, among others
demonstrated that meaningless, yet grammatically correct,
sentences could be written. Any word we choose to describe
events beyond the literal, be it cohesion, unity, flow, or
some other word, is metaphorical in nature and, in a
composition class, language that stands for a set of
relationships instead of a particular object. .

10. At this point it may seem that spatial
visualization has conveniently appeared, but it has not. I
make mention of it here as nothing more than another
potential ally in the process of helping students learn to
write essays, and a reminder of the theme of this work. As
writing teachers we have created metaphorical words such as
theme, unity and so on to help students by naming that for
which they had no name previous to our class. Spatial
visualization, at this point is just a non-linear version of
those collections of letters to which we have ascribed
certain meanings. Later on we will see that it has
abilities that go beyond those of words alone.

35

METAPHOR AND ENGLISH

Of course psychologists are not the only ones
interested in the workings of metaphor. Both in and out of
the classroom English theoreticians and teachers have
discussed and documented the power of this language tool.
Almost everyone I read who wrote at any length about
metaphor acknowledged a debt to I.A. Richards. Many cited
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC as seminal to their own work.
Indeed, much of what has been discussed above can be found
in that volume.

Richards believed that "the mind is a connecting
organ," but the "strains" of connecting a metaphor could
just as easily lead to confusion as understanding.(pg. 97)
He also seemed to anticipate the finding of Verbrugge and
others concerning the importance of context when he said,
"There is no whole to any analogy, we use as much of it as
we need." (pg. 91) We perceive metaphor by some sort of
transaction with elements of preexisting contextual
material. Support for this position comes from many
sources, one of which is Paul Ricouer who, quoted in THE
PHILOSOPHY OF PAUL RICOUER, edited by Henry Regean and David
Stewart, writes, "But the semantics of the word demonstrates
very clearly that words have actual meanings only in a
sentence and that lexical entities-words in the dictionary-
have only potential meanings and for the sake of their
potential uses in sentences...By saying that, I agree

partially with the modern theory of metaphor, from I.A.

36

Richards to Max Black...more specifically, I agree with
these authors on a fundamental issue: a word receives a
metaphorical meaning in specific contexts within which they
are opposed to other words taken literally..." (Pg. 137-8)
Richards even goes as far as to characterize all
thought as metaphoric in nature. Ironically, long before
Verbrugge and Ortony began looking into how readers and
listeners deal with metaphorical situations, Richards was
describing psychiatry and the study of the mind as
essentially metaphoric activities, using them as examples of
the workings of metaphor in general. He said, "The psycho-
analysts have shown us, with their discussions of
'transference' - another name for metaphor - how constantly
modes of regarding, of loving, of acting, that have
developed with one set of things, or people, are shifted to

another. They have shown us chiefly the pathology of these

transferences, cases where the vehicle - the borrowed
attitude, the parental fixation say - tyrannizes over the
new situation, the tenor, [topic] and behavior is

inappropriate. The victim is unable to see the new person
except in terms of the old passion and its accidents. He
reads the situation only in terms of the figure, the
archetypal image, the vehicle." (pg. 91) The neurotic
person of this example interprets his relationship with a
new person by drawing from the ground, or context of his
previous relationships. As Ortony's work implies, metaphor

may be a natural human attribute, making up more of our

37

nature than just the part that deals with how we read and
speak.

Richards discussed his thoughts on metaphor in more
detail in a book co-authored with C. K. Ogden in 1947,
entitled THE MEANING OF MEANING. There he posited what he
called universes of discourse which he used to develop a
definition of metaphor. He says, "Whenever a term is taken
outside of the universe of discourse for which it has been
defined, it becomes a metaphor and may be in need of a new
definition." (pg 16) A universe of discourse is a sort of
language community with its own set of shared meanings.
Richards thought that metaphor provides the fuel that allows
for movement within these universes as well as communication
between them. His cautioning that a term, once out of its
home universe, changes meaning precedes the modern theorists
and researchers who, investigating the workings of metaphor,
are finding the importance of context to understanding.
Richards would say that cross universal terms must be placed
into a new context understood (by both parties if the
communication is to be successful.

In another anticipation of later studies, Richards
says, "We use language to learn language and this develops
references of greater and greater abstractness and
metaphor." (pg 97)

Richards' conception of metaphor as a creating and
controlling device precedes the work of Lakoff and Johnson

who also determined that our concepts structure what we

 

 

38

perceive. In METAPHORS WE LIVE BY they write, "Most of our
fundamental concepts are organized in terms of one or more
spatialization metaphors." (pg 16) As examples of these
various systems of metaphors they discuss the consistency
among metaphors that refer to the up direction as good and
the down as bad, as in "My spirits rose," or "his face
fell." (pg 16) Citing these and other systems of metaphor
they conclude that most of our fundamental concepts are
organized around, or in terms of a type of metaphor.
Scientific theory and other purely intellectual concepts are
based on metaphors that have a physical and/or cultural bias
as in "high energy" physics, or the psychological term "high
level functions." Metaphors, according to these authors,
may be the only way to highlight and coherently organize
certain aspects of our environment. Black's earlier "plug
the gaps in language" description of metaphor's primary job
is a similar concept.

Like Richards, Lakoff believes that metaphor may create
realities for us. We define our reality in terms of
metaphor, and then begin to act on the basis of metaphor.
Lakoff actively discusses the cultural component as crucial
to a metaphor's creation. He says, "It is hard to
distinguish the physical from the cultural basis of a
metaphor, since the choice of one physical basis from among
many possible ones has to do with cultural coherence." (pg
23) He believes that a metaphor can be a guide for future

action and even become a self fulfilling prophecy. Like

 

 

 

39

Richards, Lakoff worked to bring metaphor into the
mainstream of language. His work paralleled some of
Ortony's attempts to demonstrate that common metaphors could
be as much a part of our language store as nouns.

Bartel, picking up on Lakoff's work, discovered that
popular metaphors seem to pass through certain stages in
their lifetimes. He found that they move from literal to
symbolic and back to literal again. As an explanation for
this movement Bartel suggests in METAPHORS AND SYMBOLS that
"Popular metaphors illustrate the flexibility and growth of
language. As metaphors are eroded by their own popularity,
they are added to our stock of literal words and are then
replaced by new metaphors. When we describe ourselves as
being upset about something we are using a term that has
migrated most of the way from the metaphorical to the
literal. But when we say we are going. to pieces, coming
apart at the seams, unhinged, (or unglued, we are using
expressions that are somewhere between the metaphorical and
the literal, worn but not yet threadbare.” (pg 136)
Discussing the origin of metaphor, Bartel argues that it has
always been easier to add new meanings to existing words,
rather than invent new ones. "About half of the 100,000 new
words and definitions added to our language between' the
publication of the second (1934) and the third (1961)
editions of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary began as
metaphors; the other half were made by compounding, a

process also based on comparison, albeit comparisons that

 

40

are much more obvious than those in metaphors (snowmobile,
moonwalk, doubleknit, hardhat, spinoff)." (pg 136) Bartel
concludes his discussion by saying ..." we have reason to
suspect that metaphors may be the most important ingredient
in the growth of language." (pg 136)11

Researchers may be starting to discover the outlines of
what theorists have been discussing for years. Far from
being a mysterious and dangerous language device utilized
and understood by a select few, metaphor may be as common,
and as commonly understood, as the classic "See Jane Run."
sentences in the old grammar school readers. For my
purposes, however, the implication of a ubiquitous
metaphorical ability in language users implies that spatial
visualization techniques can help students to utilize their
natural strengths in an area which may have previously been
closed to them. Authors at least as far back as Herbert
have discussed metaphor's usefulness in moving between the
known and the unknown. That, coupled with a seeming

naturalness of metaphor making among language users,

 

11. "We have reason to believe..." may not be the most
stirring scientific conclusion. My own ideas rest on the
shoulders of men like Richards who have thought long and
deeply about this issue (some would call this speculation),
and the efforts of people like Verbrugge who have attempted
to quantify in the laboratory some of the attributes of
metaphor (some would call this pseudo-science). Because of
the limits of our science and the complexity of human
language; however, we are often left to build our case on
circumstantial evidence. Like the physicist who tracks sub
nuclear particles by looking where they've been because he
cannot view them directly, we too study the footsteps of
metaphor and make guesses as to the kind of shoes it wears.
I will write more about this type of search and what we can
hope to achieve with it in chapter two.

41

suggests spatial visualization may be a successful
pedagogical technique.12

Embler, writing in METAPHOR AND MEANING, also concurs
with the naturalness of metaphor making. He says,
"Metaphors are drawn from the empirical observations we make
in the world around us." (pg 9) We make metaphors just
through the process of going through our daily lives. His
thesis is that metaphors provide an overall design, or
architecture to our existence. Depending on our culture, we
recognize certain styles of design over others, but the fact
remains that each society has an overall structure. Embler
believes that metaphor provides that structure. He says,
"Design is metaphorical...Patterns, shapes and outlines
express inner thoughts and feelings, give body and form to
beliefs and doubts, hopes ideals needs." (pg 13)

Richards would add that it also allows the speaker to
assert his or her individuality by the metaphor that is
chosen to represent the situation or person. He was not the
first to argue that metaphor allows us to assert a control
over our environment. He did not go as far as some who
believe that our metaphor actually creates our environment
out of the chaos of stimuli surrounding us, but when

combining the views of Richards and Embler, a picture of

 

12. it may seem that spatial visualization has
appeared without warning. This is not so. I make mention
of it here, along with the discussion of the commonness of
metaphorical abilities merely to point out that it too may
be simply a common, albeit nonlinear metaphorical form.

 

42

metaphor~ as a multi-faceted, multi-purpose, multi-
leveled language device begins to emerge. A metaphor, it
seems: can be a badge of personal identity, or of membership
in a community of language users. It can be a tool of
exploration, or a reminder of one's foundation beliefs. It
appears to be the chameleon of language that not only
changes its color, but its shape as needed.

Berthoff is concerned with this apparent fluidity of
metaphor as well, particularly as it applies to a writing
classroom. Like Richards, she believes that thinking is
primarily a metaphorical activity. In THE MAKING OF MEANING
she writes, "Perception is contingent on the mind's capacity
for analogizing." (pg 11) She is also aware of the
destructive possibilities of metaphor and, in fact, sees
that as a necessary first step in the composing process.
"The first use of language that a student of composition has
to learn, I think, is the generation of chaos. If we don't
begin there we falsify the composing process because
composition requires choosing all along the way, and you
can't choose if there are no perceived alternatives. If we
are unwilling to risk chaos, we won't have provided our
students with the opportunity to discover that ambiguities
are, as I.A. Richards has said, 'the hinges of thought.'"
(pg 12)

Chaos may very well be what beginning writers feel as
they embark on the composing process. Lacking what the

psycholinguists call frames to organize their thoughts, they

43

are left with the rapid flow of ideas until, by some
fashion, they are able to reach into the stream of
consciousness and grab something out. Spatial visualization
techniques may provide them a method for successfully and
consistently completing this step, which Berthoff says is
the "moral and pedagogical" responsibility of the teacher:
helping them find a way out of chaos and back into order.

Berthoff's view is that modern rhetorical theory does
not provide what she feels students need to extricate
themselves from the chaos it is necessary for them to use.
She says, "... there can be no selection of 'grammatical
features' until there is discourse...but those of current
rhetorical theory which, following the lead of modern
linguists, continually confuse language and discourse, as
well as the analytic methods appropriate to one or the
other." (pg 17) Her view of modern rhetorical theory is
that each school has contributions to make, but none seem to
go far enough in their reasoning. "Psycholinguists, like
many other kinds of linguists, have neither interest, nor
method for defining the role of intention, purpose, or
context," she writes. (pg 47)

For thoughts and theories in these areas she turns to
the cognitive psychologists, and suggests the linguists do
the same. Other schools of thought also have shortcomings.
According to Berthoff, there are similarities between modern
rhetorical thought, behavioral psychology and positivism

"both of which entertain views of language as verbal

 

 

44

behavior, as a signal code, as merely a system of binary
oppositions." (pg 122) As an example of this connection she
points to Kenneth Pike who, in her quote of him, discusses
the "segmentation" of experience into "nameable chunks."
Her concern is with Pike's implication that we "manipulate
the given," instead of recognizing structures and thus
giving the mind the ability to find meanings. This debate
carries reverberations of the res/verba battles from ages
past. Does meaning exist and become recognized by man, or
is there no meaning until there is man to confer it.
Berthoff is squarely in the latter camp. She concludes
her argument against the linguists by saying, "Despite the
talk of process and the active choices of an engaged
composer, the new rhetorics, like the old rhetorics they
claim to supplant. conceive of a world 'out there' that is
to be manipulated by the writer...Modern linguists cannot
help us because virtually all schools are founded on the
notion of the sign relationship as dyadic, constituted by a
signifier and a signified." (pg 125) Her view endorsed by
Peter Elbow who devotes an entire book, WRITING WITH POWER,
to developing techniques for putting the writer in the
center of the writing process as both creator and evaluator
of knowledge. Discussing this dual role for the writer he
says, "I am implying, in effect a roughly Freudian or depth
psychology model of a murky unconscious pool full of
powerful, threatening energy. But there is also a less

lurid model that underlies what I am. saying about voice-

45

roughly Piagetian: that the attainment of real voice is a
matter of growth and development rather than mere learning.
In attaining a new stage of development, you move from one
mode of functioning to a more complex, sophisticated mode.
In the process, skills can fall apart. There are lots of
things you did well with that old mode which you now
bungle." (pg 302)

To replace a mechanistic, manipulative view of
language, or, more specifically, of the composing process,
Berthoff suggests a concept she calls "forming." Forming
is the process of seeing relationships methodically.

"Relationships can be spatial, temporal and casual; they can

be classified, defined, rehearsed, rediscovered
continually." (pg 125) Her thesis is that we, as teachers,
do this already. We are continually discussing parts,

wholes, comparing, contrasting, formulating, remembering,
predicting and so on in the teaching process. We are taking
data and using it to form concepts, yet, in the classroom we
approach writing as if it were a frog stretched out on the
dissecting table to be dismembered organ by organ, with
little discussion of how the parts work together to make a
living creature. Berthoff suggests that we take the means
by which we organize the knowledge in our field of expertise
and apply that process to the classroom. This would have a
couple of immediate beneficial effects. "Happily, seeing
relationships methodically is as much the defining

characteristic of coherent writing as it is of coherent

, .
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46

thinking: that's why we can teach critical thinking by means
of teaching writing and vice versa." (pg 56)

To accomplish these goals in the classroom, and to
combat the effects of the linguists, Berthoff has several
suggestions. Reflecting the work of Embler, she says,
"Observation is central to all disciplines: learning to look
and look again is learning to question." (pg 55) Echoing
Richards she says, "Learning the special language of a field
is a principal way of learning the concepts of that field."
(pg 139) She suggests that students be immersed in the four
modes of language, speaking, listening, reading and writing,
in order to develop what she calls "Associative Thinking."
(pg 140) This is the ability to visualize the larger
structure, or pattern, of relationships that exist among
ideas. Similar to Richards' universes of discourse,
associative thinking also allows students to move between
universes because of the ability to form and reform meanings
according to the needs of the situation in which they found
themselves. This is essentially a metaphorical process.
"We live by metaphor; we advance by simile; we rise by

concepts," she says. (pg 140)13

 

13. I focus on Berthoff as a representative of a school
of thought. There have been studies done since the early
part of this century that show the study of gramnar in
isolation does not improve writing skills. The same can be
said for the study of spelling, or the memorization of
vocabulary lists, or the study of model writers. Berthoff
and those who stand with her speak for a synthesis rather
than further analysis. She is for the study of
relationships between elements of writing rather than the
elements themselves. She sees writing as a metaphorical
activity rather than the application of a set of rules. As

6.

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ha

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47

Branscomb gives focus to these same thoughts when, in
an article titled "Turning The Corner: Story To Meaning In
Freshman Composition Classes," he says one of the problems
with courses like freshman composition is the students
"were writing about their experiences rather than writing
from them." (pg 664) In order to move the focus from
outward to inward Branscomb argues that a writer must
believe an idea is truly significant before he or she can
write about it. He sees meaning as a goal. In other words,
he was trying to teach his students to metaphorize their
experiences into a meaning, or group of meanings for the
audience to discover. Branscomb wanted his students to
paint a picture of their topic, rather than snap a
photograph, and to do that they had to discover, within
themselves, what was significant about their journey.14

Linda Flower is also concerned with ways students
discover what they wish to write about, and, like Branscomb
and Berthoff, she believes that discovery is an internal one

rather than an external manipulation. Flower sees the

 

we learn more and more about the language user we keep
coming back to patterns, relationships and symbols. We seek
to include with language, rather than exclude. We try to
bring elements of experience and environment together for
meaning rather than isolate them from one another. It seems
to me that is what Berthoff is trying to do as well.

14. H. Eric Branscomb teaches freshman composition at
the University of New Hampshire. I include his article here
as an illustration from a pedagogical viewpoint of some of
the ideas discussed more generally by people like Berthoff--
namely, that meaning is discovered within the meaning maker
rather than imported from the environment.

48

composing process as one of developing short and long
term goals around the ideas discovered by the forming
process. Her focus is on the production and fulfillment of
goals, but the process she outlines is metaphoric in nature.

According to Flower, writers use two types of goals
which are intertwined. In an article titled "A Cognitive
Process Theory Of Writing" she says, "Writers create their
own goals in two key ways: by generating both high level
goals and supporting sub-goals which embody the writer's
developing sense of purpose, and then, at times, by changing
major goals or even establishing entirely new ones based on
what has been learned in the act of writing." (pg 366) Her
assertion that the goals embody the writer's "developing
sense of purpose" and change "based on what has been learned
in the act of writing" place her squarely in the school of
thought that views thinking, and subsequently writing, as a
metaphorical process. Flower's writers make meanings in a
process similar to Black's fusion. Taking a step beyond
Berthoff, she is looking for the attributes of forming as
they manifest themselves during the composing process. She
is investigating the way writers make and use metaphor.

Flower proposes a highly structured arrangement to
these types of goals. "These processes have a hierarchical,
highly embedded organization in which any given process can
be embedded within any other. (pg 366) Flower's use of the
term ‘hierarchical, along with the psycholinguists term

frames, suggest an overall shape to the developing

49

composition that provides the boundaries within which
forming and planning take place. I believe what Flower is
describing is the abstract version of my concept of spatial
visualization. Even though the writer's attention is
focused on the ideas he or she wishes to write about, those
ideas must have some sort of priority, some reason that they
are pushing their way into conscious thought rather than
some others. I think the hierarchy, the form, is the
seedbed of composition within which the ideas take root and
grow. Of course the push/pull of ideas change the shape of
the structure as much as the direction of the developing
essay, but if, by visualizing the structure, a student can
recognize the metaphorical elements to writing a little
better, then some of the assertions of people like Verbrugge
and Ortony, among others, may come into play. By that I
mean, if language users are natural .metaphor makers, then
being able to visualize and control some of the metaphorical
elements of writing previously outside of their awareness,
may help them to become more efficient, metaphor users.

As Flower says, organization appears to play an
important role in creative thinking and discovery, since it
is the process by which ideas are grouped and new concepts
formed. "The act of composing itself is a goal directed
thinking process, guided by the writer's own growing network
of goals." (pg 366) There are elements of Berthoff's
associative thinking in this concept and, further back,

Richards' idea that we use language to effect control over

50

our environment. Of course Berthoff and Richards were not
the first to recognize this aspect of metaphor. St.
Augustine remarked on the power of metaphor as a teaching
tool, and before him even Aristotle knew that metaphors have
the power to shape behavior. More recently, in an article
titled "Pre-Text And Composing," White has written, "...the
writer's pre-text, or mental construction of 'text' prior to
transcription, is such an important composing phenomenon
that theoretical and empirical research in writing must deal
with it expressly." (pg 397)

The area with which Flower deals expressly is limited
to specific elements of the writing process, but the methods
writers use, and results they obtain, may merely be
repetitions, on a smaller scale, of what philosophers and
researchers have been describing for years. That is,
meaning is grown along a continuum from loose and formless
to (structured and labeled according to a progressive
recursive, user centered process flowing out of real and
virtual experience.

Flower calls the two types of goals writers give
themselves process goals, which refer to instructions
writers give themselves, such as "let's doodle," and context
goals which specify what the writer wants to say to an
audience. In both cases however, Flower specifically points
out that "The most important thing about writing goals is
the fact that they are created by the writer." (pg 373) In

other words, like Berthoff, she sees writing as an inner

51

directed rather than an outer directed process. Since, as
Flower discovered, these writers created their material by
internally rearranging and selecting elements of their
experience, spatial visualization techniques could become an
important tool in establishing order from the chaos of
thoughts and feelings flowing up from memory because they
provide a record of thought. Flower says, "The problem with
long term memory is, first of all, getting things out of it-
that is, finding the cue that will let you retrieve a
network of useful knowledge. The second problem for a
writer is usually reorganizing, or adapting that information
to fit the demands of the rhetorical problem." (pg 71) I
would add that even when the proper networks are activated,
the rush of thoughts through short term memory, coupled with
the other demands of solving rhetorical problems, often make
it difficult for writers to slow the process down long
enough to get any useful information out of it. Spatial
visualization may provide them with a corral in which to
collect their thoughts and line them up for the drive to
completion, a process Flower calls "Translation."

To illustrate her thesis, Flower and her colleague John
Hayes developed a procedure called protocol analysis in
which they encourage writers to "think out loud" as they go
through the writing process. By taping and later analyzing
these sessions they are able to study the writing process as
it develops. Of course there are pros and cons to this

approach. Flower defends her method this way, "...people

52

rapidly forget many of their own local working goals once
those goals have been satisfied. This is why thinking aloud
protoeols tell us things that retrospection doesn't." (pg
377)15 For my purposes though, it is enough that writers
rely on a plan, and that plan is developed along with the
ideas that populate it.

Perhaps, since at this stage all is abstraction, better
writers are the ones more able to cope with multiple
abstractions, and, somehow, to bring those abstractions down
to the written page, whereas basic writers cannot develop
either the ideas, the structure, or both simultaneously that
would allow them to move from thoughts to drafts. Flower is
not the only researcher to document this behavior: "Sondra
Perl has seen this phenomenon in the basic writers who kept
returning to reread the assignment, searching it would seem,
for ready made goals, instead of forming their own." (pg
379)

Perhaps these writers, not realizing the true extent of
the metaphorical situation they are in, are simply searching
the literal assignment looking for what, in their eyes, must
have been overlooked on the first reading. In another vein,
this situation is comparable to Ortony's steps to metaphoric
comprehension, except that the students have no way to

resolve the tension created by the anomaly.

 

15. For a more detailed discussion of the advantages
and disadvantages of protocol analysis, see chapter two.

53

Linn believes that this misdirection in composition
classes leads to certain of the problems we see today. In
his article titled "Psychological Variants Of Success: Four
In Depth Case Studies Of Freshman In A Composition Course"
he examines ,the background of four college freshman
composition students in an attempt to discover how different
factors unite to "create the student as we encounter him in
our writing courses." (pg 903) Linn's students, an Hispanic,
a female from a Catholic school background, a veteran, and
an inner city black, are all products of a method of
teaching that disconnects their natural metaphor making
ability from the composing process. In a sense, Linn is
saying that these students were created by the system in
which they found themselves, and, in which they have little
part to play. "For I believe it is only in such an attempt
at an overall understanding of the student in psychological,
sociological, economic, and even racial terms, that we can
begin to really help him or her to realize their
potentialities. To focus almost wholly on the subject
matter, or to believe that any one pedagogical methodology
will enable us to teach well, is to be terribly
shortsighted." (pg 917) In other words, any system of
instruction that ignores! the role of the student as a
creator is merely form taking precedence over meaning. By
arguing for the importance of experience in a composition
class, Linn is sounding the same call as Flower. Berthoff,

Richards and so on. Without experience as a valued element

54

we are left with writers like "M. O'Brien, female, parochial
school background. Handwriting flawless; grammar excellent;
mechanics, perfection itself; content, dull and
characterized by timidity and an almost total lack of
originality." (pg 906) 16

Technique, however, for those who know it, can be very
comfortable. M. O'Brien may not have written very startling

prose, but she was very good at what she did. Grammar can

be measured, practiced, pointed to and talked about. Other
aspects of writing, such as the abstract, seemingly
unstructured nature of the composing stage, are more

slippery. When we ask students to move their attention and
efforts out into that unknown it can produce anxiety, just
as any venture into the unknown, whether it be an essay, or
a drive in an unfamiliar city, can be a cause for unease.
As Linn says, "Dealing with the problem of students'
insecurity is probably the most difficult task that one
involved with [teaching writing] faces." (pg 910)

It can be even worse for students such as Jimmy C who,
unlike M. O'Brien didn't have a familiarity with mechanics
on which to fall back. "Jimmy C, a student of Hispanic

origin. His prose is characterized by lack of idiomatic

 

16. Of course M. O'Brien and her fellow classmates are
caricatures, exaggerated to make a point. The argument Linn
is making, and the reason I have included it here, is to
show the ease with which we overlook the internal nature of
meaning making in writing classes, and the disturbing
effects that oversight can have. These four students may be
fictional characters, but, like all good characters, they
are drawn from truth.

(‘7‘

(I;

()4

(fl

51

(I)

I‘.’

55

correctness. His punctuation is slipshod. He seems to
lack all sense of where one unit of thought ends and another
begins. His paragraphs lack topic sentences and, in general
his essays lack the characteristic tripartite structure:
Introduction, body and conclusion." (pg 904) Similar
difficulties also await "Joe S, Afro-American. Prose
designated as Black English, little sense of conventional
syntax, handwriting almost illegible, work turned in
irregularly." (pg 911) Linn sees no help for these students
unless some attention is paid to the people they are, rather
than the symptoms they manifest.

He agrees with those like Berthoff, who would turn
composition inward and attempt to awaken within the
individuals a sense of their own ability to make meaning
from experience around them. Linn's advice to those who
must deal with students of this type is heavily
psychological, even sociological at times, but underlying
his prescription is the idea that the student plays a
central role in the process of learning to write, yet they
may not be aware of that themselves. As he says about James
Q, "Bright, fairly well read, but lacking in confidence. He
is a student encountered more and more because of the
current trend toward adult education." (pg 908) James Q. has
mastered certain techniques, like M. O'Brien, but has not
learned to trust himself in the composing situation. They

can write essays that are "reflective, sentimental, worldly-

56

wise, cynical...," yet they are "fragile," and often have a
"negative judgement of their intellectual capabilities."
Linn's suggestion is to work on building the confidence
of these writers first, so they will discover within
themselves meanings that should be put down on paper.
"Confidence can be induced, but it must be induced shrewdly
and slowly. Praise given; an assignment especially tailored
to show his strengths: the opportunity to read one of his
best papers aloud to the class; done slowly, but
consistently, throughout a term..." (pg 912)17 The focus is
on the meaning maker at first, not the tools with which he
works after the plan is created. Whether Linn's suggestions
would, or could be placed in an actual class given the
external demands placed on teachers and students by the
press of time, curriculum and public is not the issue. His
point is that a writing class that does not start with the
presumption that students make sense is like a carpenter who
has a tool box full of tools, but no plan to work from and

no lumber to use.

 

17. Which is precisely the reason I have included
Linn's article in a discussion of this type. As with
Berthoff, the issue of where meaning resides is important to
the development of competent, confident language users.
Linn takes Berthoff's discussion in a different direction by
exemplifying the negative effects of a system that allows no
place for the meaning maker in the meaning making process. I
intend this as an example of the potential value of spatial
visualization techniques because it shows what can happen
when there is no provision made for self discovery of
meaning. It shows what can happen when students come to the
belief that meaning is externally identified rather than
internally discovered. Spatial visualization, in this
scenario, may be a prime tool for the internal discovery of
meaning.

57

Linn admitted his opinions and conclusions were
"impressionistic" but two, more formal studies by Daly seem
to bear out his assumptions. In one study titled "Writing
Apprehension And Writing Competency," 3,602 undergraduates,
mostly freshmen, were given the Miller-Daly test of Writing
Apprehensiveness, and a 68 item, multiple choice test of
writing competency. The test of writing apprehensiveness
had been found to be "highly reliable across diverse samples
of respondents," and the multiple choice writing skills test
focused on skills "most often identified by a set of
experienced composition instructors as most relevant to
'good' or 'competent' writing." (pg 11) 18

Daly's hypothesis was that those with low apprehension
towards writing would perform better on the test of writing
skills than those who were more apprehensive. The results
bore this hypothesis out. "As expected, low apprehensives
scored significantly better on comprehensive tests of
grammar, mechanics, and larger concerns in writing skills."

(pg 10)

 

18. I include Miller and Daly's comments here because
teachers value certain behaviors in students, and students
have certain ideas about what teachers expect. Miller and
Daly are investigating an area in which those mutual
expectations either clash, or compliment one another. I see
spatial visualization as potentially helpful in this area
because it provides a written record of an otherwise
abstract process, and allows for mid-course corrections by
the student under the teacher's guidance. It improves
communication during the process, rather than waiting until
it is over and then relying on what the student often sees
as too little, too late. I will return to this idea in the
discussion of Dilworth's study.

58

Daly admits that "cautions" need to be taken concerning
how his terms are understood. Still he sees the results as
an important finding. "The present research demonstrates an
important correlate of writing apprehension. High
apprehensives not only write differently and with lower
quality than low apprehensives, but, in addition, fail to
demonstrate as strong a working knowledge of writing skills
as low apprehensives." (pg 13) There are many conclusions
that can be drawn from the relationship of writing skill to
writing apprehensiveness, but, for my purposes, the
important one is that there is a relationship between what
students think they know about writing and how they feel
about their abilities as a writer. In other words the
writer affects the writing.19 Daly has arrived, from yet
another direction, at a place occupied by the likes of
Berthoff, Richards, Petrie and Sticht, to name a few. As he
says, "An individual who fails to exhibit the appropriate
and necessary writing skills is unlikely to find much
success in writing activities. This should maintain the
apprehension, which in turn, may maintain the avoidance of
practice and evaluative feedback. However, the

directionality of the effect was not probed in the current

 

19. It is not necessary to accept Miller and Daly

without comment. They are included here to show the
importance of getting teacher and student expectations going
in a complimentary direction. Spatial visualization may

help in this regard because, among other things, it opens
discernible lines of communication much earlier in the
writing process.

59

investigation. Whether apprehension or skills weakness
develop first, or alternatively emerge simultaneously and
interactively, remains an unanswered question." (pg 13)
(See Stephen Judy's THE ABC's OF LITERACY for a discussion
of the importance of writing practice.)

While Daly was describing only the students who took
his test, and using the only definition of competency at
hand, the same can be said for any definition of writing
skills, or description of the causes of students
apprehensiveness. When the rules are changed from what the
students are used to, apprehension will rise. Little
emphasis has been put on explaining the abstract and chaotic
nature of the early stages of the writing process in most
traditional composition classrooms, as Berthoff pointed out,
consequently, it is the process of getting started that
students complain about the most. Spatial visualization may
do two things in this area--teach the students some of the
skills necessary in the opening stages of writing and
provide them with a way to measure and evaluate what is
going on during those first stages of composition.

In his first study Daly looked at the relationship
between students' internal beliefs about their ability and
its effect on their level of confidence. In a classroom
setting, however, there is an important third element in
this relationship, the teacher. Like Linn, who saw the
teacher's recognition of the basic humanity of the student

as crucial, or Berthoff, who saw the teacher as the key to

60

moving from chaos to order in a successful class, Daly is
also interested in the effect the teacher has on students.
In an article titled "Writing Apprehension In The Classroom:
Teacher Role Expectancies Of The Apprehensive Writer" Daly
explores his hypothesis that the teacher has a strong impact
on the writing behaviors exhibited by student writers.

To test his ideas, Daly took 33 elementary and
secondary school teachers and asked them to rate groups of
hypothetical students according to certain categories such
as overall academic work, future academic potential in
certain subject areas and potentiality for discipline
problems. "Subjects responded to the items on nine step,
evaluative scales. For example, subjects were asked, 'How
well will Mary (Jimmy) do in mathematics?‘ Followed by a
nine step response scale bounded by the terms 'very well'
and 'very poorly.'" (pg 40) Daly believes that what he found
confirmed his hypothesis, as well as Linn's impressions, and
makes Berthoff's definition of the role of the teacher
central to the composing process. In a sense, even the
relationship between the teacher and students is
metaphorical, as each participates in the process that not
only creates meaning on paper, but may even create the
student who must write the papers. As Daly says, "The main
effect for writing apprehension indicated that the highly
apprehensive student was evaluated less positively than the
low apprehensive one. More particularly, the individual who

appears to have tendencies to avoid writing was seen by

61

teachers as less successful in a variety of different
academic subjects, less likely to succeed in the future, and
less likely to receive positive recommendations from them to
other teachers." (pg 42) 20

Daly stops short of placing the entire responsibility
for the student/teacher relationship on a perception of the
students' apprehensiveness, or lack of it. "Other cues may
affect the perceptions teachers form of students. It would
be incorrect to assume from the present research that
writing apprehension represents the major, or even one of
the major, cues utilized by teachers to form their
perceptions of students." (pg 43)

The implication of this study with which I am most
concerned is, again, the idea that meaning is created rather
than discovered externally. The students' ability to
recognize themselves as meaning makers may be an important
first step in the metaphorical process. The value, if any,
of spatial visualization techniques would be lessened
considerably if students are not convinced they possess
meaning to share. Spatial visualization is, at base, an
internal technique. Unless students are able to journey
within themselves my procedure could very well be

meaningless.

 

20. It seems teachers may be making assumptions about a
student's entire character based on how he or she measures
up in the classroom. Spatial visualization.may reduce this
level of assumption because it enables the writer and the
teacher to "see" the creative process together as it
unfolds, and thus be able to discuss their expectations
while adjustments can still be made.

62

Black, Ortony, Verbrugge and others described the way
metaphors operate on language users. Richards, Embler.
Berthoff and others discussed its wider implications
concerning the means by which we make our way in the world.
Flower brought it into the composition classroom, Linn
factored in the teacher and Daly measured the interaction
between the two. While they might not agree on whether
metaphor creates meaning, or alters it; whether it is a
natural, inescapable element of language, or a learned
usage; or whether the teacher plays a greater or lesser role
in the guidance of metaphorical thought, it is fairly
obvious that they all put metaphor in a position of great
importance. Whether that position be in reference to
language as a whole, or closer to my concerns, the
composition classroom, in no way detracts from the

centrality of the issue.

VISUALIZING METAPHORS

It is a pedagogy of metaphor in the composition
classroom that is the point of my study. Specifically, the
aspect of metaphor I refer to as spatial visualization.21

It appears that the theory of composition that is most

comfortable with the possibilities of metaphor is

 

21. just as a metaphor such as "Rose" is an
orthographic representation for an abstract concept such as
love, so spatial visualization is a meaningful structure
representing what would otherwise be abstract relationships
between ideas in an essay.

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psycholinguistic in nature. I say this because it is a
psycholinguistic theory that implies the creation of meaning
by the writers rather than, as Ney points out in "Notes
Toward A Psycholinguistic Model Of The Writing Process," a
"behavioristic" response to stimuli. As an example of his
thesis, Ney uses a sentence combining exercise he performed
with fourth graders. "...the behavioristic model is
contradicted by observations gleaned by this researcher from
experiments with fourth grade students, whose improvement in
certain tasks resists practice of any kind. For instance,
conjoined adjectives are extremely rare with children at
this grade level...In spite of this, this researcher made an
attempt with one fourth grade class to have the students
join two sentences to form a third with coordinated
adjectives..." (pg 158) Ney put the children through three,
half hour practice sessions and, at the end, had less than a
third of the children combining the sentences correctly
using the adjective form. He concludes, "A behavioristic
explanation of the effects discovered in transformational
sentence combining would lead to the expectation that the
students would improve with subsequent practice." (pg 158)
Apparently, practice alone is not sufficient. The children
must be "developmentally" ready for the language form and
then they will pick it up, "before, or during the first
practice session." Giving the students practice with the
forme of language before they are ready to somehow attach

meaning to those forms, is often counterproductive.

64

However, once they are prepared for the forms by experience,
or by reaching some developmental level, practice beyond
initial familiarity may not be necessary.

Using this illustration, Ney argues for a model he
calls the "Language Acquisition Device," which he explains
as "Input sentences are filtered through a syntactic grid
and stored as semantic units before they are processed
through the same syntactic grid to be produced as output
sentences. (pg 162) The important idea is that language is
stored as meaning units, not in classifications of usage.
Syntax is only used to point the way to meaning. The
semantic relationship is essentially a symbolic one, which
places the entire process within the realm of metaphor.

Ney believed that sentence combining provided a way for
students to reach into that semantic storage unit because it
provided them with "...the ability to encode semantic units
and decode them in a given syntactic form." (pg 164) Whether
one agrees with Ney's method or not, the fact remains that
meaning (semantics) appears ahead of form (syntactics) in
describing the process by which sense is made on paper.

Daiute also subscribes to the psycholinguistic theory
of writing, but she is specifically concerned with the
activities in what Ney calls the semantic storage unit, or
memory, and how a writer uses memory to assist in the
planning process during the early stages of composition.
Writing in an article titled "Psycholinguistic Foundations

Of The Writing Process" and borrowing from a theory related

65

to psycholingUistics called the interactionist theory of
sentence production, she draws a set of assumptions based on
the réSearch of people like Fordor and Bever. "According to
this view [interactionist] sentences are produced via a set
of structural clause frames that do not have to be
reconstructed for each utterance because they represent the
major surface structure forms of the English clause. The
speaker monitors the meaning of the prior clause while
producing the subsequent clauses that depend on it. If
monitoring prior clauses and producing new ones occur
simultaneously, the speaker must use strategies that
overcome performance constraints on short term memory." (pg
6)

There are two important elements in this passage in
terms of my interests: one, the by now familiar
reverberations of meaning as an internal construct and two,
the limits of memory in the composing process. Here is a
specific mention of the limits of memory and the
accommodation the writer, or in the above example, the
speaker, must make. Later, Daiute will call this the memory
constraint hypothesis and point out that it may make
writing, particularly composing, difficult unless a way is
found to "increase short term memory capacity." Spatial
visualization may assist in solving this problem in that it
can take the pressure off of short term memory by providing
an external record of thinking. As ideas bubble up from

long term. memory, instead of having to be acted upon

66

instantly, spatial visualization provides the writer the
ability to record them for later study after the initial
rush of ideas has subsided.

To begin describing the ways in which writers may deal
with this constraint, Daiute analyzed syntax errors from 215
placement exams written by New York area college freshmen.
These exams were written in a regular 50 minute class
period. As she says, "The errors were then classified
within the framework of the writing model and analyzed to
identify the characteristics showing that they could result
from short term memory limits." (pg 10) The model of writing
Dauite is describing is one that posits sentences planned
around sets of syntactic frames. Clauses and other lexical
items are then placed into these frames. The model, similar
to Flower's, suggests that writers use "goal directed
recording processes" to help them remember more complicated
clause arrangements. Of course these goals rely on the
amount of syntactical information available to the
particular writer.

What Daiute found tended to confirm her memory
constraint hypothesis. "...the frequent occurrence of strong
perceptual clauses before error onset suggest that the
sentence problems begin after initial sentence sequences
have been semantically recoded, making inaccessible the
granmatical information necessary for the correct completion
of the sentence. The information that usually fades after

recoding is placement, number and form. Thus the recoding

67

hypothesis offers an explanation of why, in error sentences,
predicates are based on adjacent words, rather than the
appropriate structural forms appearing earlier in the
sentence [The recent outbreak of riots are upsetting and
disturbing to the peace efforts.]; why modifiers are not
next to the words they modify [The children were driven away
in busses with big windows laughing and smiling.]; why units
with parallel function do not appear in parallel form [The
main purpose of government is representation and to protect
the rights of citizens.]; and why words are repeated or left
out.[Your achievement in life can be very good in life but
every American does not want to do a lot of work.]" (pg 17-
18)

Like Ney, she found that the focus in the writer's mind
is on meaning, and, perhaps because of the limits on short
term memory, the syntactical arrangements necessary for an
acceptable formation of that meaning get forgotten, or
perhaps shunted aside to make more room for idea generation.
The Tibetian philosopher Chaung Tzu described the situation
this way, "Fishing baskets are employed to catch fish, but
once the fish are got, the men forget the baskets; snares
are employed to catch hares, but when the hares are got, men
forget the snares. Words are employed to convey ideas, but
when the ideas are grasped, men forget the words." He was
speaking about receiving messages primarily, rather than
composing them, but the same point applies at both ends of

the process. In the attempt to generate and transmit ideas,

68

meaning takes precedence over form. Unless sufficient time
is provided and sufficient guidance available to turn the
reaction that generates ideas into the response that
produces coherent discourse--to bring order out of chaos as
Berthoff describes--the difficulties that student composers
have to face can not be addressed in any lasting way.

Daiute does not propose a specific method to deal with
the compositional difficulties her research describes,
however, she does recognize its implications. "This study
also has implications for teaching. First, writers should
be encouraged to separate clearly the sentence production
stage from the editing stage (Emig, 1971; Elbow, 1975).
Since syntax errors are psychologically natural, it is
pointless to burden short term memory with concerns about
correctness during composing, when so much else is going
on." (pg 20) Berthoff, among others, also argues that the
composing process is essentially unordered, and to try and
impose a system of correctness on it before it was completed
was counter-productive. Spatial visualization techniques,
by providing a written record of the composing process,
sometimes in no particular form except that chosen by the
author, may provide a way to "clearly" separate the two
stages of the process. In addition, by legitimizing the
composing process with a written record that is not an
essay, it may take the pressure off of student writers who
often believe they must produce acceptable prose at the same

time they are producing ideas.

69

Like Daiute, Flower and Hayes recognize the important
role memory plays in the composing process. Taking a
somewhat different tack in "The Pregnant Pause: An Inquiry
Into The Nature Of Planning," they chose to focus on what is
happening when writers pause during the composing process.
They point out that "There is a good deal of support for the
hypothesis that pauses reflect sentence-level linguistic
planning..." (pg 230) From this evidence, and their own
observations, they developed two hypotheses concerning what
was occurring in the mind of a writer who was not writing,
but thinking about what was about to be written. "Our first
hypothesis, which we can call the linguistic hypothesis, can
be briefly stated as 'writers pause in order to generate or
plan what they are going to say next.' Our second
hypothesis, the rhetorical hypothesis, says that 'when
people pause for significant lengths of time, they pause in
order to carry out more global rhetorical planning or
problem solving which is not necessarily connected to any
immediate utterance or piece of text.'" (pg 230) It seems
that the composing process is not sequential or
chronological in nature. A writer may be simultaneously
concerned with the next sentence, and audience reaction
after the assay has been read, all at the same time.
Further, each concern must be weighed and acted upon as it
has a place in the generation of the finished product,
whether that be a sentence, or even just a clause step in

the sentence building process.

70

To test their hypotheses, Flower and Hayes studied the
composing processes of four writers, three expert and one
novice) Using their method of protocol analysis they
analyzed the procedures these different writers employed as
they composed. They chose the protocol analysis method
because ..."protocols give us an extraordinarily detailed
blow-by-blow record of a writer's constantly shifting
conscious attention, and by capturing the flow of concurrent
thought processes, protocols avoid the unreliability of
retrospective generalization." (pg 232) 22

What they found caused them to modify their hypotheses
somewhat. They discovered that planning goes on at many
levels besides the sentence level, which is "only part of
the process of the mature, or experienced expository writer.
Writers spend time and conscious attention creating guiding
rhetorical plans which represent not only the audience and
the task, but the writer's own goals. It is not enough to
think of writing as simply a process of text production, or
deciding what to say next." (pg 242) They found that the
planning process is "episodic," but those episodes are not
necessarily related to patterns in the essay. The writers
they studied tended to work around the setting and achieving
of certain goals rather than around elements of the text.

"Understanding the overall architecture of these

 

22. There are those who are not as convinced of the
value of protocol analysis as Flower and Hayes. A more
complete discussion of the pros and cons of this technique
is undertaken in chapter two.

71

episodes and the logic which begins and ends them will,
we think, tell us a great deal about how writers combine
planning and text production." (pg 242)

Flower has separated text production and planning into
two recognizable categories in this passage. As Daiute
pointed out, there appear to be at least two separate, but
interrelated processes occurring simultaneously in the
writer's thoughts during the composing process. Flower and
Hayes leave their study convinced that the planning process
is controlled by goal setting activities, and that "this
continually elaborated network of plans and goals gives
logic and structure to the episodes which follow. This
network is, we believe, one of the chief outputs of the
writer's pregnant pause. But because such plans are rarely
expressed in the eventual text, they remain largely
invisible to teachers of writing. And yet there is good
reason to think that some of the crucial differences between
good and poor writers lies just here, in the kind (and
quality of goals writers give themselves and in their
ability to use this planning to guide their own composing
process." (pg 243)

"Invisible" is a crucial word in this passage. These
plans, whether they be focused around linguistic units,
syntactic units, goals, or some, as yet undiscovered
structure, cannot be seen in the composition classroom, and
as such, can only be taught indirectly. The planning

process a student goes through is, as Flower points out,

72

certainly invisible to the teacher, but, often, it is just
as invisible to the student who participates in it. Spatial
visualization, like protocol analysis, has the potential of
bringing this process out in the open where it can be viewed
by teachers and students alike, where it can be identified
and perhaps classified, as Berthoff pointed out, so it can
enter the lexicon of student teacher interchanges and become
a controlled process.

There is a saying among a tribe of south Pacific
Islanders that goes something like one does not collect
driftwood during the hurricane, but waits the storm out,
then picks up the pieces. Spatial visualization could
provide students the luxury of riding the storm of
composition out, then scouring the beach for the driftwood
when things have calmed down.

In a related study titled "Language Structure And
Thought In Written Composition: Certain Relationships" by
Dilworth, Reising and Wolfe, 100 teachers were asked to have
their students write an in class essay on a poem by Richard
Brautigan entitled "Star Hole." The papers were graded by
the teachers, who then selected one paper that they felt
represented a "superior" effort and one they felt was
"typical." The papers were returned to the researchers, who
analyzed them "...in terms of ten variables judged by the
investigators to be the most economically revealing of the
interrelationship among syntax, ideation and teacher

assessment." (pg 99) What they found was that there was a

73

"modest but clear" relationship between the papers rated
superior and a higher level of abstraction. In other words,
English teachers tended to place a higher value on those
papers that dealt with the poem in a symbolic vein. The
researchers also found that the length of T-units in the
essay correlated with the ratings given by the teachers.
The longer T-units seemed to produce a higher rating.
Summing up their results Dilworth says, "Specifically, the
superior students tend to increase their words per T-unit as
their papers get longer, suiting their syntactic maturity to
the scope of their treatment of the topic. Also, they tend
to increase the number of abstractions as their papers grow
longer, placing their generalizations and supporting them
with specifics. They tend to have more sentence control
errors as their paragraphs grow longer, but these 'errors'
are primarily sentence fragments serving stylistic
functions" (pg 103) The study also found those students who
tended to dwell in the higher ranges of abstraction were
generally forgiven more "sentence control errors" than

papers rated "typical."23

 

23. I do not cite this study as a defense of any
particular measure of quality in writing. Indeed,
personally I have yet to be convinced that longer sentences
are necessarily better ones. I point it out, as I did with
the Miller, Daly study, to further illustrate the importance
of complimentary expectations among teachers and students
rather than assumed or even unknown ones. As I have
mentioned before, spatial visualization may be a way of
clarifying these expectations for the students as the essays
develop.

74

When my study is viewed in the context of Linn's
"impressions" of the role of teacher, further detailed by
Daly; when consideration is given to the findings of Flower
and Daiute concerning memory limitation and its effect on
sentence construction, particularly longer sentences; the
ideas I present take on the character of a distillation.
Teachers want students to deal with ideas and, perhaps
reward those who do with higher ratings, even as they
forgive grammatical errors. Spatial visualization may be a
way for students to concretize those abstract ideas teachers
value.

Before students can concretize their ideas, however,
they must discover them, either in their own writings, or
reflected in the writings of others. In "The Group Mapping
Activity For Instruction In Reading And Thinking," Jane
Davidson developed a method by which spatial visualization
techniques, what she calls mapping, are used to assist
students in discovering abstract levels of meaning in what
they read. After reading a short story called "All The
Years Of Her Life" she asks the students to draw a map or
diagram illustrating the relationships they discovered in
the story. The students are told that there is no right way
to map, no set structure to the map, and that they may not
look back at the story as they map. The teacher models the
map making activity for the students until they feel

comfortable.

75

Once the‘ maps are complete individual students are
asked to explain their particular drawing to the class, and
there— is general class discussion about the various
similarities and differences in the maps. Echoing some
earlier studies, particularly Dilworth, Daiute and Flower,
Davidson believes "The group mapping activity actively
involves students in the reading-thinking process as has
long been urged by reading authorities who believe that
active involvement maximizes students' comprehension of
text...The group mapping activity helps readers' recall and
retain text information. The strategy also provides a means
for students to generate personal responses in their
interpretations of passages." (pg. 237-8)

Another, more formal, study by Charles Holley, et a1,
titled "Evaluation Of A Hierarchical Mapping Technique As An
Aid To Prose Processing" focused on a particular spatial
visualization technique, hierarchical mapping, and its
effect on memory. In this study, 44 undergraduate
psychology students were split into two groups. One group
received five and one half hours of training in the use of
hierarchical mapping while the other served as the control
group. Both groups were asked to read the same 3000 word
prose passage and take a test over the material it
presented. The test included short answer essay, multiple
choice, cloze type questions, and a full blown essay answer
section. The study concluded that, "The pattern of results

suggests that networking assists students in acquiring and

76

organizing the main ideas, but does not necessarily help in
the acquisition of details. The major differences between
the groups occurred on the essay and summary cloze tests,
both of which assessed retention of the main ideas. No
differences occurred on the multiple choice and short answer
tests which were designed to assess detailed knowledge of
the passage material." (pg 234)

Whether one agrees with all the conclusions of this
study or not, it is an especially interesting result when
coupled with the studies done by Daiute and Flower which
indicate that it is the main ideas that cause writers,
particularly those labeled "basic," the most trouble.
Flower found that those writers most of all seem to get
bogged down in the details and lose sight of the overall
direction they wish to go.

Daiute posited that the demands on short term memory
caused by such a focus on detail, particularly in more
complex sentences, result in a writer's vision becoming so
narrow that he or she may have forgotten what an individual
sentence is about before it is completed. (See Frank Smith's
UNDERSTANDING READING for a discussion of "tunnel vision,"
the reading equivalent of the "basic" writer's dilemma.)
While no one is suggesting that reading and writing are
completely equivalent activities, few would argue that they
are both meaning making activities and as such may share
common attributes such as a top down process of

comprehension implied by people like Flower.

77

Frank Smith discusses this in more detail from both the
writing and reading perspectives in his books WRITING AND
THE WRITER, and READING WITHOUT NONSENSE. Peter Elbow also
speaks to this issue in WRITING WITHOUT TEACHERS where he
says "Make writing a global task, not a piecemeal one." (pg
72) In addition, a 1984 study by Ruddell and Boyle titled
"A Study Of The Effects Of Cognitive Mapping On Reading
Comprehension And Written Protocols" found that students who
used maps as part of the writing process scored higher when
those essays were evaluated holistically than those who did
not use maps. Further, mapping students in this study also
scored higher on pre and post tests designed to measure
writing growth. When viewed in conjunction with the studies
by Dilworth, who found teachers reward abstract writing, and
Daly, who found teachers may make judgements about how their
students will succeed (or fail) based. on their written
behavior, spatial visualization appears to be a possible
method of bringing teacher expectation, both realized and
implied, together with student performance because it can
concretize an otherwise abstract set of processes.

For his part, Holley is convinced that organizational
structures such as the hierarchical maps he tested in the
above cited study do indeed help students remember and
understand. He also makes mention of several other studies
that mirror his findings. "For example, in. free recall
studies, it has been shown that performance varies directly

with increases in organizational structure. This occurs

78

when the structure is created either by the
experimenter...or the subject." (pg 231) (As discussed in
the studies by Verbrugge and Ortony earlier in the chapter.)
Students make meaning by identifying relationships between
ideas. Being able to see those relationships, either in a
hierarchical map, or some other type of structure, is a help
to comprehension.

Borrowing from Davidson, and expanding on Holley's one
type of spatial visualization, Jeannette Miccinati attempted
to help students bridge the gap between reading and writing
using maps. In an article titled "Mapping The Terrain:
Connecting Reading With Academic Writing" she describes her
experiences. "I have found that college students plan and
write more cohesive papers when they generate ideas from
their reading, categorize and illustrate them in a graphic
picture that I call a map, and then share and discuss the
information in their maps with peers." (pg 542) Using an
approach similar to Davidson, but exposing her students to
several different kinds of map structures, Miccinati teaches
her students to use visualizations of what they have read.

She then goes a step beyond Holley and Davidson and
introduces the students to map usage as an aid to
composition. "When my students compose using a number of
academic sources, information from individual maps is
synthesized into a final prewriting map. After it is
discussed with peers, the initial draft is written." (pg

550) These "prewriting maps" are similar in nature to the

79

"cluster" Rico discusses in WRITING THE NATURAL WAY, in that
both operate as aids to invention and records of
compositional thought. Like Holley, Miccinati is convinced
that the maps are effective. She writes, "As a result,
students write more cohesive papers. They no longer
randomly paraphrase, quote sentences, or plagiarize, hOping
that they have caught the jist of the original source.
Thus, mapping focuses students' thinking and serves as an
active preplaning procedure, a road map for writing academic
papers." (pg 550)24

As further proof of the efficacy of her approach, and
perhaps with reverberations of Linn and Daly, she points to
an attitude survey given to the students at the end of her
class. "On the attitude survey 92% of the students agreed
that mapping could be used all through college, 83%
disagreed with the notion that mapping could only be used in
a writing class, and 92% disagreed that mapping was no
better than simply rereading." (pg 545) It may be that
students feel better about a class when they believe they
have a better understanding of how they are being
evaluated.25 It may be that they feel more comfortable when

they "know what they know" in the words of one student.

 

24. Of course this is just Miccinati's reaction to what
she saw in her classroom and may not have many implications
beyond her specific expereince. However, in the larger
context of bringing teacher and student expectations
together, it is important to note that Miccinati believes
her students are doing better. In some cases, the classroom
being one of them, belief may play a role in creating
reality.

80

Classes that deal primarily in abstract notions such as
"style," "cohesion" and "unity" may make students
uncomfbrtable because they can not see those elements of an
essay in the same way as they see spelling mistakes for
instance. Spatial visualization may help the students to
relax because it enlarges their vision into areas that were
previously invisible.

In a monograph titled "Mapping The Writing Journey"
authors Marilyn Buckley and Owen Boyle synthesize and expand
the work of Davidson and Miccinati, among others. "Students
do not write writing, they write ideas," they say, and
therefore, "The greater the quantity and diversity of ideas
that students can choose from, the better. Before students
can decide upon a thesis statement and select a particular
audience, they need to bring to the surface of their
memories all ideas associated with the topic." (pg 2)
Mirroring the methods of Davidson and Miccinati and with
reverberations of the work of Linn, Daly, Flower and Dauite,
they describe a method of teaching writing that encourages
free thinking among students, while providing them with the
means to control and record the results. Like Linn, they
stress the need to encourage students and recognize the

central role played by the teacher. "At first students need

 

25. Of course cynics would say that this survey
indicates 92% of the students thought they could improve
their grade by agreeing with what they thought the teacher
wanted. While Miccinati's optimism.may be suspect, as with
most other things in life, the truth is probably somewhere
in the middle, which is still a significant response.

81

encouragement to have confidence that they know a lot
about the topic...," (pg 2) they write. Buckley and Boyle
also realize the necessity of recording the information that
confidence, once recognized, will generate. "Any classroom
of students can produce an overflowing list of ideas. But
just as students could not carry dozens of books without
dropping all of them, they cannot mentally carry dozens of
ideas." (pg 3)

Mapping is their bookbag, but it has value that goes
beyond merely being a repository for ideas. "Being able to
see at a glance how her writing will develop, and conclude
enables the student to visualize the whole with all its
related parts." (pg 4) As Flower pointed out, writers set
goals for themselves. Instead of sending them back to the
original assignment to read and reread, searching for an
answer that is not there, the ability to see the direction
of the essay at all times may make them more proficient
decision makers . As Buckley and Boyle say, "Readily
visible are the students' decisions...The map, a graphic,
schematic arrangement of ideas, can be shared with other
students in the writing group, providing the opportunity for
the authors to explicate their proposed plans...a map is
visual, one can easily see the development of ideas: the
ideas flow from main, or primary ideas to secondary which in
turn branch out into tertiary ideas and so forth: each idea

has a place and is related to and interrelated with the

82

whole. Each map is unique, shaped and structured by its
author." (pg 4)

The maps may help the writer to control the internal
processes that go into composition because they allow him or
her the luxury of time. The pace of composition could be
altered to suit the writer. No longer would it be necessary
for everything to be done in a very short period of time.
Reaction could give way to response. In addition, because
each map is the unique product of one person, it would make
the writer the center of the meaning process, the
metaphorical process, written about so many times in
different terms by authors from Black to Verbrugge; Berthoff
to Turbayne. Spatial visualization may mean writers are
free to organize ideas in ways that have personal meaning
for them, rather than being forced to fit their ideas into
external, often imposed, structures. '

Reflecting the work of Dilworth, Buckley and Boyle
point out that "To map is to engage in a thinking
process..." (pg 4) They take the implications Of Dilworth's
study a step further and classify the types of thinking that
occur during the mapping process. They refer to the
symbolic representation of the map as "presentation, or non
language expression" and the use of language in the mapping
activity as "discursive, or language expression." (pg 4-5)
This synthetic aspect of map making has reverberations of
writers such as Rico and other right brain, left brain

investigators. As a meaning making activity, mapping speaks

 

83

to the roots of our natures as communicating beings.
Paraphrasing Langer in PHILOSOPHY IN A NEW KEY the authors
point out that "...our most primary instincts direct us to
make meaning through symbolism. Our natural, innate
propensity to symbolize provokes us to dance for joy and for
rain; to decorate walls, caves and clay water jugs; to
design skyscrapers and coats of arms; to weave blankets and
baskets; to compose etudes, symphonies and rock songs; and
to write epics, love sonnets, essays and stories." (pg 5)
Mapping is a building activity both from a structural
viewpoint, as in the construction of language in a
particular form, such as the essay, and as an aid to making
a total statement that has individual meaning apart from
what has been written by others. "In mapping students can
be the thoughtful architects of their own intellectual
blueprints." (pg 5)

Buckley and Boyle see mapping as producing a different
mode of thinking altogether which they call visual. As
opposed to what they refer to as verbal thinking practiced
in traditional classrooms, using visual thinking "...the
student can see, for example, the whole as well as all its
parts as one perceptual unit of thought. Apprehending the
whole, or the gestalt, contrasts with verbal intelligence,
which is lineal." (pg 6) The ability to increase the size,
or frames, surrounding a unit of thought has implications
for the use of short term.memory, found to be a central

concern by people like Daiute. The ability to move between

84

modes of thought and the flexibility that engenders has
implications for the use of chaos, found to be an important
element in the composition stage by Berthoff. The
structured presentation of information maps allow makes the
writer more in control of the process and more aware of the
individual elements of the thought he or she is trying to
convey. Many authors, most notably Ortony and Verbrugge,
have made mention of how the presentation of information in
recognizable patterns makes recall easier. As Bruner says
in THE PROCESS OF EDUCATION. "Perhaps the most basic thing
that can be said about human memory after a century of
research, is that unless detail is placed in a structured
pattern, it is easily forgotten." (pg 116) Mapping puts the
details in a visual structure. As Buckley and Boyle say,
"In mapping, the mnemonic power of the visual is reinforced
by the verbal labels signaling each category." (pg 6)

To illustrate their point, Buckley and Boyle describe
mapping activities similar to Miccinati's, but with several
different types of writing, and several different ages of
students. These results were similar to those of Miccinati,
and Davidson. "In Summary a process called mapping is an
agreeable way to encourage students to organize their
thinking. This graphic scheme-mapping-is both visual and
verbal and hence has all the advantages of those two
symbolic modes; the presentational and the discursive." (pg

7)

85

SUMMARY-

The intent of this review has been to show that
metaphor is a central player in the language process and
spatial visualization is an effective metaphorical device.
In the composition classroom that means metaphor has a large
part in the success or failure of learning. It means that
the writer, not the written, is the center of activity.

Spatial visualization, as a category of metaphor
increases the chances of success because it allows students
to "see" elements of the meaning making process previously
invisible to them; it gives them control over these
elements; and it provides them with a record of the process
they must command if they are to produce written works.
This threefold situation has several immediate effects on
the classroom climate. It places the teacher and student in
a cooperative, rather than an adversarial mode because the
students see themselves as participants in learning rather
than empty vessels awaiting a knowledge dump; it gives them
skills they can see as relevant, and that they can take out
of the classroom with them for use in other areas of their
academic and personal lives; and it provides them with a
record of their growth, which is a great aid to confidence
because they "know what they know" rather than having to put
up with a classroom climate of doubt about what they can, or
cannot do, and fear that the teacher will find out the

latter and grade them down for it.

CHAPTEBMTUQLMMETHQDS

INTRODUCTION

The intent of this study is descriptive, in that it
seeks first to reveal rather than measure. What it seeks to
reveal is the relationship between the writers and the
various spatial visualization techniques I have classified
under the general term maps. The principal questions of
this study then, will revolve around the three central
issues: First of all, will writers make use of maps?
Second. if they do, how do writers utilize these techniques
during the composing, and later, revising processes? And
third, what effect, if any does the application of the
techniques have on the writers who use them, and on their
perceptions of the documents produced?26

Rather than begin with a formal hypothesis that is then
demonstrated only in empirical terms, this study begins with
an attitude informed by some guiding principles outlined in
the above questions. It seeks to explore a relationship
openly and as far as possible, without preconceptions. As
Mohr and Maclean write in WORKING TOGETHER: A GUIDE FOR
TEACHER RESEARCHERS, "What teachers have to add to

educational research is the sorely missed context of the

 

26. Of course these aren't the only questions that will
be discussed. Actually, at this writing, some of the
questions may not have presented themselves to me. As
several authors will comment later, an investigation of this
type walks a fine line between letting identified questions
limit the investigation, and refusing to let questions
provide a context for the study.

87

classroom. Therefore, the most common kind of research
teachers conduct is qualitative, hypothesis-raising, and
descriptive. Teachers have been participant observers, to
use the ethnographic term, for years."(pg.4-5) The value of
these studies, mine included, comes in what they initiate,
rather than what they conclude.

I have divided this chapter into three sections. The
first, "General Principles," summarizes pertinent research
elaborated in the previous chapter and connects it with the
pilot study I conducted as a prelude to the major
exploration. In this section I review the issues generated
by previous research; discuss their impact on the pilot
study; and Show that, even though what the literature
details as significant is sometimes complimentary, and
sometimes divergent from my observations, both views are
indicative of important areas in the- study of spatial
visualization techniques.

I will discuss some of the work done by the Bay Area
Writing Project as it relates to my own work, and finally, I
will attempt to bring together previous research with new
avenues opened in the pilot study in order to incorporate
them into the goals of the major study. In the second
section, "The Study," I discuss the processes by which data
is most often collected in these types of studies, describe
the basis for adapted ethnographic style research in the
classroom, and formulate some suggestions for overcoming

problems that I encountered during the pilot study.

88

Finally, in the last section, "The Data," I explore means by
which similarities and divergences can be discovered and
analyzed in the collected information.

It is the collection of information that will provide
the foundation from which I build my observations and
discover what implications my study has for the composition
process. In this type of study information comes primarily
from the students. I have attempted to open as many
different channels of communication with the students as
possible in the hopes of collecting the largest quantity of
information I can. I will collect and classify, by topic,
all open student journals and informal writings. This will
allow me to see what the priorities of the class are from
the students' perspectives, an important step considering
the discovering nature of this study. In the pilot study,
this particular phase of data collection resulted in 109
pages of student writing in 15 recognizable categories. In
addition to collecting and classifying these writings I will
make an attempt to prioritize them according to the quantity
of references to a particular subject. In the pilot study,
for instance, I found that 22% of the comments students made
had something to do with the clustering exercises. The
discussion of what those comments represent, and their
implications will, of course, require further analysis.

I will analyze only informal writing assignments in
which a topic was not assigned to determine if there is any

consistency of topics discussed by the students when they

89

are not given a specific assignment. These types of writing
assignments allow the students to identify what they see as
important in the class.

Of course I am interested in more than just the
students' overall response to the class. My study is about

spatial visualizations and to collect data on those

techniques I will use directed writing exercises,
interviews, both formal and informal, discussions and
protocols. I will direct my attention to each phase of

mapping from cluster through writer's map and reader's map
and, using a combination of the aforementioned collection
techniques, describe a picture of the relationship among
map, mapper and mapped. After I have developed a context
for further description from the collection of students'
focused writings on a particular phase, I will focus on a
particular student's experience as an example, and explore
in more detail the experience undergone by that student. In
the pilot study for instance, I collected 23 pages of
writings on clustering which, using a process similar to the
one I use to quantify and prioritize the general writings, I
organized into categories. I then selected one student and
watched, listened and recorded as she went through the
clustering process. Through follow up interviews, informal
discussions and more focused writings I recorded her
experience in particular. I will repeat this method again
with the more hierarchical writer's maps and with the maps

done by the reader.

90

In addition to the hand drawn maps, I will also explore
two computerized mapping programs called writer's Helper
Stage~II and ThinkTank. My approach to these computer
softwares is to view them as electronic spatial
visualizations, and, as such, my method of dealing with them
will repeat the one I used with the paper and pencil maps.

By collecting and recording the students' general
responses to the experience I will be able to build the
context in which to discover the specific role spatial
visualization plays in the composing process. By this I
mean the students participate in the creation of an
environment that gives meaning to the techniques they
employ. The plan of my study has two immediate goals: one,
to discover the boundaries of the composing process as
delineated by the students themselves, and second, to
determine the route that spatial visualization takes through
the universe of discourse in this particular class.

This may appear, at times to be an eclectic collection,
but in actuality it is not. In fact, it isn't a collection
at all in the traditional sense, but an exposition. Because
I have not predetermined all the elements that have value,
it may appear that anything goes. The truth is that those
decisions are going to be made in large part by the students
and recorded by me. These are very precise and clear-cut
decisions that will show themselves in both the quantity and
quality of student responses to the experience they are

undergoing. On the general, global level the students will

91

build the scaffolding to contain the meaning they develop
throughout the study. On the focused, local level I will'be
able to watch the students adapt spatial visualization
techniques to fit (or not fit) within the meaning construct
they have built. In the pilot study, for example, I
observed both levels of students responses. On the global
level, open journals contained many entries about the new
relationships the students were discovering, both personal
and in their views on writing. On the local level, students
were eager to write and talk about their use of clustering
as an aid to invention.

In the early, brainstorming stages of the composition
process, students are taught to gain control of their topic
by giving up control. We encourage them to "turn off the
editor in their heads" and let the ideas flow, then begin to
shape those ideas. Participant/Observer studies in general,
and this study in particular, start with that same
technique. Yet, as a teacher/researcher I must also be in
tune with the structure provided by scientific method, the
scientific attitude, just as the empirical researcher, who
often has the structure of predetermined theory to fall back
on and measure againSt, because, once the initial stage of
the research has passed, I must be just as rigorous in my
pursuit of the truth as those who study composition in more
traditional ways. The quality of the pursuit differs, just
as the quality of the ride a rodeo rider takes on a wild

bronco differs from that taken by a rancher who hitches up a

rm...“ ‘-

92

favorite mare to the buggy and drives the family into town
on Sunday to hear their preacher read the Bible. Both,
however, are valid and useful experiences which can
contribute to the overall body of knowledge.

My reasons for choosing the participant/observer
approach are twofold. First, the distance between any
discoveries of this type of research and classroom practices
is shorter than with some of the more traditional
approaches. The usability of findings from this
investigation is one of the foundational underpinnings of
this whole project. Second, if the maps have any value at
all it will come in their use by students. To discover the
aspects of that usage I must go where the students are and
watch what they do in natural environments. The clean
environment of the laboratory must give way to the dirty
environment of the classroom. To borrow a term from the
empiricists, it seems my research more closely approximates
applied research than pure. I realize that is both a
strength and a weakness. A strength because it allows for
holistic approaches that come closer to actuality, but a
weakness because so many elements impact the composing
process that it is difficult at best to determine the effect
of just one.

It is not my intention to argue for or against any
particular approach. Instead, I prefer to look at the
contribution both methods can make as a direction.

Empirical research provides horizontal information that can

93

help adjust our impressions of the quantity of elements in a
field of view. Participant/Observer research provides
vertical information which can give us an understanding of
the nature of specific relationships that make up that
horizontal view. One helps us understand forests; one helps
us understand trees and how their relationship creates
forests. My conclusions in this study will center on the
relationship between the students I study, and the
experience they have with spatial visualization. It is part
of, not. separate from, larger and smaller studies that,

taken together, advance understanding.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

As Ray writes in Goswami and Stillman's RECLAIMING THE
CLASSROOM: TEACHER RESEARCH AS AN AGENCY FOR CHANGE.
"Research is not primarily a process of proving something,
but primarily a process of discovery and learning." (pg.14 )
It is with this quote in mind that I approach my study.
However, even the formulation of the most general questions,
such as the ones with which I opened this chapter, imply a
direction; a setting of priorities. In addition, the
research described in the previous chapter, along with the
results of my pilot study, casts a searchlight over the
terrain of spatial visualization, illuminating some areas,
while leaving others dark. The attitude this engenders in

the researcher may not be entirely bad however, for as

94

Macrorie says in the text cited above, "I know that my
predilections enter into this search. I think I wouldn't
have found such good teachers and such good student work if
they hadn't. So I'm pleased I went along with the drift-the
common sense of this project-rather than get snarled up in a
profitless impossible quest for the absolute objectivity we
call 'scientific detachment.'" (pg. 58)27

Macrorie was talking about the development of his book
TWENTY TEACHERS, a work that had different goals than my
study, but his advice has value that goes beyond one
project. or one researcher.

The twin searchlights of previous research and my pilot
study have illuminated several interesting issues which
helped to formulate the initial questions. The relationship
of memory and map, investigated by Daiute and Flower has
shown up in the pilot study through comments by the
participants in their journals and during interviews. As
one participant wrote, describing her use of a map during
the third assignment of the class, "Map number three was a
great help with the guts of my paper last night. I could
look at it and know exactly what to write about, or exactly

what I wanted to write about." Related to this issue is the

 

27. Ken Macrorie reacts strongly against what he views
as pseudo-science. I include his comment because it makes a
valid point, but one that must be taken with a dose of
caution. Macrorie will come back to this issue later in the
chapter.

95

idea of control, or ownership, that a writer feels in
arelation to the work. Boomer says, in Goswami and
EStillman's book, "The argument so far goes like this:

sschools promote different attitudes to knowledge according
1:0 success and failure, but even those students who succeed
lwmay be alienated from knowledge if they have not learnt how
1:0 'own' their own investigations; if they still believe

{ithatl knowledge resides 'elsewhere.'" (pg. 8)28

The issue of where meaning lives is discussed

izhroughout the literature, and its effects on the students

cietailed by Linn and Branscomb, among others. Participants
fiLn the pilot study also commented on this issue. One
sstudent wrote, "I like the techniques of the maps and

(:lusters because details are not required. In high school
[the teacher made us do] outlines of our writings before
‘they were written. That technique is time consuming [and]
it doesn't really give a picture of how all the ideas fit
together, or how they should be placed in the writing. I
really never favored outlines." Spatial visualization, for

this student, provided the order of outlining, but the

 

28. Boomer made his comments in a slightly different
context, but I include them here because I feel they
underlie what the student who wrote "map number three helped
me with the guts of my paper," was saying. By allowing
students time to reflect over what is often a very hectic
process, they become more aware of their own role in the
creation of meaning. They begin to see themselves as a
player in the game, not just a watcher from the sidelines.

96

freedom to develop a personally meaningful form, which,
he felt, improved his sense of ownership and control over
the product. As he says later in the same journal, "The
technique of clustering and map making makes the end product
much better quality writing."29

A growing sense of control, can lead to a higher level
of confidence, another issue discussed in the literature by
Linn, and, from the other direction of apprehensiveness, by
Daly. Self-assurance was a subject commented upon by
participants in the pilot study as well: "I've gained more
confidence with my writing skills. My attitude had a lot to
do with not wanting to write. At least now I feel like I
could actually do a paper for my boss and do a good job at
it." The part that the nonlinear nature of spatial
visualization plays in the above processes is also an area
of interest. Buckley and Bowen commented on it in their
monograph for the Bay Area Writing Project as, in a sense,
did the student quoted earlier who preferred visualizations
to traditional outlines because the maps allowed him to
determine how elements fit together.

Of course the areas illuminated by the searchlights of

 

29. Of course I am not implying that just because the
students say it, it is so. They are bound in their
reactions and observations by the same predilections, biases
and lack of information as the rest of us. I include this
student's comments, in fact all the students' comments,
because, often perception creates reality in the classroom.
Psychologists call this the self fulfilling prophecy,
usually with negative connotations. Spatial visualizations
may allow me to put that psychological phenomenon to work in
a positive sense.

97

initial experience and previous research are not the
only points of interest, nor should they be. Opening
questions can provide contexts for further investigations,
but should not become controlling limits, especially in a
descriptive study. As Macrorie says later in the same essay
cited previously, "Searchers must always watch out that they
are not sliding into the mindless gathering of information
that represents bad science, thinking, looking, and use of
time." (pg. 57) In this investigation an issue that sought
the researcher rather than the opposite was audience
awareness. Time after time, in journal and interview,
participants in the pilot study remarked that sharing maps
with others made them more aware of how other people create
meanings that are different from their own. The following
comment. made during an interview by one of the participants
in the pilot study, captures the. tone of many other
responses. "Well, I didn't pay all that much attention to
the reader. I had my ideas of what I wanted to present. I
found out the reader does not pick up on the same ideas." 30
Audience was an issue that sought its own light, and
necessitated the need for flexibility on the part of the
investigator. He must be prepared for what John Donne

called "emergent occasions," but what others might refer to

 

30. I mention this because. later in the same
interview, the student quoted above said that once he had
realized that other people didn't always see things the same
way he did, he knew he had to work harder so they could. It
appears he was beginning to see that he could control the
outcome of the writing process.

98

as serendipity.

Turning research into a classroom tool is a major theme
of this study, so it was with great interest that I read
about the work of the Bay Area Writing Project, an
organization that is at the forefront of creating a
partnership between research and classroom practices. As I
read about their methods and results though, I began to
wonder about the use of maps as tools of revision. Much had
been said about a map as an initiator and a device that
frees the writers from some of the less obviously structured
aspects of the composing process, but after the glow of
initial creation has worn off, it seemed to me that the maps
could still be a useful tool. Perhaps student editors could
construct maps of the essays they read rather than reverting
to a linear checklist of attributes, or being forced to
compose a mini-essay in response to the one they had read.
I wondered why, once the visual process had been
initialized, it was necessary to revert to the old linear
activities when finishing out the procedure. With that
thought in mind I designed a pilot study that attempted not
only to introduce the students to mapping as an invention
tool, but to make mapping central to the entire writing
process, from first thoughts to final draft. I did this by
including the reader as well as the writer in the map making

proces 3 .

99

THE STUDY

As Martin says in RECLAIMING THE CLASSROOM: TEACHER
RESEARCH AS AN AGENCY FOR CHANGE, "In ethnographic research,
there is no hypothesis with a predicted, measurable result.
(pg. 21) Mohr and Maclean list eight "characteristics" that
promote validity in teacher/researcher type studies. Those
characteristics make specific reference to the quantity,
frequency, variety and, for the development of later
analysis, consistency of the data collected. To insure that
I obtain as much data as possible from which to develop my
analysis, I kept a research log myself; had the students in
the project keep a personal journal, as well as a separate
folder containing everything they wrote in the class;
conducted interviews with the students; and had some of them
do verbal protocols at certain times throughout the term.

Specifically, students in the study were exposed to 21
different writing opportunities throughout the ten week
term. These opportunities ranged from informal journals to
full blown traditional essays. The five formal essay
assignments each contained, in addition to the maps and
other material, two rough drafts and a final draft.
Informal writing assignments, generally two per week, ranged
from free writings to topics assigned by the instructor.

All assignments were collected at the end of the term. The

100

average number of pages in the students' folders at the end
of the study was 73.

The course in which my study takes place is the second
freshman composition class students at my institution are
required to take. The first focuses on grammar, usage,
spelling and punctuation using shorter paragraph writings as
a vehicle. The second picks up where the first lets off,
but uses longer, essay style writings requiring research (I-
Search at my institution) as a focus for developing a
consistent, clear thought and delivery. Topics, as such,
are not assigned, but students are directed to focus their
writings into certain areas such as education, or business
and develop theses from those subjects. The course is ten
weeks long and meets 55 minutes per day, four times a week.
At first students write in class, but as the term progresses
less writing is done in class and more time is taken up with
peer group editing sessions and class discussions. There
are only occasional lectures. I did not alter the content
or overall objectives of the class, but, instead of the
traditional format (at my institution) of peer group,
written response to drafts, I taught the students mapping
techniques using Davidson's article as a base, first
instructing them in ways to map what they had read, then
transposing those techniques to what they were about to
write, with the addition of clustering borrowed from Rico.

The students range in age from traditional eighteen

year olds in their second term of college, to adults in

101

their forties who are returning to school after as much as
25 years outside of an academic setting. In addition there
are transfer students and students who are near graduation,
but have put off taking this English course until their last
term. In the pilot study for instance, there were 18
students in the class. Since the pilot study was a
Shakedown cruise of sorts, only four of those students were
interviewed. They were a 45 year old adult, a 22 year old,
and two 19 year olds. Since the purpose of this study is to
collect as much data as possible. in the major study all of
the 21 participants were interviewed at least once, two did
verbal protocols during the map making process, and one did
a protocol exercise as he used the computer.

Because the pilot study was designed to evaluate the
overall approach, students in that section were exposed to
only two types of maps. Rico's clusters initially, followed
by variations on Holley's hierarchical maps. Students were
free to design their own hierarchies, or even to utilize a
form of their own choosing, which some did, but the maps
discussed in class as examples were of the cluster and
hierarchical type, more specifically, what Miccinati refers
to as the "leaning tree" and "flowchart." (pg. 547) Most
students used a variation of these forms. Clusters were
used to get started, then hierarchies were used by writers
as their drafts developed, and by readers as responses to
their readings of fellow students' essays. Instead of

filling out a checklist, or composing editor's notes,

102

student readers mapped the essays of their fellow writers
who then compared these maps to the ones they had done.

Students first learned to use Rico's cluster maps as an
aid to invention in a dry run class brainstorming session
around the question "How would I write a paper about
writing?" and later as the initial step of the drafting
process in their five assigned essays. The students were
shown how to construct clusters and then use them either to
free associate with a given topic, or to develop a topic of
their own using just the empty form. They were then
encouraged to map their own compositional processes using
Rico's clusters as a start, then to use the modified
hierarchies as they progressed through the process.

Students were introduced to hierarchical mapping
through reading excerpts from Davidson's article. They were
then allowed to make maps of the essay "All The Years Of Her
Life" which Davidson uses as an example.31 Through class
discussion, modeling, and by mapping three other essays
(Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream," -"Teaching as
Mountaineering," by Nancy Hill, and "The Road To Rainy
Mountain," by N. Scott Momaday) students gained familiarity
with this type mapping. In the pilot study students were
introduced to only two types of mapping techniques,. Rico's

clusters and hierarchical types. Another approach to

 

31. Davidson likes this essay because of its
"ambiguity." I agree. Seldom were the maps produced by
students so close that discussion was unnecessary, or
unlikely.

103

acquaint students with hierarchical mapping was
borrowed from Davidson who first instructed students in how
to map the ideas through a process she called the "Group
Mapping Activity." In "The Group Mapping Activity for
Instruction in Reading and Thinking" she writes, "The Group
Mapping Activity actively involves students in the reading-
thinking process, as has long been urged by reading
authorities who believe that active involvement maximizes
students' comprehension of text..." (pg. 218).32 The
process involves having the students read and construct a
"map or diagram of relationships or ideas, a graphic
representation of their interpretations of information in
the text or their personal responses to the text based on
their personal knowledge of the world. After students have
finished reading a passage, the teacher gives them the
following instructions: 'Map your perceptions of the passage
on a sheet of paper. There is no 'right' way to map.
Elements, ideas, or concepts are simply put in diagram form.
You might choOse to use boxes or circles. You may also wish
to draw lines to show relationships. Your map will
represent your interpretation or perceptions of information

from the passage." (pg. 213) The meaning of the map is thus

 

32. There are, of course, some researchers who don't
see such a singular connection between this type of
involvement and comprehension. My purpose for using this
method comes more from the researchers' views on involvement
rather than its result. Admittedly, I have not read every
scrap that has been written on this topic, but I have yet to
find any hint of support for methods that alienate students
from the meaning making process.

104

created by the maker. This flows from the thought of
researchers like Berthoff may start students along the path
to recognition that meaning resides within them, rather than
externally, a realization that has important consequences as
they prepare to compose.

In addition to mapping their own writings, they also
used mapping as an editorial device when reading the essays
of their fellow students in the peer editing groups.
Mapping the course readings was eventually replaced by the
use of maps in the composing and revision processes. In the
major study, once the students were comfortable with the
clusters and modified hierarchies. a period of about one
week, they were introduced to a variety of maps using a
method borrowed from Miccinati. As she says in 'Mapping The
Terrain: Connecting Reading With Academic Writing,’ "I find
that students transfer reading skills to mapping more
quickly and easily ifthey were allowed to choose between
several possible formats and adapt them to their own
purposes. In the beginning, they often select a topic or
linear map because they are comfortable with it. They can
transfer their outlining skills to this graphic picture. As
they gain more confidence with mapping, they are encouraged
to illustrate the text structure to show the author's

organizational plan more clearly."33 (pg. 546) The types of

 

33. The transfer of reading skills may not be as simple
as Miccinati suggests, but that is not the point here. I
introduce these variations to increase my students' options
when map making. I am simply trying to increase their non-
linear vocabulary.

105

maps students in the major study were introduced to
first were variations of hierarchies such as the topic or
linear maps, advanced flowcharts and leaning trees. Later
they practiced cognitive maps (which are a combination of
clusters and hierarchies), static and dynamic frame maps,
iconographic maps and the softwares ThinkTank and Writer's
Helper Stage II. Students were encouraged to experiment,
but not required to, and understood they were always free to
design their own map if they wished. As well as class
discussion and exercises to help students understand how the
different maps functioned, I also modeled each map type
using a sample of my own composition.

A typical unit started with a clustering exercise for
which I often provided the students with the center word as
Rico suggests. This procedure reflects Miccinati, who
writes, "When students begin formulating their individual
maps, these are shared with peers before the initial
writing. They compare how their peer's explanation of the
visual display relates to [the assignment]. They decide
whether the information in the map is relevant, adequate and
correlates with the writing purpose. As a result mapping
promotes talking, thinking and responding to the proposed
writing." (pg. 549) After initial clustering, the students
did a focus writing using the cluster map as the focal point
until they had approximately 300 to 500 words, then made a
map of their draft. Some students elected to make the map

from the cluster, and then write the draft. Once this

106

section had been completed, the draft was given to a peer
reader who made a map of his or her response. This was
returned to the author who then compared the original map
(or maps) and the reader's map. This point in the process
was used as a beginning place for revision.

While the students took to map making easily, even
excitedly in some cases, having little trouble constructing
a map of what they had read and explaining it to their
peers, or of using the clusters or hierarchies to map their
own essays, they had some difficulty interpreting the maps
of their readers. Often they would check to see that
details were listed on the reader's map and pay no attention
to the Shape of the map and the relationship among the
details therein, or they would look for the "major" points
and assume any other differences were due to individual
reading differences, what they called "different
backgrounds." To reduce this problem in the major study I
formalized the process by which students learn to interpret
the maps of others. My initial thinking had been that they
learned how to read maps by participating in the class
discussions of the diagrams made of readings in the early
part of the course. Since that proved an erroneous
assumption, I set aside two class periods to work on the
interpretation of reader's map.

The structure for the presentation of my information
was adapted from Miccinati, who, borrowing from an article

by Brown titled "Learning How To Learn From. Reading" in

107

READER MEETS AUTHOR/BRIDGING THE GAP, by Langer and Burke
writes, "Making meaning," Brown (1982, p 29) points out,
"involves: (1) clarifying the purposes of reading, (2)
identifying the important aspects of a message, (3) focusing
attention on the major content rather than the trivia, (4)
monitoring ongoing activities to determine whether
comprehension is occurring (5) engaging in self questioning,
(6) taking corrective action." 3“"(pg. 551) These six steps
provided the framework for the lessons in reading maps that
were added to the major study.

Utilizing a short essay early in the course, ("Will
Spelling Count," by Jack Conner) I did a modeling exercise
explaining how I would use a reader's map of an essay I was
writing in response to Conner's views. I showed students how
differences in shape, as well as detail information were
important and could be used in the deCiSion making process.

Like the logs, interviews [and other methods of data
collection, this method of using the maps has structure, yet
within that structure there is great freedom for individual
students to find a personally meaningful area. The drafting
process can be repeated as often, or as little as necessary

for students to feel comfortable, and they need not commit

 

34. What we call common sense is often just an
awareness of what is obvious in a certain context. I think
that is true of these six steps. They form the "what" of
the meaning making process; however. it is the "how" that is
most important to me. That is where spatial visualizations
come into play. If these six steps are the nouns of the
meaning making process, spatial visualizations are the
verbs. Both are needed to make a sentence.

108

words to paper until they feel their maps are complete.
Because the readers are close at hand, any questions about
map interpretation could be dealt with quickly.

When the students in the major study had practice in
mapping both essays they read and essays they were writing,
the different types of maps were introduced. At the
beginning of the third major writing project, the students
were given a copy of Ellen Goodman's essay "The Violence is
Fake, the Impact is Real" along with the advanced maps of
this essay discussed in Miccinati's article. After one
class period of discussion, the students attempted a Dynamic
Frame map of ”High Flying Squirrels and Pedestrian
Students," by Liane Ellison Norman. In their own essays,
students were encouraged to experiment with the various
types of maps, but were always free to choose the format
with which they felt most comfortable.

My study comes closest to what is commonly labeled
ethnographic, or naturalistic today. Of course, in the
anthropological sense it is not a truly ethnographic study
because, as Mohr and Maclean point out, "Research that
teachers conduct in their own classrooms differs
significantly from ethnographical and educational research
that is experimental in design. Ethnographers are new to,
and separate from the situations they enter." (pg. 55) Or,
as Martin writes in RECLAIMING THE CLASSROOM: TEACHER
RESEARCH AS AN AGENCY FOR CHANGE, "Anthropologists have said

that ethnographic studies need to contain elements of

109

comparison, one with another, and without such comparisons,
generalizations may not be made. In this sense then, many
educational case studies are not true ethnographic studies."
(pg. 22)

These differences raise the issue of validity in this
type of research. Writing in the same text, Berthoff speaks
to this issue by questioning the assumption of validity in
traditional research. She says, "The social scientists who
prepared these guidelines [for valid research] argue this
way: basic research is essential to the advancement of
learning physics; therefore, basic research is essential to
an understanding of education. That analogy is fraudulent
because education is not comparable to natural sciences.
Why? Because education profoundly and essentially involves
language-and language is not a natural process but a
symbolic form and a social process, though it's contingent
on natural processes."35 (pg. 29)

Berthoff argues for a new definition of validity which

produces not end knowledge, but enlightened development, one

 

35. Berthoff is admittedly partial to ethnographic
style research and may be reacting to the second class
citizenship it has been given by more traditional language
scientists. I include her comments here not as an attack on
more traditional, empirically, based forms of research, but
because she raises what I feel is a crucial issue.
Ethnographic style research is not empirically based and
cannot be judged according to those standards. Just as both
fiction and non-fiction are true in different senses of the
word, so empirical and ethnographic style research are valid
in different senses of the word. Berthoff sees the need for
ethnographic style research to develop its own standards,
and in that regard she is quite correct.

110

that does not confuse style with content. She seeks to
draw theory and practice together in new arrangements. "In
my opinion, theory and practice should stand in this same
relationship to one another, a dialectical relationship:
theory and practice need one another. The way to get them
together is to begin with them together." (pg. 30)
Traditional forms of basic educational research, while they
may contain their own internal validity, do not provide for
this synthesis of theory and practice so important to
Berthoff's view.

Further, because they neglect context, they become
frozen in time as it were, unable to develop as the reality
of the classroom develops. "The trouble with behavioral
objectives is that they are not meant to be modified by our
practice; they control what we do...," (pg. 30) she writes,
later in the same passage. Berthoff seeks a new definition
of validity based on developing rather than eternal truths.

While the modified ethnographic research done by
teacher researchers cannot produce the same type of truth as
traditional educational research, it may, as Martin points
out, produce "...useful finger posts pointing to discoveries
by individual teachers, and they can suggest directions for
other teachers to take up; and, given a group of teachers
following agreed patterns of observation over a period of
time, a true ethnographic study could result."(pg. 22) Mohr
and Maclean agree: "Eventually the issue of reliability may

be addressed by analyzing collections of teacher

111

researchers' studies....Through the specific nature of
teacher researchers' reports and the personal nature of
their interpretations, other teachers and readers see the
generalizable 'truths' that can be reliably interpreted as
applicable in their classrooms." (pg. 64)36

Mohr and Maclean are convinced that' the research log
kept by the teacher plays an important role discovering and
recording important observations. They write, "As they
[teachers] write, they pinpoint the issues that have
concerned them most." (pg. 6) My experience reflected Mohr
and Maclean's observation. As I read through the log I kept
during the pilot study, statements such as "I am quite
pleased at how [a student] has bloomed in her editing group.
She seems much more confident than earlier in the term," or
"I am amazed at how little the students sense of audience
has developed, even though this is the second composition
class they've taken [at my institutionl." These observations
reflected information collected by researchers in the
studies I was reading, as well as discoveries I made myself.
In addition, I found that the investigation suggested its
own directions through my journals if I gave myself the

proper time to write, read and reflect.

 

36. This will create some problems for me. A "Finger
post" is not what I'm after, yet, these two passages suggest
my conclusions may be shackled with qualifiers. On one
level that is good advice. There is a danger of going too
far, but a signpost indicates a direction, and, because the
destination is still over the horizon, certain predictions
about where this particular post is pointing are necessary
if progress is to be made.

112

Of course the researcher's log should be more than a
description of the author's opinions. Even though the log I
kept throughout the pilot study was primarily a reactive
one, and I continued that aspect during the major study, I
used Graves' suggestions to provide a framework and starting
place from which my observations developed. In WRITING:
TEACHERS AND CHILDREN AT WORK, he says, "Observation doesn't
begin with surveying an entire room. A sea of faces brings
an ocean of confusion. Start with one child, a child whom
you want to know more about. But don't chose the most
difficult and perplexing child in the room. Choose a child
in the middle range whom you sense gives information and
with whom you can easily communicate...The following are
types of observations that can be used: Folder Observation:
Go over the writing in the child's folder...Distant
Observation: Standing on the side of the room, observe the
behavior of the child while writing...Close in Observation:
Observe how the child goes about composing...Participant
Observation: Ask questions of the child in such a way that
the child teaches you about information and his composing
process..." (pg. 286)

There are two important implications in Graves' advice
for the type of study I undertook. The first is that the
teacher is an observer, but also a meaningful part of the
class. Several writers in RECLAIMING THE CLASSROOM: TEACHER
RESEARCH AS AN AGENCY FOR CHANGE mentioned that teachers

were in an excellent position to do research in the

113

classroom because of their familiarity with the context in
which they worked. By advising the observer to familiarize
himself or herself with the student writers by studying
their writings, and by paying personal attention to them
rather than remaining a scanning camera on the wall, Graves
is telling the researcher that he or she must be a part of
the observation if any useful data is to be collected.

Graves' advice, given in 1983, is the subject of
current discussion by Anthropologists. At the most recent
conference of the American Anthropological Association
reported in "The Chronicle of Higher Education"(11/30/88)
Ellen Coughlin writes, "Anthropologists have come to
acknowledge, over the last two decades or more, that the
study of culture is inevitably subjective and partisan."
(pg. A5) In fact, one researcher felt so comfortable with
the contribution the observer makes to the observed, that
she included not only her involvement in a study done in the
Sinai, but the observations of her husband as well.

The second implication of Graves' suggestions revolves
around Dewey's concept of "suspended conclusion." In
RECLAIMING THE CLASSROOM, Martin says, "In ethnographic
research, there is no hypothesis with a predicted,
measurable result." (pg. 21) Graves' exhortation to let the
child teach the researcher parallels Martin's thought and
reminds the teacher that his or her first priority is to

discover, not measure. I found this very helpful advice

114

when asking myself what my role as a teacher/observer in the
class was.37

Just as important as the researcher's log are the
student journals, for it is also the students who must make
sense, in their own terms, out of what happens in the
classroom. Toby Fulwiler, writing in LANGUAGE CONNECTIONS:

WRITING AND READING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM, classifies

student journals into several areas. He says journals can
be used for "Summarizing...'What did you learn in here
today?‘...Focusing...Writing clears out a little space for

the student to interact with the ideas thrown at them and
allows them to focus problems while the stimulus is still
fresh...Problem Solving. Use journals as a vehicle for
posing and solving problems...Homework..Suggest that
students respond to questions or ideas that were highlighted
in the day's class or ask questions which would prepare them
better for the next class...Progress Reports...I often ask
students to make informal progress reports to themselves
about what they are learning in my class...Class Texts. Ask
students to write to each other, informally, about concerns
and questions raised in the class." (pgs. 19-24) In the
pilot study, I found that students felt a little more

comfortable with the more substantial structure Fulwiler's

 

37. Surprisingly, even though Graves was discussing an
elementary writing class in his book, his suggestions
required little adaptation to my college classroom. The
students were a little more articulate, and the discussions
a little more sophisticated, but the problems themselves
were very much the same.

115

suggestions provided. However, just as with my log,
enough freedom must be left for the student to react and
respond in his or her own fashion as events unfold. In the
major study I sometimes gave the students questions around
which to write their journal entries, but I made answering
the question optional if they had something else about which
they would rather write.38

While written forms of data collection are
unquestionably important, the fact is that they are written,
and learning to write more efficiently, or more easily, is
why students are in classes such as the one in which I
conducted my investigation. Daly pointed out that students
who feel anxious about writing tend to avoid writing
situations. Lack of practice with writing, even informal
types such as journals, could have an effect on the data a
researcher is able to collect. This, coupled with the fact
that most students have simply had more practice talking
than writing, makes interview and protocol types of data
collection important in fulfilling Mohr and Maclean's
validity characteristics. Writing in LEARNING TO WRITE,
WRITING TO LEARN Mayher says, "Conferences will be as
various as the number of writers in a class, but they should
be conducted in light. of what is most pressing for the

writer at the moment." (pg. 138) Graves, in WRITING:

 

38. Being students, they often answered the questions I
posed. To counter their urge to do what I wanted I made the
questions purposely vague, like "What's the lesson for the
day?" or "Where are you as a writer?"

116

TEACHERS AND CHILDREN AT WORK, also has some advice for
teachers who must talk with their students about their
writing. He says, "Follow the child, let the child talk;
let the child understand that what the child knows is
primary." (pg. 101)

The best way to collect information is to listen. In a
sense, Graves' position encompasses earlier writers who
referred to the modified ethnographic study as a way of
discovering truths. The attitude implied is one that puts
the researcher solidly in the role of observer of natural,
rather than manipulated, events. Graves does not suggest
that students simply talk, no more than Mohr and Maclean
suggested researchers simply fill up pages in their logs.
As Graves says, "Children will talk about their subjects.
They talk when the conference setting is predictable. They
talk when there is a very simple structure to the conference
itself. The child knows he is to speak about the topic and
the process and that the teacher will help him do this."
(pg. 104) As I helped the students with a loose, but
identifiable structure for their journals, I must also help
them to explore in more depth the process they are
undergoing by providing a structure to the interviews. I
attempted to do this in the pilot study with general opening
questions such as "How is the draft coming?" or "What seems
to be working for you this time?" and then, following
Graves' advice, tried to be the best listener I could,

picking up on what the students identified as a concern or

117

an important ‘point and trying to get them to pause and
explore that thought further.

Rather than an interview in the traditional sense, I
tried to have a conversation with the participants of the
study regarding their experiences with the maps
specifically, and the writing in general. Most interviews
consisted of a few prepared questions that were asked each

time, and from then on I attempted to draw my questions from

what the students identified as important in their
discussion. "Listening is hard work...Listening to children
is more a deliberate act than a natural one. It isn't easy

to put aside personal preferences, anxieties about helping
more children, or the glaring mechanical errors that stare
from the page. I mumble to myself, 'Shut up, listen, and

learn,' (pg. 100) Graves has written, and my experience

fully substantiates his. ,

Odell, writing in RECLAIMING THE CLASSROOM: TEACHER
RESEARCH AS AN AGENCY FOR CHANGE, describes verbal protocols
as "One of the most popular methods of examining the
composing process...." (pg 150) He does however, offer some
cautions. "The disadvantages are (1) not all writers are
comfortable composing aloud, and (2) the act of writing is
so complex and demanding that a writer may be able to
verbalize only a small part of the knowledge and strategies
he or she brings to a writing task." (pg. 150) Flower,

perhaps the best known practitioner of verbal protocols

offers two suggestions for dealing with the difficulties

118

identified by Odell. In a study titled "A Cognitive Process
Theory Of Writing" she says, "Unlike introspective reports,
thinking aloud protocols capture a detailed record of what
is going on in the writer's mind during the act of composing
itself. To collect a protocol, we give writers a problem,
such as 'Write an article on your job for the readers of
'Seventeen' magazine,‘ and then ask them to compose out loud
near an unobtrusive tape recorder." (pg. 368)

Like the research logs and the interviews discussed
earlier, a key to successful collection of verbal protocols
is to provide a context in which the student can work, but
which allows for enough freedom to take in individual
approaches. In my investigation this structure showed up in
the form of statements like "Tell me how you are
constructing a map for topic 'X'" or, "Tell me how you are
going to turn this map into a rough draft." or "Tell me how
you will use this editor's map in your revision." Students
were exposed to the protocol process in dry run situations
before being asked to actually talk sitting next to a tape
recorder.

Reflecting Odell's first concern, in the pilot study
the students told me they felt more comfortable in protocol
situation if I remained with them. Because I was in the
room, protocols often degenerated into conversations as the
students would draw me into the process. I was not overly
concerned with this situation because the open flow of

information was maintained, but it meant that I was not able

119

to conduct protocol sessions in quite the way Flower defines
them.

Flower speaks to Odell's second concern about protocols
in a later article titled "The Pregnant Pause: An Inquiry
Into The Nature Of Planning." She writes, "If accurately
handled, thinking aloud protocols yield enormous amounts of
information without significantly changing the focus or
content of thought. Giving a protocol is much like talking
to oneself while writing. Naturally a verbalization will
not capture all the associations, resonance, and richness of
a given thought, but it will tell us that such a thought was
occurring. More importantly, protocols give us an
extraordinarily detailed, blow-by-blow record of a writer's
constantly shifting conscious attention, and by capturing
the flow of concurrent thought processes, protocols avoid
the unreliability of retrospective generalization." (pg.
233) What the protocols lose in the quality of thought they
record, they more than make up for in the quantity and in
their ability, much like the maps themselves, to freeze for
study what is otherwise a very tenuous and short lived
moment in the entire writing process. For my purposes they
are verbal maps of initial steps which, while they may not
explain, at least point in directions that have importance.
Coupled with the other forms of data collection they may
provide the "finger posts" Martin spoke of earlier that lead
to an increase in understanding. Because I do plan to

collect many different forms of data, I will not have to

 

120

rely very much on any one particular form. For this reason,
and because of the discomfort experienced by students in the
pilot—study, I plan to use protocols only twice in the
section of the study that deals with hand drawn maps, and
once in the section that deals with the computer softwares.
As with the pilot study, I plan to also be present in the
room, and it will not surprise me if what starts as a
protocol evolves again into a conversation between the

student and me.

THE DATA GATHERED

Even though the pilot study focused on just two types
of maps; even though only four students were interviewed and
no protocols were attempted, no software studied, it
produced a tremendous amount of material. The major study,
of course, produced even more. One of the benefits of
traditional research, what Britton calls big R research, is
that the method of analysis is clear cut. Research of the
type attempted here, little r research, is not so fortunate.
In a sense once the investigation is over the researcher is
left to discover what he or she has discovered.

Odell, writing in RECLAIMING THE CLASSROOM: TEACHER
RESEARCH AS AN AGENCY FOR CHANGE, lists some areas around
which observations, thoughts and (reactions circulate that
can assist the researcher in developing a framework for the
discoveries of the investigation process. He says, "We need

to begin with the widest possible range of questions and

121

then look for recurring themes...We need to examine the
assumptions underlying our questions...We need to
reformulate our research questions until they give us as
much guidance as possible...we also need to decide exactly
what our role as teachers will be." 39(pg. 132-133)

Since the major thrust of the study is to discover how
writers made use of the maps in the composing process, the
student journals, interviews and protocols are the primary
sources of data. A careful reading of this material was
undertaken using Odell's advice as a guideline. Previous
research provided some "recurring themes" such as the map's
effect on memory, confidence and control. The need to
"reformulate our research questions" was amply demonstrated
during the pilot study when the issue of audience arose.
The need to "examine the assumptions underlying our
questions" was also made clear to me as I tried to explain
to myself the reasons for the sudden blossoming of audience
awareness. Because I was focused so intently on the maps
and their role in the composing process, at first I assumed
mapping had something to do with the students' seemingly new
found ability to think about the reader. I began to search
for an explanation that would blend map making and audience
awareness. Then, in a quote attributed to Britton in a
chapter on audience 'awareness in Fulwiler's LANGUAGE

CONNECTIONS: WRITING AND READING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM. I

 

39. Guidance is the key word. I spent much of my time
trying to sort out the difference between suggestion and
command as I worked through the analysis.

 

122

read, "...almost half the student writing is from the
pupil to the examiner, with all the pressures and anxieties
inherent in such communication. If writing, however, is
used for activities in addition to grading, such as
journals, and in classes other than English this anxiety may
diminish." (pg. 59) Later in the same text Fulwiler says,
"...beginning writers...have an incipient understanding of
audience, but they are unaware of how to use this knowledge
when writing." (pg. 75)

I began to wonder if my initial assumption was
oversimplified. I used a considerable amount of writing in
my class that was not strictly for grading. I made a
conscious effort through the use of modeling, drafting and
peer group work to reduce the anxiety level for students.
Perhaps what I was seeing in regards to a growing awareness
of audience in my students was the result of a complex of
forces in which maps may, or may not play a part. As a
result, in the major study I included questions on audience
awareness in student interviews and opportunities for
students to write in their journals about audience in an
attempt to collect more data for a better analysis. My
reformulation was to put my initial position on hold until
the new situation was explored more fully. In addition I
learned that it is best not to expect to find only that for
which I am looking.

Finally though, some analysis must be attempted. In

that regard the research log plays an important role, for it

123

is the record of small observations throughout the term
that, when connected to other data, leads to the larger
observations on the meaning of what has occurred. Writing
in WORKING TOGETHER: A GUIDE FOR TEACHER RESEARCHERS, Mohr
and Maclean say, "Observation and reflection are the
foundation of the teacher researcher's work in the
classroom." (pg. 25) The research log is the record of those

observations and reflections. Later in the same text, Mohr

and Maclean give a suggestion for the use of these
observations: "In analyzing, teacher researchers look for
surprises, the unexpected events. As they formulate

possible explanations for what they see happening in their
classrooms, they apply their understanding to what they see,
but when something happens that contradicts their
expectations, they struggle to uncover the underlying
principle that makes the occurrence of two seemingly
contradictory events happen." (pg. 40) The data collected
from the students and the data produced by the teacher
researcher run an occasionally parallel, occasionally
divergent course throughout the study.

In the end it is through careful, reflective, open
reading that these streams are brought together into
something meaningful. As Mohr and Maclean point out, it is
often the areas of divergence that produce the most
interesting information. Unfortunately, it is also these
areas that produce the most danger of oversimplification or

overly narrow analysis. Having, I hope, learned the lesson

124

taught to me by my original analysis of the students'
growing awareness of audience, I used my research log in the
major study as a method of identifying the points of
Similarity between my perceptions and those of the students,
and, more importantly in identifying points of departure.
Trying to make meaning out of both positions is the point of

my analysis, which I now begin.

CHARTEBiTHEEE;_DE§QRIPTIQNLQEMEESULTS

w (Environmental)

In this chapter, I present a quantitative description
of the writings, interviews and protocols collected during
the study. I have subtitled this chapter "environmental"
because its purpose is to Show the context from which
specific comments about spatial visualization techniques
developed. In studies of this type, results develop from a
synthesis of many elements. Rather than attempting to hold
some aspects of the situation in check so others can be more
clearly measured, these studies welcome the varied elements
of the classroom into the process, attempting to use all
material in a movement towards a wholistic understanding.
With that thought in mind, this chapter presents a
description of the general "universe" of the class in which
my study took place.

In chapter one, the importance of context in the
generation of understanding was discussed by authors as
varied as the psychological experimentalists Verbrugge and
Ortony and the English theoretician Richards. The role that
this chapter will play builds on their work, becoming a
lens, as it were, through which specific aspects of spatial
visualization will be brought into focus. In this regard it
is as much a part of my study as a verbal protocol of a
student developing a cluster. Without it any discussion of

my hypothesis, indeed any discussion of spatial

124a

 

125

visualization techniques at all, would be unnecessarily
truncated and of little use in any realistic sense.

In the next chapter I continue the description by
focusing on the five formal essay assignments given
throughout the term. In this section I will describe how

the maps themselves played a role in the invention and

revision stages of composition. Where appropriate, I will
use quotations from student journals, interviews and
protocols to illustrate important points. In addition, I
will include a section on "Computers and Composition" in

which I describe two students' experiences with selected
compositional softwares. My approach to these softwares is
to view them as electronic spatial visualizations and
discuss the implications they provide in those terms.

In EIGHT APPROACHES TO TEACHING COMPOSITION, edited by
Timothy Donovan and Ben McClelland, Donald Murray wrote,
"...a key problem in discussing-or teaching-the writing
process is that in order to analyze the process, we must
give unnatural priority to one element of an explosion of
elements in simultaneous action and reaction. Meaning is
made through a series of almost instantaneous interactions.
To study those interactions within ourselves, other writers,
or our students, we must stop time (and therefore the
process) and examine single elements of the writing process
in unnatural isolation. The danger is we never recombine
the elements. Some teachers present each part of the

writing process to their students in a prescriptive

126

sequential order, creating a new kind of terrifying rhetoric
which 'teaches' well, but 'learns' poorly." (pg.4)

In order to discover what has been learned rather than
what has been taught, I begin my description by looking at
the students' informal writings. I believe that a study of
students' journals, coupled with information from
interviews, will describe the "universe" from the students'
viewpoints. It will open a window on what is being learned.
All in all, I classified 137 pages of student journals from
which I named ten categories as follows: Reader, Revision,
Invention, Control, Organization, Confidence, Groups,
Meaning, Maps and Other. In most cases I was able to let
the categories name themselves through the journals. In the
category Reader, for example, the students spoke
specifically to and about the person they addressed in their
writings. In other categories, Invention for instance, I
chose the term which I felt captured the idea of the
students' writings, even though they used many different
terms to describe the discovery of a topic and the first
steps towards an essay. The category Other contains a wide
variety of comments that resisted categorization in any
consistent sense. For example, this category contains
comments by students on the role writing played in their
previous classes, or the role they see it playing (or not
playing) in their fhture careers. A business major wrote

that he still was not completely convinced that if he could

127

hire an accountant to do his books,. he could not hire a
secretary to do his writing.
Graphically, the relationship among the various
categories of students comments appears in Figure 1:
4...... n....n...

.II. 11...“)
08hr (1'. 9x)

    

Invntn (18. :90

m- <e.ey.) \ . ' I eons/an" (1.1.530

"I (...K)

”I (3" .57.)

Figure 1

Some of the categories relate specifically to my study
of spatial visualization techniques, some do not, but I
include them all in order to give as clear and as broad a
description of what happened in this class as possible.
Assignments that had specific subjects were not included in
the journals and other writings used for categorization.
The writings I classified were of spontaneous subjects

totally at the students' discretion.

128

This approach is necessary because, in order to bring
the varied aspects of the writing process into focus, I must
approach the class from the students' perspectives. They
are, after all, the participants in this
participant/observer relationship, so what they have to
report about the experience will be the ground from which I
can explain the specific role of spatial visualization
techniques. Even though I chose the category names for the
types of comments made by students in their journals and
other informal writings, I took the advice of Odell, among
others, as I read through these documents, and tried to let
the writings suggest the categories. Often the students
would use certain words or phrases over and over, such as
"reader," or "confidence." As I saw these patterns
developing I named categories for them. When I gave the
category a name myself, such as "revision," it was because
students talked about the drafting process in many different
ways. I simply chose the rubric under which to collect
their responses.

I made no distinction between a student who mentioned
an idea in passing and one who used the journal to discuss
the same idea in more detail. Both received one mark in the
respective category. After the categories were set and I
began to look more closely at the writings within each
section, I found that students took advantage of the
opportunity provided by the journals to explore a topic in

some detail. In view of this finding I subdivided several

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of the categOries even further, based on the nature of the
issues raised. This is most obvious in the category labeled
"Reader." I did not overlap categories: however, in a few
instances I had to make a decision as to what category a
particular piece of writing belonged. It appeared to be
difficult for some students to separate aspects of the
process enough to write about them in isolation. I
attribute this to the fuzziness of distinctions between the
stages in the prewriting, writing, revision process, as well
as its progressive recursive nature.“O

By far the largest group of comments, almost 30%, made
some sort of reference to the reader, or audience. The
comments ranged from surprise and discovery to disgust that
this person, or persons "Couldn't get the point." In fact.
the range of discussion about readers, and their effect on
the work, led me to subdivide this category into four parts.

THE READER SPEAKS

Students writing in the first subcategory described the
often shocking discovery that there is indeed a reader out
there. There were over 37 pages of student writings on the
subject of readers and fully half of them discussed the
discovery, and growing awareness of the existence of the
reader. One student wrote, "Before this class, I didn't pay
much attention to the reader." My own log records several

instances in which the surprise the students felt upon

 

40. Faigley, among others, comments on this fuzziness
in more detail and, at one point, asks where does revision
begin?

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discovering a reader caught me off guard. "How can [a
student] come through basic English, English I and into this
class without realizing that people read her papers?" I
wondered at one point. Several writers in Goswami and
Stillman's book warned that this type of study may raise as
many questions as it answers. My experience with this
student may be an example of that phenomenon.“1

THE COMPLICATION OF READERS

From this subcategory grew the second, which was built
around the question of what to do with the reader. Having
made the discovery that readers exist, the students were
able to see the importance of their role in the process.
One student wrote, "My reader's response lets me know if I
am getting across what I really want. Their ideas allow me
to put a perspective on my paper and let me realize the

changes that I need that I could not figure out myself."

 

41. More than two thirds of the entries in this
category were by students who considered themselves "weak"
writers. These were students who wrote about how "hard"
writing was for them and how they "avoided" it whenever
possible. One student told me she would rather pay her $60
a month phone bill than write letters to her boyfriend who
was stationed in Texas because she just did not like "having
to do all the explaining" that writing required. "It's
easier to talk," she said. As I became more familiar with
these students' writing styles over the space of the term, I
discovered that the majority of them could convey their
thoughts in writing with an acceptable degree of clarity.
Some did have difficulty expressing themselves in writing.
Almost all of them said they had little previous experience
dealing with the responses of the reader. According to
these students, their high school writings had been most
often read by the instructor only, and graded with primarily
a mechanical format. This particular information is not part
of my analysis. I include it as an adjunct to the regular
narrative in an attempt to give as broad and as clear a
picture of the participants as possible.

131

Or, as another student put it, "If I didn't listen to
what they [readers] had to say, my papers would be full of
bull." The students came up with comments such as these on
their own. It is true that a portion of the time was set
aside to learn to use the maps readers create, which may
have drawn more than a normal share of the students'
attention to this aspect of the writing transaction, but no
extra emphasis was focused on the reader him, or herself.
In fact, I tried to create an atmosphere in which readers
were treated as a natural part of the compositional
equation.

Since my class was composed of students who were
business majors of one sort or another, I developed the
analogy of reader as customer. What discussions we had of
the role and needs of the reader were couched in business
terms and the students were encouraged to think of the
transaction between writer and reader in that fashion. It
was my hope that by using more familiar business terminology
I could make the reader a common element. I- consciously
tried to maintain this atmosphere, even with students who
were discovering readers for, what seemed to them, the first
time.

There were writers in this second subsection, however,
who were not able to adapt as quickly. "It is very easy for
me to write a paper, but when someone else reads what I have
written, they don't understand it," lamented one writer.

After what must have been a particularly brutal group

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session, another student wrote, "I continue to have the
problem of making the maps one day designed for a certain
idea, and come to class the next and have the idea
broadsided and have to careen off in another direction." In
spite of fuming such as this though, the students seemed to
accept the inevitability of the reader. Later in the term
the same student quoted above wrote a journal on the lessons
he was learning. "Another little lesson was to write for
the reader. That is the goal for the writer." Even though
it appears this writer still has not made his peace with
readers, he has come to the conclusion that there is a
"little lesson" to be learned from them.

THE READER'S RESPONSE

The third subsection is one in which students deal with
the reader's map. As part of the study, peer editors would
map the essays they read, rather than filling out editing
sheets. Entries that centered around reader maps were
concerned with the role they played during the drafting
process. Because these comments relate directly to the
study I was conducting, I was very careful about the
criteria used in this category. I looked for comments that
directly associated the reader and the maps. The comments
students made about this subject circled around three
centers.

First, writers saw the maps as a symbol of their
growing awareness of the reader's existence. Two entries

from the class journals illustrate this point: "This

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process [readers making maps] lets the author of the papers
be more aware of the reader," wrote one student. Another
was more direct. "The first maps allowed for the readers to
communicate with the writers. This gave the writer a chance
to see if he/She was communicating their opinions in the way
that he/she wants."

The aspects of that communication was the second center
around which comments gathered. Entries such as, "The
reader map is the most helpful and useful one to use,
because it outlines the major points in my paper. The map
helps me to see what points and facts the reader thinks are
most important," are the types of comments students made in
this subcategory.

Students whose writing was placed in this category
chose their topics independently but, a great deal of class
discussion centered around the maps, specifically the
readers' maps. I wrote earlier about the difficulty I
experienced in the pilot study in getting the writers to
make good use of the readers' maps. To overcome that
difficulty in the major study I formalized the process by
which we dealt with these maps and included some specific
practice. Whether the students are reacting to the voice of
the reader through the maps, or whether they are simply more
aware of the maps because I made them more aware, is an open
question in my mind.

Even with the higher profile reader maps received in my

class, it is hard to imagine, given the quantity of

134

responses, that they did not play some sort of role in
developing the writer's awareness. Because they are visible
records, maps may provide an anchor when readers stir up the
compositional sea. Because they were permanent, maps could
provide a foundation from which my students could develop a
sense of history about their work. This sense can enable
them to build a larger context in which to hold their
thoughts and the thoughts of others. A larger structure
could make it easier to fit new information into the system,
rather than having to deal with so many sources of input in
isolation. A larger structure, in turn, may help to reduce
the unknown. Authors from Piaget to Flower have commented
on the need for these cognitive structures in the learning
process.

The final topic around which student comments centered
was the role the reader played in helping the writer to
recognize what he or she wanted to write. Students writing
on this issue described the reader as a source of insight,
often a catalyst for the author. "I felt this [reader's
map] to be very helpful because it gave me more ideas that I
hadn't thought about," is one example. Another student
wrote, "I really enjoy listening to everyone else's ideas.
It gives me a better outlook, broadens my thoughts and ideas
and [gives me] better ways to apply it to my writing."
These students, and the others whose comments are similar,
appear to believe that the reader can be a positive force in

the composition process. Words like "helpful" and phrases

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like "broadens my thoughts" were used not only by the two
students quoted here, but by almost all of the other writers
who made comments about this subject as well.“2

I have set these comments in their own section, rather
than including them with the larger section on writer/reader
communication because students mentioned this particular
role of the reader specifically. It seemed important to
them to differentiate a response from a suggestion. It
seems the students were not just reacting to the reader, but
are incorporating that input into their goals. These
students, despite their occasional grumbling, appear to be
taking the reader as a partner in the writing transaction.
The differentiation of reader comments into responsive and
suggestive by the students is particularly noteworthy
because I did not discuss the role of the reader as a source
of ideas. In class we often talked about the way some

writers write

 

42. Two students never did seem to accept the reader as
a helpful force. One wrote, "I sometimes feel uncomfortable
about someone reading what I wrote, or what they might think
of me." The second student's comments were in the same
vein. These two students were not as concerned with the
writing itself as they were with the judgment the reader
would make of it. I was never able to get them to separate
response to the piece from judgment of the writer. Both
admitted to keeping diaries on their own, at one time or
another, and both at least tolerated writing and paid lip
service to its importance. It‘ seems that even though I
intended the methods I used to be easy for all students to
learn, my procedures still made some assumptions about the
type of person using them. These two students apparently
were never able to convince themselves that readers were not
always judges, so for them, the spatial visualizations, in
fact the whole theory of the class, appeared to me to be
stress building instead of stress reducing.

136

their way to a topic, and the students even read
excerpts from. Elbow and Brande on this topic, but the
identification of the reader as a source of information is
totally a student discovery. The experience these students
have undergone may be similar to that described by Petrie in
chapter one when, using Piaget's terms assimilation and
accommodation, he discussed the procedure by which sense is
made on new information.

THE READER'S GIFT

The last subcategory under Reader was one in which the
students wrote about how they felt more confident as a
result of getting reader response to their work. "I feel
confident in what I write when I see other people's view of
it," is a student comment that provides an interesting
counterpoint to the students who saw the reader as a
complication. Another is, "After the reader has read the
author's papers, they...let the author know what they had
gotten out of the paper. After a second draft is created,
the reader...lets the author know if he has made the
necessary changes for the final draft." This is a further
example of the students learning to develop a dialogue with
the reader. Confidence for one student comes from "seeing
other people's view" of the work. For the other, the reader
"lets the author know if he has made the necessary changes."
This student appears to be approaching some sort of
partnership with the reader: Other journals in this section

are filled with similar comments.

fwmmuu

137

I got a sense from reading what the students had
written, and talking to them, that, even though the reader
complicated their lives on occasion, overall they were
grateful for the input. Authors from Aristotle to Elbow
have written about the unknown, often mystical nature of
elements of the writing process. My own experience as a
composition instructor and writer has reflected those
authors' views. As Hemingway pointed out, writing is a very
lonely job at times, and it seems that while they may be at
first frightened, confused, or angry, eventually these
students appeared to welcome another voice in the wilderness
of ideas. AS the term progressed, I discovered that the
students who expressed surprise upon discovery of the reader
had been intellectually aware that other human beings read
their writing, but, until the mapping exercises, seldom had
occasion to communicate with them on any meaningful level.
The reader, for these students, was some unknown other, or
the teacher who graded the essay after it was done, and that
was the end of it. The surprise they felt may have stemmed
from their opportunity to have a conversation with the
reader as the writing developed.

That conversation played a role in turning writers'
belief in themselves to knowledge. All my students thought
they could communicate in writing, but because of their
limited experience with the written word, they seemed, at
some level, unsure. Even students who expressed a good deal

of confidence in their abilities felt the reader was,

138

essentially, helpful. Perhaps this accounts for the fact
that the entries that saw the reader as a complication were
done earlier in the term than those that saw the reader as a
confidence builder. Early hostile reactions may have given
way to acceptance and finally to appreciation as the term
progressed and my students saw that they could, in practice,
communicate in writing to their fellow students.

Toby Fulwiler, among others, has written about the
complex nature of events that leads to an awakening of
audience awareness in student writers. Fulwiler's comments
suggest that ascribing the degree of interest the study
group showed in the reader to the impact of spatial
visualization techniques would be an oversimplification at
best. While the bulk of student comments centered around
the appearance of the reader and the problems he or she
caused, when students wrote about the maps and the readers
together, they wrote about how maps were useful in
establishing lines of communication. Regardless of how a
student comes to a realization that the reader has a part to
play in the writing transaction, the next step is to develop
a procedure for dealing with the new element. Maps may be
one way of completing that step. When readers make maps of
the writers' drafts they are providing a visualization of
their response. My students seemed to realize this when
they wrote about the helpfulness of the maps in determining

how the essay was being received.43

 

139

The issue of permanency was raised by several authors
in chapter one, most notably those describing a
psychOlinguistic approach to writing. Short term memory,
its limits and uses were important topics to these writers.
Flower and Daiute, among others, pointed Out the way in
which the demands placed on short term memory can impact the
results students achieve during the composing process, even
down to the level of individual sentence construction. My
own log records many instances of students discussing their
maps with each other. It seems that the permanent and
visual nature of the maps provided both a relief to the
demands placed on memory, and a record of events that could
be used as a starting place for further discussion.

The maps drawn by readers began a process of
interaction between reader and writer even though I
originally considered them to be a tool used primarily by
the writer. These visualizations appear to in some way have
codified the lines of communication between writer and
reader, and given them a common language with which to carry
on what the maps began. By common language I do not
necessarily mean words alone. The map's shape and

construction was like a Rosetta stone, providing a source of

 

43. I do not mean to imply that mapping is the only
effective technique in any of the areas I will discuss, nor
that it is the best. A casual glance through any of the
journals that deal with writing will show that there are
many effective techniques and approaches to the various
elements of the writing process.

140

common meanings between reader and writer. There was
far more discussion between reader and writer about these
maps than I had anticipated. This may show that the
students saw, and were able to make use of, the clarifying
function maps performed.

THE PROCESS IS INITIATED

I labeled the next category Invention because I felt
the rhetorical term was the best suited to cover the group.
There were 17 pages of student entries in this category
which comprised about 12% of all comments, and each of them
had something to say about the role clusters played in
helping get started. Every selection contained words like
"cluster," or the more generic, "map" used in a way that
made it clear cluster was what the writer was describing.
In addition there were other key words like "start,"
"begin," "first," and the like. Each entry in this section
directly links two or more of those key words.

One student wrote, "First there are the clusters. When
I am given an assignment I will be able to put the main
topic on a piece of paper and come up with the priorities of
what should be said in the paper. This method allows me to
get my ideas down on paper without a bunch of sentences that
relate to nothing." I asked this student in an interview
what she meant by "priorities" and she said "details." I
asked her if it was important to get the details in a
particular order and she said, "not right away." She liked

the clusters because they were economical in that she did

141

not have to write in complete sentences, and they allowed
her to "see" the elements that would make up her paper. The
economy of this visualization technique may be analogous to
the economy of metaphor discussed by Richards in chapter
one.

The ability to use the clusters to predict the shape
writing would take was cited by the students as a positive
outcome of this phase. "It [clustering] has continued to
help me to build some kind of outline so that I know what I
am going to talk about in my essay," and "The first step of
writing the paper is the cluster stage. In this stage, the
writer writes whatever comes to mind about the topic. These
subtopics later turn into the body of the paper," are two
examples of student thoughts on clusters. For these
writers, the cluster appears to provide the freedom
necessary to make discoveries about their topic. They help
one student "know what [she] is going to talk about," and
provide the other with the means to "write whatever comes to
mind." Although I have only cited these two students, their
comments are repeated again and again throughout the entries
in this area.

In journals, interviews and casual conversations
students voiced their approval of clustering technique.
Indeed, it was the most accepted element of the entire
study. Even students who were reluctant to use the more
formal hierarchical maps took to clusters with enthusiasm.

In conversations, and in their journals, students indicated

142

to me that the reason they liked it was because it took the
pressure off. It allowed them to brainstorm on paper
without regard for sentences, spelling, organization and so
on. It appeared to me that clustering allowed them to think
without worrying about the end result of thinking, and they
could have a record of that thinking to refer to whenever
they felt the need. This seemed to be a very liberating
revelation for the students. My notes describe one student
as appearing to "suddenly awaken" as she went through a
clustering exercise. This was a student who did not like
writing and made no secret about it. My notes later in the
term Show her once again becoming difficult to motivate, but
she never lost her enthusiasm for clustering. I asked her
once to give me a quick definition of writing and her
response was "When I think of writing I think of spelling."
She was continually concerned about the aspects of writing
Smith refers to as transcription, and she was never
comfortable discussing her work with others. She often
referred to the group sessions as "a waste of time" and much
preferred getting on with the business of turning in a
grammatically correct essay with thesis statement underlined
(I did not ask her to do that). The fact that she enjoyed
the clustering exercises as much as she did may be
indicative of the amount of pressure the transcribing
elements of writing put on her.

Perhaps if she had been able to abandon her demons

throughout the drafting process as easily as she did during

143

clustering, the course may have been more worthwhile for
her. I believe the clusters were significant for her
though, because they may have helped to create a distinction
in her mind. Spatial visualization techniques in general,
and clusters in particular, are intended as tools, and a
tool's value comes in its constant and consistent use. Use
has to begin somewhere. Haltingly perhaps, I may have seen
the initial stages of that use in this student.

Caution is necessary though. For most students,
clustering was a new undertaking and the novelty of the
activity probably had some part to play in its appearance in
the pages of student journals. Still, entries about
clusters are noteworthy because whenever a student chose to
write about clusters he or she did it in terms of how that
particular type of spatial visualization made the composing
job more predictable. Further, the consistency of reaction
between the students in this study and those Rico wrote
about in WRITING THE NATURAL WAY make the role clustering
plays in invention even more apparent. Solid conclusions
are often not possible, or even desirable in this type of
research, but here, perhaps more so than anywhere else in
the study, I feel the indications are clear: clusters helped
my students invent. As a student wrote in her last journal,
"I have learned an easier way of getting my first ideas down
on paper so that I can organize them. The maps and clusters

have created a very easy way for me to prioritize my

144

thoughts." For her the purpose of the clusters was clear.
They are the tool with which she discovers her topic.
THOUGHTS INTO SUBSTANCE
I created the category called Organization because the
students differentiated between organizational techniques in
the introductory phases of composition, using clusters, and

those that came later as a result of the more hierarchical

mapping exercises. I looked for key words like "organize"
and its variants, along with words like "arrange," "order"
and "classify," among others. In addition, I differentiated

between the cluster type maps discussed in the previous
category and the maps discussed here. There were 15 pages
of entries in this category comprising a little over 10% of
all journals.

Comments in this section discussed the role and result
the maps had in this phase of the writing process. Except
for the two students mentioned in footnote *42, the class
seemed to view this phase of mapping as a useful activity.
I was not able to determine if it was the mapping activity
itself that was troublesome for these two, or the if the
mapping was just another difficult phase in a difficult
class,

One of the other students wrote, "I am depending more
and more on the maps. I write down my ideas and kind of
organize my thoughts. After my drafts are created, my
readers create their own maps of my ideas. They write down

the kinds of ideas they see that I am trying to say. I then

145

compare the two and filter out what I don't want to say, and
what I should elaborate on a bit more." This passage is
similar to the other entries I collected. This student
viewed maps as a way of organizing ideas. Note the sequence
of the entry. First maps help arrange "thoughts." Next
these organized (or mapped) thoughts lead to a "draft."
After the draft the reader enters with his or her maps,
which are used to "filter" elements in the essay that need
to be enlarged, or eliminated. This filtering process is
apparently carried out by comparing maps and the draft,
perhaps just as Black compared highways to snakes by
filtering one concept through another as discussed in
chapter one. I often saw what appeared to me to be the
beginnings of awareness on the writers' parts that they were
dealing with an integrated process composed of discreet, but
interdependent steps. This student's passage, is an example
of that awakening attitude.

Psychologists tell us that humans go through several
stages when learning a new skill. First there is what is
called "Beginning Awareness" which is described as the point
in which we realize there is a different way of behaving.
The next step is called "Awkwardness" in which we may even
regress as we seek to incorporate the new behaviors. With
practice, the psychologists say, we move to the third step
called "Skillfulness" in which the new behavior is performed
on a consistent basis, but still requires conscious thought.

Finally, we reach the last stage called "Integration" in

146

which the new skill is such a part of us that conscious
thought is not required to perform it.“4 The experience
described by the student whose entry I quoted may correspond
to stage one in the skills learning process. In a ten week
term consisting of 42 class sessions, it may be unrealistic
think that students could progress much beyond this level.
The permanent nature of the maps was also a topic
mentioned in this section. I view this as noteworthy
because, according to several authors, most notably Flower,
the ability to recognize and remember early ideas and
responses is one of the elements leading to a sense of
control over the outcome. Maps are records. and that
characteristic was not lost on the students. "One thing
about the maps and writing is that I have something to focus
my attention on when I'm writing." writes one student.
Later in the same passage he admits to having had a problem
with his mind "wandering" as he wrote. He realized this
weakens the final product and saw the maps as a potential
solution. "I have found that the habit of making maps and
then doing the writing has made the task more time
efficient." I asked this student in an interview what he
meant by "time efficient" and he said he meant he could get
done quicker, and "probably get a better grade." In some of
his writings Graves suggests that when students say they

have nothing to write about the problem is quite often the

 

44. I read about the process of learning new skills in
several texts, but I borrowed the terminology from LOOKING
OUT/LOOKING IN by Ronald Adler and Neil Towne.

147

reverse. They have too many ideas running through
their heads and no way of grasping onto just one. This has
been true in my experience as well. The student who
complained that his mind wandered may be a good case in
point. His inability to concentrate on a single topic
illustrates what I call the Lotus Blossom effect ideas have
on the unsuspecting writer. A study by Daiute in chapter
one is also analogous to this situation. She found that, in
longer sentences, students tended to make agreements between
verbs and the next closest noun rather than going all the
way back to the subject at the beginning of the sentence.
As ideas suggest possibilities to a writer each new
possibility is built on its closest counterpart. Eventually
this may lead the writer far away from his or her initial
thoughts.“5

The writer mentioned above feels he became more
"efficient," yet his basic composing thought processes could
not have changed dramatically. Those processes were the
result of years and years of developing strategies to solve
the writing problem. What changed was his way of dealing
with them.

Maps were discussed as developers, organizers and as a
means of taking the pulse of the document. The situation is

summed up by one student who wrote, "Once we know about our

 

45. Of course I have no proof of any direct
relationship between the way students write sentences and
the way they think about papers. I offer Daiute's study
here as an illustration and intend it only to be taken
metaphorically.

148

story, we need to place it in order. Then we use maps
to help us to understand what we are going to write and put
it in perspective." The maps helped. this writer to
recognize and organize the meaning carried within. Her
entry was by no means unique. Each time a student discussed
a path through the woods of writing, maps were mentioned as
guideposts.

Spatial visualization, among other things, may be a way
cf taking snapshots of the thinking process. My students
often used the word "ideas," or its counterpart, "thoughts."
None of the students in these entries wrote about the need
for sentences, topic statements, or topic support. I take
this to indicate that the maps were operating at the level
of idea, or what Frank Smith refers to as composition, as
opposed to transcription.

My class was conducted with the attitude that writing
was a process consisting of drafts, so the students expected
to have several copies of their work by the time they were
done, but, it was in small groups and individually that they
made the decision to act or pass on specific revision
decisions. As for the reader maps, class time was spent
discussing ways to read them for revision, but students were
left to their own devices in deciding exactly what to do
with the information they had gleaned.

MIDCOURSE CORRECTIONS

I considered making the next category of student

coments, Revision, a subcategory within Organization, but

149

so many students wrote about it, often in isolation from
other related ideas, that it appeared they viewed the
concept as different from merely getting their thoughts
together. Altogether there were 15 pages of students
comments in this area, comprising almost 11% of the total
entries. I was careful about my criteria for selection,
including only comments that dealt with solving the revision

problem, or making the reader get the point. The students

themselves referred to this situation as "the next step," as
in the entry: "The next step to my map is to decide whether
or not I need to make any changes. or additions. I also

have to decide what my top priority is. What do I want to
get across to my reader?"

This student has already made some decisions based on
the information provided by the reader's map. She has
realized that she must differentiate her information somehow
so the reader can get her "top priority," and she knows she
will have to make "changes" to the information she has,
perhaps with "additions" to get her point across. Though
she did not discuss the specifics of her decision, the map
from the reader provided her with the ground upon which to
make those local types of choices.

Another student had a similar experience. She wrote:
"When I looked at the map [a student] did for my paper it
was exactly like my first map except the way she diagrammed
it was different. We had almost all the same words coming

off [the subject]. I thought to myself that's 14 different

150

topics I discussed in three pages. No wonder it took her
longer to do my map. 80 on my revised paper I took the more
important topics to me and explained them in more detail,
which worked out much better." Linda Flower has written
extensively about the problem solving nature of writing.“6
Even though I do not share completely in her ideas, I do
agree that the writer has a crucial need for information
with which to make the decisions that will solve the
problems written communication engenders. For this student,
spatial visualization may be a way in which she can get the
information she needs to make those decisions.

I asked a student in an interview at the end of the
term what the maps had taught her and she replied, "I've
learned to elaborate a lot more on certain subjects to keep
my reader interested. I pay a lot of attention to my
readers now." She was responding to a direct question about
the maps, and, while her concern for the reader fits with
the bulk of comments in student journals described earlier,
it is her awareness of her need to "elaborate" for the
reader that I found most interesting. Authors from
Shaughnessy, to Emig, to Flower have written about the
difficulty student writers have in developing writing with
sufficient detail so that someone outside of the particular

expereince can get a sense of the writer's reason for

 

46. In fact, she wrote a whole book about it, PROBLEM
SOLVING STRATEGIES FOR WRITING, in which she recommends, as
one strategy, an "issue tree," which looks quite similar to
Holley's hierarchical maps.

151

writing. Here is a student who, in responding to a
question about the maps, identified that problem, and its
source: the needs of the reader. Of course I cannot say the
maps caused this awareness to grow anymore than I can say
the readings caused it. Still, it is hard not to think that
'the maps had something to do with it. This student seems to
think so, as do the others who wrote in this category.

THE CAPTAINS OF THEIR SHIPS

The readings in chapter one made me sensitive to the
issues of control and confidence, but I did not decide to
give these two topics categories of their own until I saw
those words specifically occurring in the student journals.
Together, these subjects make up almost 16 pages or
approximately 12% of the student comments. Interestingly,
writers in the Control category most often wrote about their
growing sense of control in relation to some aspect of the
revision process. In conversation, three students mentioned
to me that they sometimes felt writing was difficult to
control, even with the maps, but those who chose to make
journal entries tended to discuss the increase in their
feelings of control.

I selected comments for this section because the focus
of students' description was on their feelings rather than
on the specific stage of writing in which they found
themselves, or the particular technique they were using.
For instance, one student wrote, "Last night while working

on the body of my paper I started to really see what was

 

152

going on in my map. I actually learned something new..."
She goes on to describe what she has learned about how
papers are organized. At the close of the entry she writes
about how she will "use" the information and suggestions of
the groups, the maps and the drafts to "make [her writing]
better and more understandable." The students writing in
this category greeted this new awareness with enthusiasm.
The entries I collected were all from a vein Similar to the
student who wrote, "I started to get excited...I did not get
discouraged. I changed my way of writing..." This growing
sense of awareness also parallels the stages of skill
acquisition I wrote about earlier.

Closely allied to control was Confidence. The students
writing in this category seemed to have good feelings about
their abilities to handle these new situations. Positive
comments about confidence came more often in the later
journals in writings. As one student wrote in her last
journal, "In the beginning, I feared in making maps and
writing essays. In time, I felt more confident and I grew
to understand the daily process." In another closing entry
that encapsulates the comments in this category another
student looked back over her experience and wrote, "[I]
started out as being quite confused in how I was going to
prepare and write my paper. I was afraid that I was going
to fail in preparing maps. I felt that my map was going to
be awful when comparing it to others. As you can see, I did

not have enough confidence in myself as a writer...[Now] in

153

a sense, I think I am headed in the right direction. My
work and my writing feels complete. I am more confident
when writing my story and when I prepare it."

I cannot ascribe the students' emotional states to any
particular tool, or pattern of techniques. The spatial
visualization techniques could be connected to the
awareness, but so could be many other elements in the class.
It is noteworthy that the student quoted earlier singled
out mapping as a technique that helped her to "actually

learn something new" about how papers are organized when She

discussed her growing sense of control. The other student
wrote that her writing, "feels complete." While this is
hardly sufficient for firm conclusions, it does appear that

spatial visualization is at least not counterproductive to
the goals of composition, for these students, and the others
who wrote similarly.

It is also possible that what these students are
writing about is an awakening to their role as a player in
the meaning making process. Like the student who wrote, "I
am more confident when writing my story and when I prepare
it," perhaps they too are beginning to see that they have a
stake in the classroom, as well as a seat. The students
whose entries I have used are by no means unusual. Indeed,
all but two entries in this category had to do with a growth
of confidence, or the feeling of control."7 Certainly for

the student who wrote,"...I changed my way of writing,"

154

there appears to be a sense of power over the process of
composition.

THE SOCIETY OF WRITERS

The category, Groups, is one in which the students
wrote about their experiences working through the writing
process in association with their peers. It was composed of
approximately six pages of student comments comprising a
little over 5% of the total entries. There was a structure
to these group sessions. Students came together for the
purpose of making maps of their fellow group members drafts:
sharing maps they had made of their own work; discussing
mutual problems and clearing up misunderstandings between
writer and reader. Most of the group activity centered
around the maps, but a significant amount of time was also
spent brainstorming, conversing. or dealing with localized
problems in specific essays. After the initial introductory
period of the course, the students spent about 70% of class
time in their groups.

Group work is a common feature of classes at my
institution, so no students were experiencing it for the
first time in my class. and in fact, some students were old
hands at dealing with their fellow schoolmates. I used the
results of the Miller Daly Test of Writing Apprehensiveness
to assign students to individual groups."8 Each group

consisted of at least three people and no group consisted of

 

47. Those two entries belong to the students I wrote
about earlier in the section on the reader.

155

more than five people. Perhaps because of the small
number of entries in this category, the descriptions of
students' experiences with the groups was fairly consistent.
The students found their group experience to be a positive
one. For example. one student wrote, "I believe that the
experience we had with the self help groups proved
beneficial. They help me to realize I do have to pay
attention to the reader." Another student wrote, "I like
the idea of groups, because they give input so you know how
you're doing." "Input" from many different sources plays a
major part in the creation of a writer, according to authors
from Brands to Elbow. Paying "attention to the reader" is
also high on the list of advice from writers as varied as
Edgar Allen Poe and Mickey Spllaine.

In THE ABC'S OF LITERACY, Stephen Judy has written, "In
the process of writing, students themselves will come to
discover the kinds of structures they need to use to find
success with an audience." (pg. 126) I take that to mean
that there is no clear way to predict which specific
approach or method an instructor uses is going to match a

student's needs. Judy, foreshadowing writers like Elbow and

 

48. I make no claims for or against the Miller Daly
test. I found it to be an easy and convenient way to
classify my students according to their perceptions about
writing and themselves as writers. I put high apprehensives
with low apprehensives in an effort to create heterogeneous
groups in the hopes that weakness might be matched with
strength. It is an approach in which I saw little harm. In
a worst case scenario it merely allowed students to meet
people outside of their immediate circle of friends, at
best, it gave high apprehensives a peer model to help them
overcome their own difficulties with writing.

156

Berthoff, suggests that students who are exposed to the
process of writing will find their own way to become meaning
creators. The students quoted above who found the group's
"input" to be beneficial appear to me to be examples of
these authors' ideas.

THE METHOD IN THE MADNESS

Another example of the point these authors, among
others, are making may be the Map category. The sole
criterion for classifying comments into this category was
students writing about the mapping technique as a separate
entity and not part of the larger composing process.
Because this approach was new to the students they may have
felt the need to discuss the technique itself as if they

were explaining it to someone who was not a member of the

class. A student comment that was repeated in tone
throughout this category was, "[The new approach] is called
the mapping technique. This technique has two main

purposes, to help the originator put thoughts and ideas in
order and to help both the originator and the reader decide
what is most important and what should be added or deleted."
This particular entry was written early in the class when we
were still discussing maps as a group. We had talked about
maps done by the author and maps done by the reader, but
this student put them together in order to "decide" what the
"most important" parts of the paper would be.

This student appears cognizant of the process aspects

of writing, the bargained nature of meaning, and the role

157

played by the participants. She came to this position while
discussing the purpose of the "Mapping Technique" which we
had been discussing from a relatively mechanical viewpoint
at that particular time.

Comments in this section often echoed other categories,
but emphasized procedures over results. In describing the
clustering stage of mapping one student wrote, "Instead of
outlining your thoughts and worrying about order you can
write whatever comes to mind and whatever order you want.
In a sense, the mapping technique allows you to free write."
Free writing is an approach used in several classes at my
institution, but the connection of the two is something the
student did herself. The psychologists reviewed in chapter
one, specifically Petrie, would see this as an example of
use of metaphor in learning. By finding relationships
between something she did know (free writing) and something
new (maps) the student internalized and accommodated the new
information into her theory of the world. She appears to be
practicing what Herbert, also discussed in chapter one,
referred to as appreception.

Spatial visualization techniques are, in a sense,
metaphors for the author's thoughts and the reader's
response. By mentioning the maps so often when discussing
the elements of the class, my students may be saying that
the maps are tools of accommodation. By that I mean that
the visual nature of the maps provide a link between the

familiar aspects of the writing process the students have

158

undergone in other classes, and the new demands placed on
them by the current situation. Having something they can
hold in their hand, talk about and look at, is apparently
more comforting than trying to grasp the abstract
relationship between readers and writers; the importance of
symbolic elements in the writing process: and all of the
myriad aspects of a higher level composition class, usually
presented to them in the traditional one or two channel way
through lectures and readings.

Other comments in this section were about specific
maps, such as the student who, describing reader maps wrote,
"Maps represent how readers feel." Since so much of 'the
emphasis in an academic setting is on intellect I saw this
student's choice of the word "feel" to describe the reader's
map as particularly interesting.49 A response is composed
of thinking and feeling, but the feeling often gets lost in
the attempt to put thoughts into words. For one student
anyway, it appears that an awareness of the nature of
response has begun, and the maps are performing a catalyst
function, playing a role, along with other elements in the

class, as initiators.

 

49. Of course the student's word choice could just be
an accident, or she could have meant think, but wrote feel.
In the absence of any proof one way or the other (I never
got to ask her about it) I think that in an informal,
ungraded writing exercise such as a journal, she was more
likely to be honest in her comments.

159

THE REASON FOR IT ALL

I named a category Meaning because of comments by
students in which they describe, not so much their
experience in the process, but their views on the results of
the process: understanding. The category contained a little
more than four pages of student comments comprising about 3%
of the total entries. Again, perhaps because of the small
number of entries, the responses were very consistent with
one another. This section centered around the difficulties
students had in solving writer/reader problems. Discussing
group sessions, several students made comments similar to
this one: "[It] Seems funny how we had a difficult time in
class today. Everyone got something different from [the
essay]. Which is not unusual since we all interpret things
differently." Another student commented, "Writing is
something that you learn from teachers and parents, but how
and what you write comes from you." These two students are
apparently becoming aware of the fluid nature of the
relationship between the writer and the reader. Their
comments were not isolated. Even though there were a small
number of entries in this category, they all contained the
same sense of meaning as a growing and changing concept
rather than a standard. In addition, the student who
commented "what you write comes from you," appears to
reflect the writings of Judy, described earlier, which
maintain that students learn to write by experiencing as

many writing environments and readers as can be provided.

160

Like the student who, when asked what writing was,
replied, "spelling," my experience reading the class
journals and talking with the students over the length of
the term, made it apparent to me that, even if they seemed
to accept the assumption that meaning can be generated
internally and modified externally, they appeared to cling
to a strategy that led them to "write for the teacher,"
which in most cases was spelling, grammar and vocabulary.
At the end of this course, even though the student quoted
above had found success in the clustering exercises, for her
writing was still "spelling." She wrote, "I feel if you
have to [sic] many misspelled words you will cause your
reader to lose track of what they are thinking, which makes
your paper seem hard to understand." Even here though, the
reader has appeared, perhaps giving a reason for the
necessity of spelling rules.

THE WIDER WORLD

I have put the category Other at the close of this
chapter because the comments are made up of scattered
subjects that did not fit into previous sections. It
contains over 15% of the total entries making up a little
more than 21 pages. Most of the coments in this section
were general musings by the students about the class in
particular, or writing in general. "My thoughts on writing
vary with my intentions." one student wrote. When I asked
her what she meant by that she replied that she liked

writing in her diary better than in class. Another student

161

wondered why, even though she liked reading very much,
"writing is difficult for me." She had no answer, but
seemed convinced that there was a direct connection between
the two.

The word awareness seems an appropriate
characterization for the general tenor of entries in this
category. Dr. Martin Luther King once said that before a
problem can be solved, it must be recognized. What these
students, as well as the others who wrote in this section,
but whose entries I have not included, may be formulating
are the questions which will eventually lead them to
solutions of their own writing problems.

Awareness, which is their first step, may grow out of a
tension created by the way things are, and the way the
student thinks, or wants them to be. Perhaps for the
students who wrote about them, the needs of the reader can
provide the stimulus to search out new writing behaviors.
For others, it may be the need to further explore the effect
of their "intentions" on the process. Even the writing-is-
spelling student ascribed her need to spell correctly to the
needs of the reader in her last entry.

I believe the spatial visualization techniques may also
initiate further investigations of the writing process,
because considering my students' comments, it appears to
provide a vehicle for growth in several different areas. It
may even have helped to create a crack in the "spelling"

student's perceptions about writing.

162

I look back over the comments in the journals and see
all of the little discoveries students made throughout the
term,“but I do not feel I can point to any technique, or
method. or assignment and say this is where the class

learned to deal with the reader, or this is where the class

learned a particular lesson for that matter. Because of
that, any of the methods employed in this class, and
probably at one time or another all of the methods, are

effective in providing the link between the way things were
done, and the way they could be done.

I have attempted in this chapter to build the lens with
which to focus more specifically on the students described
in the next section. Perhaps a brief summary of the
elements of that lens will help to sharpen the image I am
about to describe.

This was a class in which students became more aware
that the reader could be a part of the writing process.
Even students who were intellectually aware that their
papers were read by other people found new levels of
connection. It was a class that discovered and apparently
accepted the use of cluster maps as a tool for invention.
These techniques appeared liberating for the students
because they removed the pressure of transcription from the
composing process. They were, as one student commented,
non-linear free writings.

The more structured maps appear to have had three main

purposes. First, they provided a framework within which the

163

essay could be prioritized, and they opened a line of
communication with the reader. They were, in effect, a
metaphor for the goals of the work, and a contract through
which meaning could be negotiated with the reader. Second,
as a result of this negotiation the framework of the essay
changed and with it the map's metaphorical representation.
And third, as a result of the first two, the maps became a
progress report of sorts, identifying the particular stage
of completion in a way that could be analyzed and discussed.

The sense of control over the writing process and the
feelings of confidence it engendered, rose over the length
of the term. My students saw themselves as part of a
community of meaning makers who could share with each other
the previously isolated and abstract elements of the writing
process.

These are the elements of the lens which will now be
focused on six individual students. These students were
picked because, like their fellows. they too discovered new
elements of the reader/writer equation; they too developed
maps and negotiated with the reader over them; they too
shared in the community of the classroom. In short, they
were picked because they represent individually what

participants in this study experienced over all.

CHAPTERMEQURngESQRIETIQN_QE_BE§ELI§

(Individual)

In this chapter I present a description of specific
students' experiences with the spatial visualizations. In
addition, at the close of this chapter I describe the
experiences of two students who used computer software to
compose and edit their papers. I call this chapter
individual because its purpose is to use the lens of chapter
three to focus on each of these students in an attempt to
provide a description of the use of spatial visualization
techniques at the personal level.

To track the relationship between the maps and the
developing essays, I made lists of all the words a student
used in each map, then looked first for those exact words,
then for related words or ideas in the essay. I also made a
list of the ideas that appeared in the essay, but not in the
maps. The three maps that I looked at were the original
cluster, the writer's map, drawn usually after the first
draft, and the reader's map, also drawn after the first
draft. I will describe each map in its own section, first
with some general comments about how the map was used
throughout the class, then, more specifically, using a
student essay.50

Clusters were generated in a very short period of time,

occasionally just a few minutes. In my class, there were 15

 

50. The original maps are in the appendix

165

ideas, on average, attached to the central circle of
the cluster. Of the original ideas, an average of eight
appeared exactly in the final essay. On some occasions the
decision to cut a particular idea was conscious, but as
students mentioned in interviews, they simply forgot about
some of the original ideas once the essay began to take
shape. All of the students in the class except three,51
reported that they did not return to their cluster after the
first draft was completed.

This behavior fits with the purpose of the clusters as
detailed by Rico. As tools for invention, the role of the
cluster is to get things started. The schematic arrangement
of informational words or phrases around the central core of
the clusters is not able to account for variations in the
importance of the information generated. Because clusters
produce, undifferentiated information, their usefulness
apparently declines as the students enter the organizational
phase of composition. Once there was a developing body to
the essay, my students focused their attention on the
balance between the local and global issues the draft itself
produces. This phase of the composing process was described
in more detail in a study done by Flower, discussed in

chapter one.

 

51. These three were the two who had difficulty with
the role of the reader, mentioned in the previous chapter,
and a third female student. These three students were
reluctant to participate in the drafting process, preferring
to write one copy only. They were often absent on days when
the class would work together on their drafts.

166

Once the clusters were complete, my students began the
process of prioritizing the material, even if it was just
making full sentences out of key words on the cluster.

CLUSTERS AND COMPOSING

Shirley Daniels is an example of how my students used
clustering. She is a 20 year old accounting major in her
second year. She had put off taking English because, even
thought she had earned C's and above during her high school
English classes, as well as a C in the first English class
at my institution, she did not like writing.

Shirley made use of clustering throughout the term in
my class. She had positive feelings toward the technique,
and was able to do it on a variety of assignments with
consistent success. Elements of the clusters always
appeared in the essays she wrote which indicated to me that
she was not just performing the assignment, but using the
information generated by the clusters.

I asked her to do a clustering exercise with the word
"Writing" at the center. She produced 16 mostly single
words in a balanced circle around the core. The words are:
"boring, communication, over-rated, tension, impossible,
pressure, conscious, aggravating, impatience, time
consuming, school, headaches, tiring, hard, insulting and
testy." Of these 16 words, 7 showed up exactly in her final
essay. They were: "Communication, conscious, aggravating,
time consuming, headaches, insulting and testy." In

addition, certain other keywords in her cluster turned up in

167

the final esSay as ideas, or descriptions that did not use
the exact wording of the original. For example, she did not
use the word "school" in her final essay, yet all of the
examples of writing She discussed dealt with assignments
from teachers. She also mixed some ideas together in her
examples. At one point, discussing her difficulty
concentrating, she wrote. "I seem to think such things as.

'I could be doing something more exciting and enjoyable with

my time.’ 'I am so tired,’ or 'This is so dumb and hard how
do they expect us to do this?'" Here she blends several
ideas from her cluster. most notably, testiness, pressure

and impatience.

This blending of words and ideas from the original
cluster was a common feature of the way Shirley used
clustering. Shirley told me that she viewed what she had
written in a cluster with an eye to organizing it, looking
for relationships among the ideas she had put down. In that
respect she resembled the proficient writer Flower discussed
in chapter one, who focused their attention on global issues
first as they worked through the rhetorical problem.

In an interview, Shirley mentioned that she seemed to
write "the same idea" down in "different ways." Indeed, 14
of her 16 words have something to do with her negative
reaction to writing. Her paper, not surprisingly, was a
description of her unfavorable feelings towards writing in
general, and school writing in particular. Her thesis

statement read, "I feel very little for writing. It seems

168

to be time consuming, physically straining, and insulting."
The last term referred to her strong feelings about having
to read aloud what she had written, or have others read it.

I noticed this kind of consistency in many of
Shirley's clusters. She began with an emotional reaction to
the subject, then, through the clustering process appeared
to search out terms that helped to describe that feeling.
This is similar to what Rico suggests as the two halves of
the brain are given time to interrelate.52

The open structure of the clusters themselves seemed to
fit well with the open nature of Shirley's thought at this
stage of the composition process, and, having the cluster on
paper for reference apparently made the next step,
prioritization, easier for her to initiate.

Prioritization is the step in which I originally felt
the maps would be most useful. In this stage, my students
used a variation of the hierarchical maps described by
Holley. These maps were either top down in form with the
subject at the top and more and more specific information
going down the map, or turned 90 degrees with information
arranged across the page from left to right. Computer
majors in the class mentioned the similarities between these
types of maps and flowcharting as a reason for preferring to

do their maps hierarchically. my students were exposed to

 

52. I am not making a case for right brain left brain
theory necessarily. I am merely reporting that my
observations are similar to Rico's. My conclusions are
necessarily somewhat more limited. '

169

many different mapping styles and practiced most of
them in dry run settings, but on essays they returned to the
hierarchical organizational format.

Some of the map formats presented to the class were
interesting according to the students, but their attention
was primarily focused on the paper itself. One student
pointed out in an interview that the point was to get the
paper done, "not some art project".

It appears that, in order for the maps to be a tool for
my students. it was important that they fit as neatly and as
quickly into the process as possible. Students who view map
making as taking away from time that would otherwise be
invested in getting the assignment done might be less likely
to use the technique.

MAPS AND PRIORITIES

Donald Westfall used the hierarchical maps. As a 45
year old adult who was returning to school after more than
20 years as a farmer, he had more than the usual number of
experiences from which to draw subjects for his papers. He
also had many more years of developing writing habits than
most of his classmates. Donald was one of the students that
had trouble coping with the reactions of the reader.
Several times in journals and conversations he mentioned his
frustration with the reader "taking over" his paper.
Apparently, most of the writing he had done previous to the
class had been what Flower refers to as writer based. He

wrote to please himself and operated under the assumption

170

that if he understood it, so did everyone else. Donald was
a clear writer; however, and most of the readers' comments
about his work had to do with nuances, or degree.

For one assignment in the class, Donald decided to
write an imaginary interview with Moses. He was very active
in his church and familiar with the Biblical story of Moses,
but to refresh his memory, and make certain of his facts he
reread the Bible and went to talk to his Pastor. His
original cluster had "talk with Moses" in the center and

nine stems comprised of the following: "Ten commandments,

Seeing Promised Land, Not allowed to enter Canaan,
childhood, burning bush, Speaking to Pharoh, Plagues,
Leaving Egypt, Roaming desert." As Donald did the research

for this paper the focus began to shift from an interview to
a discussion of Moses as an example of the elements of
leadership.

Because of the shifting and complicated nature of what
Donald was attempting, he decided to make two maps of his
drafts. The first was hierarchically arranged from the top
of the page to the bottom. At the top he wrote "Talk with
Moses." directly under that was "What I know"53 and, as an
offshoot of that section, was a list of six statements:
"baby, childhood, flees Egypt, returns to free slaves, Leads

Israelites into Siani, Ten.Commandments." Further down the

 

53. The students at my institution are taught
Macrorie's I-Search technique, although it was not required
on this assignment. Donald chose to use that particular
structure on his own.

 

171

page, under "What I Know" he wrote "What I think‘ I
know" with an offshoot containing four statements: "poor
speaker, got to know the Siani desert, inspired by events,
charismatic leader." Further down the main vertical line of
the map he wrote "what do I need to know" with an offshoot
containing four more statements: "True relationship with
God, Uncanny knowledge of the desert, how came up with 10
commandments, how maintained leadership."

Finally, at the bottom of the page he wrote, "Who do I
talk to" to which he added two offshoots, one going down
from the question which contained the name of a local
geography teacher, and another going off to the left of the
question that contained the name of his pastor.

What Donald had created was not only a plan for his
essay, but apparently a plan for himself as well. He talked
all through the project of the complexity of the task he had

chosen, yet, because of his interest in the topic, he wanted

to see it through. The blending of information and
procedures in the first map was entirely his own doing. It
was apparently not a truly conscious act. As he said, he

was mainly thinking of how to get the paper done, and how he
could get what he needed. He did not remember deciding to
draw up those decisions in a plan of action in a map. That
is what happened though because, as Donald went through the
steps he had laid out for himself in this map, talked to the
people, read and reread his sources, he came to the

conclusion that he needed a second map.

172

The second map is also a vertical hierarchy, but of a
much more complicated structure. Across the top of the page
from left to right is the title "Events in Moses' Life."
Underneath the title are six statements. From left to right
they read: "Infancy, educated in royal palace, murder
overseer, flees Egypt, Lives and marries in Siani peninsula,
learned to survive in the peninsula." The first four
statements are further categorized into the section "lst
forty years of life," and the last two are in a section
titled "2nd forty years of life." Diagonal lines run from
each of these division of Moses' life back to the center of
the page. Where they meet another vertical line is drawn
downward on which is written,"Confrontations with Pharoh"
Beneath this is a vertical list of the plagues visited on
the Egyptians. At the bottom of that list Donald wrote,
"Moses leads slaves from Egypt into Siani desert." A line
runs from this statement to the right side of the page and
then turns upward. There are nine statements along this
line. They are, from bottom to top, "Lack of food, Lack of
water, judicial problems, Ten commandments, Not born leader,
poor speaker, Lord was actual leader, predestination,
question." The first four of these statements is labeled
"3rd forty years of life," the next three are labeled
"Pastor," the last two are labeled "My thoughts." Pastor,
refers to information gained by an interview with the local

Reverend.

173

This second map may be a picture of a journey down,
around and back to a discovery of the context in which
Donald wanted to present his information. The top of the
second map is not much different from the first map, dealing
with mostly biographical and historical information about
the life of Moses. As the map reached the bottom of the
page; however, and turned back upward, the character of the
information changes. The first two divisions of Moses' life
into forty year segments deal with biographical information
such as "flees Egypt," but the third forty year segment
describes not biographical events, but problems (judicial,
survival) Moses' faced as the leader of the Jews.

The emphasis appears to be shifting away from merely
historical descriptions to something more analytical. It is
not a mistake that the third forty year division is not
connected to the first two. Donald said at this time he
began to focus in on Moses as a leader and became more
interested in the leader's later years. The section
subtitled "Pastor" also contains information that is not
merely historical. In this section is the statement, "not a
born leader." and right after that is the section labeled
"My Thoughts" in which is the statement "questions." Elbow,
among others has written about how some authors must write
their way to a topic. As writers, we are not always sure
what we want to say until we have said it. Donald's map may
be a visual representation of his search for a topic out of

his interest in Moses. The fact that the map begins with a

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straightforward historical organization and ends with the
word "questions" is significant of the journey Donald is
taking. It is as if he is manipulating his way through the
material trying to find a context in which it can be
developed. The map becomes a record of the steps along that
journey. Or, to borrow Elbow's metaphor, Donald's map may
have been the recipe that allowed him to cook the ideas
moving through his head.

The answer to the "question" at the end of the map is
going to be developed by retracing the steps of the map with
an eye towards Moses as a leader. That is what Donald did
in his final essay. Indeed, Donald mentions all of the
major, and most of the minor points listed on this map in
his essay. He starts out with the birth of Moses, but his
descriptions lean towards the political and social climate
from which Moses emerged as a leader, rather than reporting
the findings of his research. Statements like, "The Pharoh
eventually realized that the Hebrews were growing in
population and were a potential threat. to their
sovereignty." and "Moses really didn't consider himself a
leader," show the direction this simple historical narrative
has taken. Donald appears to be going back through the
information he collected in his map and recasting it in the
light of what he has decided is important now. Originally
he wanted to write a make believe interview with Moses.
What he ended up with was an analysis of leadership using

Moses as an example. The subject grew in him as he went

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through the steps, and the maps appeared to enable him to
keep a firmer footing through the shifting, liquid nature of
his information and his goals.

What happened to Donald reminds me of Shirley's
experience. Two elements are necessary for writing,
information, and a stance with which to organize that
information. Shirley had her stance first in her negative
feelings towards writing and her cluster reflected that
stance by the details she chose. Donald had information but
his stance changed as he worked through the details he
wished to include. In both cases the maps appeared to hold
some parts of the composing process static while others
changed, then became records for reference when the new
essay came into view. Even though Donald set goals and
changed them, it was not necessary for him to start all
over. Work he accomplished was saved and could be adapted
to the new direction. It seems to me he exemplified the
shifting nature of the goals writers set as they solve the
rhetorical problem which was discussed by Flower, described
in more detail in chapter one.

Special care had to be taken in helping the students
learn to get useful information from the maps readers did.
Often, in the pilot study particularly, students would
quantify information by looking to see if the same, or
similar key words were used, and if they were, pay little or
no attention to how those key words were organized. Setting

aside class time in the major study to deal with the problem

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of interpreting reader maps seemed to help. Students in the
major study made a conscious attempt, through discussion, to
interpret reader maps, whereas students in the pilot study
had merely checked them for similarity of information and
let it go at that.

THE READER'S VOICE

Annie Cabanero was not a student who often had trouble
discussing her readers' responses. A 25 year old transfer
student who earned a 3.3 grade point average at my
institution, Annie was a secretarial major just finishing up
what should have been the second term of a three term
program. Her writing was clear and straight forward, her
maps were generally of the flowchart variety and her
comments about readers' responses to her writing pragmatic
and positive. She seemed to have a good sense of what to do
with reader maps and often mentioned that they were helpful
in "fine tuning" her work.

For one of her assignments, Annie chose to write about
her experiences as a transfer student. Her first map
consisted of two horizontal rows across the page from left
to right. The first row had three boxes. Box one was
labeled with the name of the college which she had started
attending, and her major. Also in box one was the statement
"good attitude." Annie told me that referred to her
attitude when starting school. Box two describes her
experience at the first institution with the statement

"things went well." On top of the line running from box two

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to box three is written the word "Transfer." Box three
contains the name of my institution and the statements
"Curriculum change, new student, very frustrated, unable to
finish when expected." The second row of boxes is a
continuation of the top, also containing three boxes. Box
four is titled with the term date and contains the statement
"Problem with scheduling." Box five contains the date of

the next term and the statements "Could finish, no schedule,

possible full time." The last box also contains term date
for the subsequent session and the statements, "finally
finishing, independent study." Underneath these two rows of

boxes a line is drawn horizontally across the entire page.
Under that line, in the center of the paper is the statement
"Finally finished, took five terms rather than three."
Annie's paper follows this map very closely even taking the
exact statements from the boxes and turning them into full
sentences with explanatory examples attached.

The map her reader made is the more traditional, in
this class anyway, top down hierarchical type. At the top
is the is the name of my institution with four lines coming
out from underneath it. The first line goes down about a
half inch and then off to the left of the paper. At its end
is the statement "Transferred." Directly underneath this
statement is "Considered new student," and underneath that,
"Couldn't get classes. The second line coming out from the
main topic goes straight to the bottom of the page. At the

end of the line is the statement "Finishing in fall," and

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underneath that "Stayed with it even though frustration set
in." The third line coming off of the main topic goes about
half way down the page then turns to the right. At the end
is the statement "Have taken classes that would not
transfer," and below that "Attending longer than
anticipated." The fourth line from the main topic goes down
about a quarter of an inch, then turns right. At its end is
the statement "Quick quality education---quick employment."

Annie's map was done by a male student named Wayne
Fiscus. Even though Wayne and Annie were in the same self
help group and had talked about her paper on several
occasions; and even though Wayne was a transfer student
himself, he still produced a map that surprised Annie by its
construction. Her first concern with Wayne's map was the
fact that the experiences after she came to my institution
had not been kept together. She saw the essay as developing
chronologically and it bothered her that she could find no
way (top to bottom, or left to right) to read Wayne's map,
that way. In her comments she mentioned that she had
purposely started out her paper with some positive comments
about the college, yet it seemed Wayne had put those at the
end of the map.

After some study, she decided that the map was meant to
be read from top to bottom because the bottom talked about
finishing. Even though the lines for the statement came out
of the name of the institution at the top of the page, she

decided that they were really developments as the reader

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progressed down the central line of the map. That was why,
in her view, the good things she had to say about the
college were very close to the college name. Transferring
was, even though across the page, only slightly below the
college name. Finally, the statements about staying longer
than anticipated, again, even though across the page, were
just above the statements on finishing.

Annie was very happy that the term frustration came
through, and the fact that she was going to tough it out.
Those two elements were very important to her story and
provided the stance in which she described the events that
befell her. Once she had worked out a way to see the map as
a type of chronological development, her next concern was to
find a way to make the structure of her essay more visible
to the reader. Even though she had succeeded in
interpreting Wayne's map in a chronological fashion, she
remained concerned that her structural decisions could be
overlooked. She briefly considered using words like "First,
then, next," but finally decided to use paragraphing to help
show movement through time. Shirley decided to reduce the
amount of space given to talking about her previous
institution because the reader "Hadn't noticed it," and "it
wasn't that important anyway." She had considered
describing some other experiences she had, but decided in
light of Wayne's map that she had gotten her major point
across and outside of the new paragraph arrangement and the

cut down introduction, not many changes would be necessary.

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After she made these decisions, she put Wayne's map
aside and went about revising her essay. The revision, true
to its promise, contained four more paragraphs than the
draft. although there was actually less information in it.
due to the reduction (down to three sentences in the body of
the work) in the material about her old school.

Annie told me she used Wayne's map for two basic
purposes: organizational and as a measure of the response to
the stance she intended. Her first comment about the map
was that it did not reflect the chronological structure she
had intended for her essay. At first she placed the blame
for that discrepancy on the map, and not her essay. She
made several attempts to interpret the map chronologically
and was eventually successful. She decided that the
elements of the essay were listed chronologically on Wayne's
map by their proximity to the central idea at the top. It
is true that, when viewed this way the elements do list out
as they occur in the essay, but Wayne mentioned that he did
not choose this organizational scheme consciously. In fact,
Wayne did not recall choosing any particular scheme. He
stated that he just "reacted" to what he read "without
thinking too much about it." He also agreed that Annie's
interpretation of his map was a valid one and mentioned that
he "guessed" he knew how the essay was developed and so
"didn't pay a lot of attention to it." "It made me think of

my own problems with transferring," he wrote in one journal.

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It was obvious to me that Annie's essay was organized
chronologically. The first sentences of her body paragraphs
in the draft Wayne mapped were as follows: "I attended my
first term at [her old institutionl.; An unexpected move
came about and I had to transfer to [my institution].:
[which] considered me a new student rather than a returning
student.; I finally made it through my first term at [my
institution] and began planning for the next term." Frank
Smith. Louise Rosenblatt, and many others have written about
how the reader looks beyond the words for the meaning. This
appears to be what Wayne was doing. His own familiarity
with the subject, plus his association with Annie in the
editing groups, may have caused him to look into the essay
for meanings. Because of this, he may have paid less
attention to the structure of the essay than he might
otherwise. In addition, by choosing the standard
development structure of the narrative essay, chronology,
Annie may have confirmed Wayne's expectations about the
structure of what he was to read, so he may not have paid
much notice to something that he expected to see.

Annie's insistence on interpreting the map according to
her plan is a noteworthy development. She was, by her own
admission, not a confident writer. She did not like
writing, but admitted her main problem was her "attitude,"
not her abilities. Annie had consciously chosen to develop
her essay as she had, and felt that she had done an adequate

job. Her refusal to abandon that belief in the face of

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conflicting information is indicative of one of the ways she
used reader maps. Annie's first loyalty was to her essay.
She did not merely accept the discrepancy between Wayne's
map and her goals. She tried to find a way to fit the
reader's comments into the framework of the essay with the
least amount of disturbance. Annie felt very strongly about
the basic organizational decisions she made and the
emotional stance she tried to create. Within that framework
she was very willing to listen to what the reader had to
say, but comments about these two elements generally
provoked defensive reactions and searches for
interpretations that would fit with the decisions she had
already made.

Annie was quite pleased that Wayne used the phrase
"stayed with it even though frustration set in," as one of
the elements of his map. She was also pleased that he
placed it at the end of the map as she saw that particular
point as the climax of her essay. Wayne mentioned that he
knew, both from the reading and the group work, that Annie
was feeling frustrated with the obstacles she had
encountered as a transfer student, and, indeed he had felt
that frustration also, when he transferred. He also knew
that Annie was determined to "tough it out." The
interaction between the two in their groups casts a shadow
of doubt over the role of the reader's map here, but Wayne
did not know that Annie considered determination in the face

of frustrating circumstances to be the high point of her

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essay. While the appearance of the statement may not have
come solely from his reading, Wayne's placement of the
phrase at the end of the map may denote that Annie was
successful in her organizational placement of the section.

I asked Annie if it concerned her that, even though she
intended her work to illustrate the frustration she felt as
a transfer student, Wayne had only mentioned it once in the
entire map. She indicated it did not because the term was
there, and that had been what she wanted. Annie looked
first for the similarities between what she intended and how
the reader responded. If there was any connection between
the two at all, even if it was a single word, she appeared
to be satisfied.

The essays we wrote were all of the non fiction prose
variety, and the emphasis of the class was on learning to
develop a thought. That may have contributed to her
acceptance of even the slightest indication that her thought
had been received, but Annie was also concerned with her own
emotional stance within the tOpic and with keeping the
"interest" of the reader. At first it appeared to me that
she was using the reader maps as a "reality check" to see if
she was being understood on a literal level. When I asked
her about the degree of frustration she described in her
essay, she did not appear to understand that maps could be
used as gauges of the depth of her description, or the

degree of detail they included, and that this depth and

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degree contributed to the involvement and interest on the
reader's part.

I knew it was not because she was unaware of what to do
in these situations because we often talked about how to
make the reader see something that the writer considered
important, or to spend less time with an issue the writer
considered minor. In fact we had a saying that developed
over the course of the term: "If they can't see it, make it
bigger; if they can't see past it, make it smaller." What
this referred to was the degree of detail a writer put into
a particular element. This increase in the size of a
particular element could be handled quantitatively by simply
adding more words, or qualitatively, by carefully choosing
the words used. Conversely, if the reader seemed to attach
too much attention to a particular passage, similar
techniques could be employed to reduce- the visibility of
that passage.

Annie's decision to accept the level of Wayne's
response may be indicative of how she viewed the function of
writing. In speaking with her and in reading her journals
as the term progressed, I got the impression that her
concept of writing was limited to that which Britton refers
to as transactional. She was most concerned with the
transmission of intellectual over emotional elements, and
even though she had felt great frustration as a transfer
student, she was apparently willing to accept only an

intellectual response to that frustration on Wayne's part.

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A CODA FOR "TRADITIONAL" MAPS

In summary, it appears that the clusters and maps
participated in several important stages of the writing
process for my students. Clusters allowed Shirley to
isolate elements of her thought. Because she was able to
produce something on paper at once, without the added
pressure of form, or threat of evaluation against some
standard, clusters appear to have helped her get off on the
right foot as she began the composing journey. Judging from
her reaction, this apparently affected her attitude in a
positive way and increased her sense of control over the
undertaking. The clusters also may have operated as a tool
of analysis giving Shirley a vehicle with which to break
down the elements of her attitude towards a particular
topic.

Donald's maps appear to have assisted in the next step
of the composing process by allowing him to control the
development of his essay and change direction without an
unacceptable amount of wasted effort. Donald's experience is
a good example of how fluid and changing all the elements of
the composing process can be. Hardly anything stands still
once the procedure is initiated. Ideas ebb and flow,
priorities change, decisions are suggested, made and
abandoned, new information comes into play and always there
is the task of placing the result into the sometimes

confining shape of words on a page.54

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Psychologists and psycholinguists from Huey to Frank
Smith tell us we can only concentrate our attention on a
small area of our environment at any given time. Donald's
maps may have provided a way for him to focus and record his
ideas throughout the diverse, often contradictory demands of
composition. Like taking a number at the local butcher's
shop, maps may have allowed Donald to better serve the
clamoring ideas entering the organizational shop.

Wayne's map, on the other hand, appeared to give Annie
a measure of how her essay was being received on both
fronts, informational and emotional. In a situation that
may be analogous to the one I am describing, much of modern
management theory touts the benefits of "shared authority"
rather than the old hierarchical, autocratic, "Top down"
style that characterized American corporations in the first
two thirds of this century. Wayne's map may have given
"labor" as it were, a say so in the finished product. Lack
of awareness of the reader by Annie could have created an
autocratic approach to composition: a "What's good for
General Bullmoose is good for the USA" approach to
communicating in written form.

Wayne's map may have been the visualization that opened
lines of communication between author and audience.
Together with Annie's map they can become the minutes of a

negotiating meeting, recording decisions, priorities and

 

54. This process is described in more detail by Flower,
cited in chapter one.

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reactions from two different bases, and providing the
foundation for a successful agreement, what management
theorists call a "win-win" situation.

Wayne's feedback during the production stage
complicated Annie's compositional problem somewhat, but may
have had a role in producing what both students felt was a
better result, just as quality circles in the auto plants
are intended to help to produce better cars.

"NEW AGE" MAPPING

The writing software I exposed the students to is
called "Writer's Helper Stage II," written by William Wresch
of the University of Wisconsin and published by Conduit Inc.
According to the introduction in the user's manual it is, "a
collection of activities to help students write and revise
essays. The activities, appropriate for a variety of
writing assignments, are arranged into two major sections:
Prewriting Activities [and] Revising Tools." The major
sections contain three subsections with between three and
nine activities each. The software is menu driven for the
most part, and does not presuppose a great deal of computer
knowledge on the part of the user. It purports to take the
student from initial idea generation all the way to finished
product.

I will focus my description on Kathy Martin, a 36 year
old adult student returning to school to pursue training in
a secretarial field. Her writing was generally clear and

relatively free from mechanical error, but as fits the

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research profile for adult learners, she was unsure of her
abilities and apprehensive about competing with traditional
students in the classroom. She had some computer experience
previous to my class and was familiar with common word
processing softwares. Kathy liked using the word processor
for her papers and, even without using Writer's Helper, had
been turning in assignments done on computers.

The paper she chose to write using the software was to
be an argumentative essay. Her eventual thesis was that
teen pregnancies could be reduced if the government
supported strong sex education programs in the schools,
banned government funded abortions and used that money to
fund more teen pregnancy prevention programs. When she
started the project: however, she just had a notion that she
wanted to write about teen pregnancies because she had the
feeling that not enough was being done to prevent them in
the first place.

PREWRITING ELECTRONICALLY

Kathy started with the first subsection of Prewriting
called Find. Find contains six activities which are:
Starters, Idea Wheel, Associations, Questioner, Lists and
Brainstorms. Starters gives an initial phrase or statement
for students to react to such as "After losing control of
the...," or, "In 1970, 43% of U.S. adult males smoked: now
the figure is 35%." This activity is primarily designed for
"students who never know what to say" according to the

manual and, since Kathy already had an idea of what her

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paper was to be about she did not complete this exercise.
In fact, even though Kathy tried all of the activities in
this section, she could not find one that she felt helped
her personally.

In her journal though, she mentioned Associations and
Questioner specifically as useful exercises for someone who
had not already made up his or her mind on the topic.
Associations is an activity that provides cue words to which
students react however they please. This is similar to
clustering, except the computer is providing the central
word. Initially the computer draws from a list of 15 cue
words such as Sleep, Copperhead Snake, Saxophone, or Movie
Stars to name a few, but it can be programmed to list
whatever words the instructor, or student might desire.
Because Kathy had already clustered out her ideas around
teen pregnancy, she did not complete this activity.

Questioner is similar to Association except that it
uses rhetorical questions as a basis for the students
connections. The machine can generate 21 different
questions ranging from, "Who is the strangest person you
know?" to, "Is a college degree necessary to be successful
in life?" It can also be modified to ask specific
questions. Students respond to the questions as much or as
little as they wish. Those responses are saved and can be
called back up in later, more organizational exercises.
This is also similar to clustering because responses are

simply recorded and no attempt is made to organize, or

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prioritize them at this stage. Kathy mentioned that there
were some interesting questions in this section that, again,
if she had not already decided on a topic, would have been
useful. Even though Kathy had made some initial decisions
about her paper, she still responded positively to the
activities which resembled clustering.

THE COMPUTER AS COACH

The next subsection under Prewriting is called Explore
and it contains six activities. As with the activities in
the Find subsection, Kathy was not able to use some of these
drills as they were designed because she had chosen her
topic, but she did go through them in an attempt to get help
with her paper. One in particular that she wrote about was
Three Ways Of Seeing which, according to the manual is based
on RHETORIC: DISCOVERY AND CHANGE by Pike, Becker and Young.

This activity allows the student to choose a topic,
then asks a series of 12 to 15 questions about that topic.
The questions are organized into three groups: isolation
questions, such as "What would be a good brief description
of [the topicl," process questions, such as, "What has
changed about the importance of [the topic]" and network
questions, such as, "What about your subject is worse than
other [topics]." Kathy did not like this activity at all.
She found it very time consuming (even the manual admitted
that) and much too complicated. "You get bogged down in the
details and forget what you're supposed to be writing

about," she wrote.

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I suggested (as did the manual) that she just go
through one group of questions rather than all three. Kathy
thought that would help, but I got the feeling she did not
see much value in the activity. She wanted to focus her
efforts rather than diffuse them. Kathy felt "bogged down"
as she went through this exercise because each way of seeing
opened new possibilities for her. She was being presented
with more and more choices at precisely the time she was
trying to limit herself. Kathy did not have trouble
generating ideas, in fact she admitted that she generated
too many at times. Her experience generating ideas may
reflect the writings of Graves, discussed in chapter two.
In addition, her expressed desire to get on with the
business of organizing the goals of her paper may contain
elements of the findings of Flower described in chapter one.

Three Ways Of Seeing may have prolonged and complicated
what, for Kathy turned out to be the shortest stage in the
entire process: generating an idea that could be developed.
Like Annie, who had decided on her chronological
organizational pattern and did not accept the complication
Wayne's map provided, but adapted it to her goals, Kathy had
already decided on her topic and stance by this point, and
did not accept the complication offered by this activity.

The other activity Kathy tried in this subsection is
called Audience. In this activity students are asked a
series of questions about their topic and their intended

audience. Kathy had trouble with this activity. She knew

192

her essay would be read by others in her group, and by me,
but apparently she had never thought as specifically about
her audience as the activity asked her to do. She mentioned
questions such as "What's the best thing to be said about
your readers," and "How does your audience feel about your
subject" as being troublesome. Eventually she concluded
that to answer these questions she would have to go back and
ask them to her group. Kathy mentioned this activity was
only useful in a classroom setting when the writer and
reader were in close proximity. Beyond that, and in most
realistic writing situations according to Kathy, the writer
must make assumptions.

When I asked Kathy how she. dealt with the issue of
audience herself, she told me that she assumed her readers
would be like her in most respects, but she "imagined they
didn't agree with my conclusion" for this particular
assignment. Kathy, was in a secretarial training program
and she had worked in offices in the past. Her global
conceptions of audience had apparently worked well for her
in before and she indicated that she saw no need to dig any
further into who was reading what she wrote.

From what Kathy indicated, I got the impression that
she knew there were readers and she made adjustments for
them in her own fashion. She did not see the value of a
closer study of the reader though, just as Annie did not see
that a closer study of the reader maps could produce some

qualitative differences in her work.

193

The last activity Kathy tried in this subsection was
called Connections. In this activity the student lists from
seven to 20 phrases that relate to the topic. The machine
duplicates this list and the two lists are placed side by

side on the screen and "spun" so that random connections are

made between the phrases. The point of the activity,
according to the manual, is "to help students examine
connections they might otherwise ignore." Kathy found this
exercise to be "complicated" and "no help for me." I saw

similarities between this activity and "Three Ways Of
Seeing." The purpose of both is to broaden the options the
writer has in terms of approach to the topic. Like Donald,
Kathy was not averse to changing directions as she developed
the work, but as long as she felt she was making progress
she apparently did not feel the need to confound the issue
by bringing in, what was, she indicated, extrinsic issues.

THE COMPUTER AS TEMPLATE

The last subsection in the Prewriting group is called
Organize and contains eight activities. Kathy found this
subsection to be the most helpful of the entire package.
The first activity Kathy tried was Debating an Issue.
According to the manual it "is designed to help
students...by having them list all they know about both
sides of an argument." The machine keeps track of the
number of items in each list and prompts the students to
keep the lists similar in length. Kathy went trough the

exercise using her teen pregnancy thesis. She wrote three

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statements that supported her argument and three that did
not. In a notebook that she kept to record her reactions to
the exercises she wrote, "The program then told me that my
opposing points were now listed first and supporting points
were last because they were in a stronger location. Most
people remember what they read last. Each opinion can be
used as a topic sentence of a paragraph."

Kathy appreciated the organizational tips the machine
provided more than the actual exercise itself. Her final
essay reflected the organizational structure suggested by
the computer. This type of advice appears to be exactly
what Kathy was looking for. She mentioned in an interview
that she did not feel it was difficult to come up with
opposing points to her argument because she had been talking
to members of her group and also doing some statistical
research in the library. -

At first I was concerned that Kathy seemed so willing
to accept what the computer suggested, but in talking to her
as her paper developed I began to get a better sense of what
her priorities really were. Kathy's first concern in this
paper was content. The time she did not spend in the
computer room was spent in the library researching the
issue. In fact, her final paper contains a great deal of
statistical support for her position. She had been a
pregnant teen herself, and had several friends who were
pregnant as teenagers. -Perhaps that contributed to the ease

with which she relinquished the organizational decisions

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about her paper to the computer so that she could
concentrate on the content.

Like Shirley, who had strong feelings about writing and
discovered statements that reflected those feelings for her
cluster, or Donald, who knew he wanted to write about Moses,
but had to search out how he wanted to say it, or even Annie
who believed her essay was constructed chronologically and
was unwilling to let Wayne's map go until she could
interpret it that way, Kathy appears to have made some non-
negotiable decisions about her essay, and some about which
she was willing to be influenced. To refer again to Piaget,
discussed by Petrie in chapter one, it appeared Kathy was
willing to assimilate new information into the structure of
her paper, but she did not appear willing to make
accommodations in the structure itself.

Structure Guide was the name of the next activity Kathy
used. This activity "supplies standard templates or
outlines for major reports" according to the manual. The
student choses a format such as "General scientific paper,"
or "History report" and the computer provides some formulaic
information about that type of writing. Kathy had a little
trouble deciding in which category to place her essay,
finally settling on "Sociology Report." The information
provided by the computer was general and did not seem to fit
very closely with Kathy's idea of what her essay was like.

She looked through some of the other formats and commented

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in her journal that, even though it was not much help to her
"it looks to be a great help in class reports."

Apparently Kathy was attracted to specific types of
advice such as that given her in the Debating an Issue
activity. The comments about sociological reports were
general and not attached to any one topic. It seemed Kathy
was not just window shopping through the software. She had
an idea of what she wanted, and that was specific advice
that related to the goals she had set out for this
assignment. While she appeared open minded enough to see
how some elements of the software may be helpful in other
settings, she has no interest in pursuing them. The work
was before her and her attention was focused on getting
through it as quickly and with the least amount of
disruption to her plan as she could manage.

The next activity Kathy used in this subsection was
Developing a Paragraph. According to the manual "The
activity is based on one model for paragraph construction-a
two part paragraph with an initial assertion, followed by
several sentences of support or explanation." The student

can choose between descriptive and argumentative paragraph

formats. Kathy chose argumentative, and described the
activity this way: "I liked this. I typed in 6 sentences.
Program put them altogether for me in a paragraph." Kathy

was a competent enough writer that her paragraphs did become

more specific as they developed. The computer made no

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distinction about the six sentences, it merely put them
together in paragraph form.

There is a tutorial before the exercise that discusses
the purpose and structure of argumentative paragraphs, but
it presupposes a level of familiarity with paragraph form.
Kathy did not use this activity to help with every paragraph
in her essay and she did evaluate the computer's
organizational decisions, eventually changing the order of
sentences in a paragraph. In actual fact though, Kathy was
evaluating her own decisions because the computer merely
created a paragraph from the list of sentences she provided.
I mentioned this to her one time and she agreed, but still
liked the idea that the computer allowed her to work with
the arrangement of sentence size chunks of essay after they
were originally installed in the work.

Like the maps Donald made on his way to understanding
what it was he wanted to say about Moses, Kathy appreciated
the fact that when revisions were necessary they could be
done with a minimum of effort and no loss of ground. She
mentioned that sometimes revision "depressed" her because
she had the feeling she was starting all over again with her
essay. She liked the fact that she could deal with larger
units of text on the computer and that there was no
commitment on her part to a particular way of writing
something as there was when she wrote on paper. Kathy's use
of the word "chunks" reflects the thought of psycholinguists

such as Ney, discussed in chapter one. Perhaps the computer

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enabled Kathy to make better use of her short term memory by
allowing her to increase the efficiency with which she
processed data.

The last activity Kathy tried in the Prewriting section
was Five Paragraph Theme. As the name implies, this is an
activity in which "Students start with an introductory
paragraph which contains a thesis statement, follow with
three paragraphs which prove or describe the thesis and end
with a one paragraph conclusion." Although Kathy's essay
ended up containing 11 paragraphs, this was the activity
from which, according to her, she got the most benefit. "It
was the most useful to me," she wrote, "I supplied the
subject, answered some questions, typed in the sentences and
was amazed at the results. The computer wrote my paragraphs
for me using my sentences." The machine prompted Kathy with
some general questions such as "What is your subject,
Describe the importance of [your subject], and who is your
audience," accepted whatever she responded with, and
incorporated that into the work.

The computer would not let her move to the next step of
the activity until she had completed the step she was on,
and it wanted all responses to be in complete sentences
which it then organized into paragraph form. Kathy was a
strong enough writer to respond appropriately to the
questions and, by this point she had done more background
research on her topic, so she had some statistical

information to supplement her views and ideas. This

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activity did occasion a little difficulty for Kathy as she
was not always ready with three responses to the prompts.
For some of her topics she had two, for some four or five
support sentences, so she felt limited by the unyielding
nature of the structure.

I noticed that in the final paper she added in support
to those sections where she had more than three ideas, but
she also left in the responses she had made to sections
where she was forced to come up with more support than she
had available in her plan. This tended to give her paper an
uneven feel in terms of the priority of information she
presented, and, since the sentences were generated in
isolation from the essay as a whole, some of her transitions
were weak, or missing altogether. Kathy was aware of this
after the fact, but she had not noticed it during the
process. As with the other organizational activities Kathy
appeared to let the machine do the work for her. This time,
however she was not totally satisfied with the result and
did retake control of some aspects of the process.

Her final draft still had 11 paragraphs and some work
had been done on transitions. I got the distinct impression
from Kathy, that she felt the computer was taking over some
of the "grunt work" of writing and enabling her to
concentrate on what she felt were more important things.
Perhaps, with reference to the work of Shaughnessy among
others, Kathy fit the profile of a good writer by focusing

on the global issues. Perhaps the machine allowed her to

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focus on these elements to the detriment of the other aspect
of her essay.

THE COMPUTER AS LAWGIVER

The second section of Writer's Helper is called
Revising and also contains three subsections: Structure,
Audience and Checks, each containing between three and nine
activities. The emphases in this section are highly
mechanical and syntactical in nature. Under Structure, for
instance, one of the activities is Subordinate Clauses;
under Audience, To Be Verbs; and under Checks, Homonyms.
Kathy was a strong writer in these areas and her essays were
generally free of mechanical and syntactical errors. Never-
the-less she went through some of these activities . Aside
from the novelty of listing her prepositions, or readability
index, she saw little useful for her in these exercises.
She mentioned in her journal that she thought this section
would be more helpful to writers in the first English class.
I think that because she was familiar with word processing
softwares previous to using Writer's Helper, she may have
preferred the spell checker and grammar checker used in
those softwares. I also got the impression from her that
this section may have told her more than she wanted to. know
about the structure of her writing. She indicated that she
was satisfied with her paper at this point and did not see
how a close study of these aspects of her writing would be

useful to her.

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I found some interesting parallels between Kathy's
experience with Writer's Helper and the experiences of the
whole class with other spatial visualizations. For example,
in the class I found that the time of open brainstorming was
relatively short, and immediately following it came
narrowing types of decisions. Even students who were not
certain of their ,topic when they began clustering did not
spend a large amount of time generating ideas. Most time
was spent on organizing those ideas from rough decisions
about order to final thoughts about degree of detail. It
was not unusual for one of my students to spend five or ten
minutes generating a cluster, then spend several class
periods organizing it. To the best of my knowledge, no
student spent more than 30 minutes in the clustering phase
of composing, and most spent less than 15.

There was another parallel between the activities of
the class and the experiences Kathy had with the software,
and that was in the area of free writing. All of the
students in the class had been exposed to free writing prior
to the study, and we practiced some free writing activities
throughout the term as one example of ways to approach a
topic. I noticed as the term progressed, however, that my
students seemed to prefer clustering to free writing. I did
not notice this as it happened and it was not until after
the term was over and I was looking over Kathy's comments
about an activity in the Prewriting section called

Brainstorming that I saw the pattern. Brainstorming is

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essentially a-free writing activity. In this activity Kathy
was allowed to write quickly about anything she could. The
computer did not allow her to go back and, if she paused for
too long it cued her to start writing again. Kathy
mentioned that, while it would be useful on occasion, she
much preferred Association and Questioner because they were
"easier" and she could "write quite a few papers using these
topics."

Clustering is a non-linear form of free writing,
stripped of the need for any traditional structure. Flower
and Shaughnessy, among others, have written about how basic
writers focus on mechanical, or local aspects of writing
rather than global ones. It would seem that, even in a free
writing situation, those attitudes could come into play.
Clustering and, to a lesser degree, the activities
Associations and Questioning, remove the possibility of
focusing on these attributes because of their non-
syntactical approach to idea generation.

COMPUTERS AND "PRODUCTIVITY"

The second software I exposed the students to was
ThinkTank which is not designed specifically for writing.
The manual describes it as a "productivity tool that helps
you plan and manage the daily routine of your work...For
example, you can use ThinkTank's powerful idea processing to
create, edit and rearrange the action items on your 'To Do'
lists...You can write most of your ideas, notes and memos in

ThinkTank documents." It is these attributes which most

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lend themselves to composition. Even though ThinkTank uses
a basic Harvard outline format, its flexibility in terms of
movement of ideas, and restructuring of what has been
written, is similar to other visualization techniques. In
addition, the students using ThinkTank could essentially
grow one map from another and, by saving their work, or
printing it out along the way, maintain a reference of
previous work. ThinkTank is much more focused than Writer's
Helper: however, in that it only provides an outlining
function. In the end, students had to go to another
wordprocessing software to write their papers. They could,
of course, take their maps with them, but even if they did
write in sentences on the outline, ThinkTank did not create
their paragraphs for them as "Writer's Helper" had.
ThinkTank was a little more complicated to use. Like
Writer's Helper it was menu driven, but lacked the easily
accessed help tutorials. It also required a little more
background computer knowledge on the part of the user than
Writer's Helper: however, the students who completed an
exercise on it found that they only used certain aspects of
the program, and did not need to learn all of its commands.
Some of the functions, such as certain templates that dealt
with names and addresses, or project time lines, did not
lend themselves to what the students were trying to do, so
no attention was given to them, All in all, I believe that
the students used about 30%-40% of the capabilities of the

software.

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It took students anywhere from two to four hours of
practicing before they felt comfortable enough to try and
use ThinkTank in developing a paper of their own. The
higher level of complexity, coupled with the fact that only
one format, the standard vertical outline, was available,
may have contributed to the fact that only three students
worked through the software to the point where they had
created a usable map from which they developed an essay.
One of these three students later abandoned the ThinkTank
outline in favor of a hand drawn map. The map he created,
often using material from the ThinkTank outline, was what
grew to be the standard hierarchical top down type of map.
I asked him if he preferred one or the other type of map and
he said he did not have a strong preference, but liked his a
little better because it "spread out" on the page more and
he could "see" it better. By this I think he meant that the
ThinkTank outline is a vertical line down the page with
points and subpoints underneath one another, but this
student's map was more like a wiring diagram in shape, with
the three major subpoints arranged horizontally across the
page underneath the major point which was at the top center
of the paper.

The student I will focus my description on is Daniel
Auschlander, a Business Management major in his second year.
He is an adult student, Vietnam veteran, and owner, with his
brother, of a small family business. Daniel enjoyed writing

and often wrote extra credit papers and projects in his

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other classes. His writing was generally clear, but he did
suffer from some mechanical problems, most notably spelling.
Soon after coming to my institution he took one of the
wordprocessing classes and learned to use the spelling
checker as well as the software, and did almost all of his
papers on the computer. He was very familiar with the
computer both as a wordprocessor and as a business tool,
having taken computerized accounting and database management
classes as well. This familiarity, coupled with his own
natural interest in the machines, probably contributed to
his completion of the project. Daniel was familiar with
ThinkTank before he did his paper on it, having done several
of the familiarization exercises and studied the manual for
quite some time prior to beginning. In fact, he withheld
his acceptance of my invitation to participate until he had
the time to study the manual and the software on his own.

The other students, who did not finish a project using
ThinkTank, told me that they stopped because they thought
the software too complicated, or it was just "easier" to do
the mapping by hand. One student in particular commented
that he had not liked outlining in high school and saw no
reason to like it now just because he was "doing it on a
computer instead of in [his] notebook."

The paper Daniel chose to do using ThinkTank was based
around the development of a fictitious business called
"Kollege Klothes Shop." It contained fifteen major sections

on the financing, staffing and supplying and marketing of

206

the enterprise as well as an introductory citation. Daniel
felt that, using the major headings as sections in his
outline, he could better organize the minor points under
them, and thus would not "forget" any. After some initial

difficulty getting started, he began to enter his major and

minor points. I noticed at one session that he was working
from a set of notes. I asked him if he had previously
organized his information and he replied that he had. I

asked him what use the computer was if he had already done
the outline on paper. He replied that it was good for him
to do the "prep work" on paper, then enter it into the
program. After he had done that, he could go back through
the outline and put in "later thoughts." It appeared that
Daniel was using the software to polish, rather than create
his essay's organization. I asked how he came up with later
thoughts and he replied that he would look through each
major section of the outline and ask himself if he had
anything more to say.

This approach was particularly evident in a section
titled "Personnel Policies Recommended For Kollege Klothes,"
which grew from just "Training and Development" in Daniel's
notes to "Training," "Development," "Compensation,"
"Benefits," "Interviewing Techniques," "Recruiting,"
"Development of a comprehensive management plan to utilize
human resources," "Internships," "State and Federal Laws
regarding hiring/firing," "The rights of the individual,"

and "Federal statistics that relate to the personnel issue."

207

Here Daniel was using the entered sections as a prompt for
more of a clustering activity. By focusing on the
informational phrases he entered under each major point of
his essay and trying to generate more ideas he was
revisiting the idea generation stage of the compositional
process. Daniel appeared to be exhibiting the progressive
recursive nature of the writing process.

As with the other types of spatial visualization, the
computer acted as a record keeper, so that Daniel's later
attempts at invention could build upon what had gone before,
rather than begun again after the initial track had been
lost in a flood of competing and conflicting ideas. Like
Kathy, Daniel came to the sessions apparently having made
certain decisions, and with certain goals in mind. Like
Annie, Daniel had decided on the basic outline of his essay
and his primary concern appeared to be fitting new
information into the cast he had chosen. In fact, most of
Daniel's comments, both written and verbal, centered around
the program's ability to help him with the placement of his
ideas and the development of the project in general. This
fits with the overall design of ThinkTank, in that it bills
itself as an organizer and planner rather than an idea
generator.

On several occasions, however, Daniel used the program
for more than organization. In one session particularly, I
listened as he went through a verbal protocol using the

previously entered information "Credit Selling and Financial

208

Plans" as a base. Several times he would ask himself if
"That's where I want that," but he seemed to spend more time
wondering aloud if, "That's all I want there." Often, even
though I had asked him to think out loud, he would pause and
look silently at the screen. When I asked him what he was
thinking about, his answers inevitably centered around the
addition of points. He wondered at one juncture if he should
include an explanation of federal laws on credit card sales.
Eventually he decided to just include a copy of the laws.
It appeared to me that Daniel was dealing with large
rhetorical issues similar to those described by Flower in
"The Pregnant Pause: An Inquiry Into The Nature Of
Planning," discussed in chapter one.

ThinkTank allows the user to change not only the length
of the outline but the relative importance of the elements
within it as well. On five or six occasions, after Daniel
had added a piece of information he would change the
relationship between the various elements in that particular
section as well. For instance, as he was finishing up the
section on "Break Even Analysis" the need for visual aids
occurred to him. As he thought about the aids he would need
it became evident that, due to the heavy statistical nature
of that section, it would be easier to rely on them rather
than use them as adjuncts to the narrative. Eventually he
moved visual aids to the top position in the outline and
renamed the section "Break Even Charts." Daniel mentioned

that as he added new points and subpoints he also "saw" new

209

relationships between them and his previously entered
information. I asked him what part the program played in
this and he said that the outline format could let him see
the "essentials" without the "clutter" of full sentences.
In fact that comment was the basis of Daniel's overall
favorable opinion about the software. Like Kathy, who had
already decided on her topic, Daniel also appeared to be
searching for ways to improve. The foundational decisions
about his essay had already been made and, even though he
returned to invention as he went through the outline, the
overriding concern appeared to be with placing new
information into his organizational format.

Daniel spent approximately three hours with ThinkTank
before he decided the outline was completed enough to print
out and take to the wordprocessor to use as a guide in
writing his essay. Most of that time'was taken up with
viewing the entered information and deciding if "there was
anything missing." The next largest chunk of time was taken
up with rearranging the information based on new
relationships. Actually putting information in, once
initial difficulties with the software were overcome,
comprised the least amount of time. All in all Daniel was
satisfied that the software increased his "efficiency," but
I wonder how much use it would have been had he not made a
great many decisions before approaching it.

Daniel did not return to ThinkTank after he printed out

his adjusted outline, although he did make more changes. He

210

showed me the copy of the outline he printed out and there
were several arrows written on it moving information up or
down a level as well as a few notes to himself, and even
scratch outs of some subpoints listed previously. Daniel
admitted he was "thinking right up to the end" and even
moved some information after he had entered in into the
wordprocessor.

Perhaps the fluid nature of the composition process is
more suited to the ethereal nature of computer screens .than
the hard copy of ink and paper. Daniel seemed to think so.
After the project was over he mentioned that he thought he
would continue using the computer to "set up" his essay. He
liked the idea that sentences were not necessary, but when I
told him he could just as easily write his ideas on a piece
of paper as type them into a computer he mentioned that
computers are not "permanent." He felt that, even if he
could train himself to "Write like I type" it would not be
the same as watching his thoughts fill a computer screen.

In the next chapter I will discuss, in a little more
detail, my views on the implications of what has occurred
here, but, it certainly appears that, at the very least,
spatial visualization, whether it be on paper or electronic,
has a part to play in liberating the students from what they
view as the limits of the printed page, and the comitment

it takes to place words, in order, upon it.

CHAPTER FIVE: INDICATIONS

I call this chapter indications rather than
conclusions, and mean that term to be taken in its medical
sense of pointing the way towards diagnosis.55 Like the
specialist my view is essentially vertical. I have looked
into one particular instance, and offer my opinions based on
that experience. To be completely meaningful, this study
must be viewed as a part of the total system in which
students become writers. Its usefulness will be shown in
its relation to other elements in that system, and its
meaning will further unfold as it takes a place in the
process of turning individual indications into wholistic
diagnoses. In that sense this chapter does not close the
study, but begins it.

As I read over the material I collected throughout the
class, I was reminded of the term physicists use to describe
mathematical relationships among the differing aspects of
the universe: elegance. I believe that term is applicable
to the relationship between the writer and the written. I
tried to be as inclusive as possible in my study, but I
could see that for every element on which my attention was
focused, there were others that played at the edge of

awareness. Those shapes, at times only dimly perceived,

 

55. I am not implying that I view the writing of my
students as unhealthy. I intend the term diagnosis to be
taken in its complete medical sense. For example, good lung
sounds and a strong heart beat can be indications leading to
a diagnosis of wellness.

212

coupled with the aspects of the process on which I was
able to focus, have given me an inkling of the tremendous
interplay of harmonies and discords that result in
meaningful marks on a page.

Speaking from an instructor's standpoint, increasing
the visibility of here-to-fore unseen elements of writing
through spatial visualizations, allowed me to reduce my own
visibility. I found that maps let me get out of the way and
increaSed the potential for discovery as my students worked
through the process. In a sense, the students created their
own text as the went through the class. This text not only
included models, which were the end product of their labors,
but also a record of the steps they went through in the
creation of discourse. What the students turned in at the
end of the term reflected their own personal journey towards
an understanding of what it means to capture ideas on paper.

The study identified two major currents which I will
use as organizing principals for this chapter. The first,
global current, was the one in which students tried to find
meaning in the total environment of the class. Through a
mixture of the familiar and not so familiar, their own past
and their. shared experiences, they understood their way
through the second English course they were required to take
at my institution. The second, local current, was the one
in which they tried to incorporate spatial visualization
techniques into their repertoire of usable skills. This was

the focus of the study, but it should not be discussed in

213

isolation. A universe of meaning was created in my class,
and any element of the universe should be described both for
what it is, and placed in its proper relation to other
aspects of its environment.

From a global standpoint it appears the maps helped
students focus their attention in more inclusive areas.
Also, they appeared to be able to open two way lines of
communication with their readers The results of that
communication were an increase in confidence on the part of
the writer, a broadening of the sense of what writing is and
an increase in the pool of available ideas for invention and
composition.

It is possible to discuss the maps in isolation, if it
is kept in mind that this is an academic exercise. Like the
experimenter who goes into the lab and mixes two chemicals
together to see what happens, I attempted to strip away
context and observe the naked elements of mapping. I
discovered that maps identify ideas, put those ideas in

order and reflect how that order is perceived.

Maps that identified ideas were called clusters in my
study. I was reminded of how a crystal grows as I watched
the students' clusters take shape on the page, spreading,
branching, eventually covering almost an entire sheet, and
each branch containing the germ of an idea. Just getting
started was, at times the most daunting part of the

composition process for my students. Few things, to hear my

214

students tell, were more intimidating than that massive,
empty, blank sheet of paper. To meet this challenge, my
students used clusters as an undifferentiated, non-linear
form of free writing. Of all the mapping techniques we
studied, this was the one I feel most closely fit the needs
my students had while generating ideas. They told me it
took the pressure off and allowed for concentration on
ideas. Clustering cut my students' internal editor out of
the loop most efficiently, it appeared to me, and made it
possible for them to excuse themselves from grammatical and
structural concerns. With clusters I feel my students were
able to maintain control over the often furious aspects of
idea generation. Later, their clusters could be studied as
an approach vehicle for the subsequent stages of the
composing process.

I had intended clustering to be a part of a larger
strategy for dealing with the problems caused by the
composition process. My students, however, no matter what
their reaction to the other elements of the class, took to
clustering most wholeheartedly, and, if their comments in
journals and interviews are to be believed, made it the
single most appreciated and useful element of the term. To
put my students' responses in a way more reflective of
researchers like Flower and Shaughnessy, it seems clustering
allowed even my basic writers to concern themselves with

global issues.

215

"Clusters get the ball rolling," as one student said.
In chapter three I wrote about Shirley Daniels whose
experience with clustering underscores that function.
Ironically, even though the part they played in the
composing process was the shortest, often lasting only a few
minutes, clusters were the most enthusiastically received of
the spatial visualization techniques. Shirley, for example,
appreciated clustering as much as she did because, according
to her, it removed what had been a helpless feeling about
the beginning stages of writing. She told me that learning
to cluster made the whole course worthwhile. I believe
clustering may have filled a gap in the way she approached
the process of writing, by allowing her an avenue for the
internal development of ideas. It returned some control of
the process to her, which validated her as the meaning
maker.~

Because she was very concerned with her grade, she
wanted to please the teacher, yet, something bothered her
about what she had to do to earn that approbation. In many
ways, she reminded me of the dilemma described by Elbow in
the chapter of WRITING WITH POWER devoted to having a
teacher for an audience. She was not committed to her
writing, and felt resentful towards teachers. Clustering
allowed her to make a compromise between her own needs to
feel a part of what she was doing, and her desire to get
good grades. Of course Shirley's life was not turned around

by clustering, and I suspect her feelings about writing in

216

general remained substantially intact, but the almost
palpable sense of relief that infused her journals and
conversations about clustering could not be overlooked.
Clustering also helped students like Shirley with
putting words to their feelings. Shirley had a very strong
opinion about the negative aspects of writing and the
clustering exercise she initiated her paper with allowed her
to put words to it. It appeared to me that clustering
allowed for a boiling away of many of the layers of the
composing process, leaving thought and emotion clarified.
This enabled Shirley to begin at the ground level, rather
than building on air. In my view, clustering's main
assistance is in the performance of this purifying function.

The next phase of the mapping strategy concerned the

organizational maps. These maps carried on the process
started by clusters, but shifted the emphasis from
generation to placement of selected ideas. These maps

allowed my students to make decisions about the essay, and I
think, made them more efficient in terms of where they
concentrated their effort. The students could do more than
develop a shopping list of the details that would appear in
the essay, they could visualize the relationship those
details had to one another, and to the overall goal of the
essay. In this regard my students could reflect the concern
with global issues in a manner similar to proficient writers
described by Flower. For my students, organizational maps

turned out to be some variant of hierarchical maps, either

217

133p down, or left to right. I intended these maps to remove
tflne need, even the opportunity, of focusing on syntactic
‘fornn'and place the writer's attention on global issues
concerned with the development of relationships between
individual ideas. Judging from my students' reactions, I
think that is what happened in the class. They seemed to
appreciate the freedom provided by the maps. Even those who
had experience with outlining told me they appreciated the
idea that organizational decisions need not be completed
before committing pencil to paper, but could be developed as
the process grew.

Like teachers who are exposed to new methods and use
those methods for a while in their classes, eventually
falling back on old ones, my students were attracted to
organizational mapping strategies, used them, but as the
term developed I could see some were falling back on older
organizational habits. My attempts to broaden their
repertoire of mapping strategies was met with interest, and
in exercise situations the students demonstrated the ability
to vary their mapping techniques, but in actual
compositional situations they returned to the hierarchical
strategies, or drifted back to strategies they had brought
into the class with them. From what the students told me, I
got the impression that their attention was diverted by the
organizational demands made on them and, if they did not
stop to remind themselves that they had a new tool, they may

have reached for one of the old ones. I did not get the

218

feeling, however, that the students saw no value in the
organizational maps.55

Looking at the information I collected in this area as
a whole, it appears the organizational maps provided a way
to keep their attention focused in useful areas. They
helped my students make decisions between alternatives that
may have previously led to a further complication of the
composing process rather than a clearer vision.

Donald Westfall, for example, organized and discovered
at the same time, through the use of the maps. His journey
through the process of composing a paper about Moses shows
how hierarchical maps can point and suggest at the same
time. Donald's map made it possible for him to develop a
complicated paper, but also enabled that paper to shift.
change and grow with him as he came to new discoveries of
what he wanted to say. As his paper grew it begins to take
on a life of its own. A life that was not always what he
intended. Donald's story took many turns and twists as it
developed, yet he felt he was helped in making his way
through by the maps. His map provided a visual history of
the intellectual and emotional journey he took. As his
first map went down the page, it began to grow and spread.

The second map did the same, even turning back upwards at

 

55. The idea that the students were just composing my
way because I was the teacher and I told them to, was never
far from my thoughts. I think that they honestly did see
value in the mapping strategies, because the students often
suggested mapping ideas without my input, and, even though
the study is over,students have mentioned to me that they
use the strategies in their other classes.

219

the bottom of the page and finally coming to rest where
it started, with the author's "thoughts." In between "A
talk with Moses" and "my thoughts" is a hurricane, or
perhaps more appropriately, a desert sandstorm. Through it
all, I believe the map guided and suggested to Donald by
turning his thoughts back on himself. The map functioned,
literally, as a map, but with a difference, because Donald
was charting his course as he went. The territory was
unknown and the path unseen, but Donald was able to traverse
the land by using the map to keep in touch with his own
internal compass. He truly did navigate by his own lights.

I believe the concept of navigation is a central
metaphor in the process of understanding how the maps
functioned. They were an outward representation of an
inward journey each student writer took. Because of their
flexibility, they could keep the writer on course, even when
that course was constantly changing. Additionally, like the
proverbial breadcrumb trail, they provided a record of where
the writer had been, thus making backtracking possible.

At my institution, the type of writing students are
trained to do is primarily for work related, professional
purposes. As such it is public writing, created with often
a very specific audience in mind. The reader is always
right could be a slogan in these types of courses. I saw
the reader maps as a way of visualizing to the students the

effects their compositional decisions had on the audience.

220

The students indicated to me that the maps done by the
reader allowed for midcourse corrections as the essay grew
into the standard forms. By making a map, the reader
responded as an actual reader, without the added pressure of
being an editor. Elbow discusses the importance of having a
realistic audience in WRITING WITH POWER and determines that
one of the attributes that keeps teachers from being
authentic audiences is their role as evaluators. Since
there were no right or wrong maps, the writer could study
maps done by the reader for indications as to how the essay
was being perceived. instead of how it appeared to fit a
standard form. At times my students told me this was as
simple as the comparison contrast exercises done in basic
writing classes. t other times, the process was somewhat
more complicated.

I.am reminded once again of the work of Flower,
Shaughnessy, and others, who explored the way students solve
the rhetorical problem. What my students had before them in
a reader's map was a record of the reader's response to the
work. In their own maps, or in their heads, they carried
and idea of what they wanted to accomplish. Placing the two
sources of information side by side enabled my students to
go through a comparison contrast procedure and thereby
identify the global elements of the essay that needed work.
Once that was done, revision became a matter of enlarging

sections that the reader did not pay enough attention to, or

221

reducing sections to which the reader gave too much
importance.

The students in my study accomplished this by looking
into three areas of the reader's map. Initially, they
compared the quantity of detail by seeking the points of
their essay in the reader's map. The writer who had three
major points to discuss and gave an example of each would
expect to see that reflected in the reader's map. As one
student, who was a computer major, wrote in his journal: [at
this point the writer says] "if yes go to step two. If no
go to revision."

After the quantity of information the reader responded
to has been determined, my students next looked at the
quality of that response. If a major point was illustrated
with a analogy, for instance, did the reader see the
analogy, or only the major point? It is at this level that
my students were trying to move their readers from mere
recognition of the subject, to understanding. They were
trying to reduce the area of interpretation that makes up
the realm of abstract ideas by providing example,
narratives, analogies and the like, that tied their abstract
points down into actualities of experience. Again the
revision procedure is, if yes, go on, if no, revise.

Finally, my students looked for priorities in the
reader's map. Whether the map is top down, or left right,
or some other organizational structure, its priorities

should represent those of the writer. As with the other two

222

aspects of reader map reading, the strategy for revision is
the same, make the priorities more visible, or less visible
depending on the situation. Reflecting the work of Flower.
I feel the reader maps gave my students a tool to move from
being writer based writers to reader based writers, by
allowing them to see where the needs of the reader were
being met, and where they were not.

In my view, this aspect of reader map's performance is
most important because it allows for the timely
visualization of relationships among the elements of the
essay. This is an area that, previously, may have only
existed in conversations, or in teacher notes‘ after the
essay was completed. My students were able to see the
abstract relationships among their ideas, and how those
relationships were being perceived by a reader, before the
essay is completed and when they still had time to adjust
the work to come into closer compliance with their goals.
The students indicated to me that reader maps provided the
writer and reader with a basis for conversation.

The directions this conversation took were several.
Some saw it as a confirming or confidence building exchange,
some saw it as an idea exchange, some participated in both
aspects. Even students who had never thought much about
their audience before, those who fit the profile of writer
based writers, developed an awareness of the reader.
Listening to these students, and reading their journals

indicated to me that writers in this category used the

223

reader as a confirmation of sorts. These students could use
the reader to reduce their own level of doubt about how
their writing was perceived. The reader, for them, became a
confidence builder in many instances, demonstrating to the
students that they were better writers than they at first
assumed, or that they were as good as they had suspected,
but could not make themselves believe. For these students,
the reader broadened the definition of writing beyond
constricted, often mechanistic boundaries and made them
aware of what they could do as writers rather than what they
could not do.

This was sometimes a stressful awareness, as the
students told it, because writers who were not sure of their
capabilities in the narrow sense in which they had thought
of writing before, now had to deal with new elements in the
process. When the term was over, however, even my students
in this category talked of accepting the reader as part of
the process, and most appeared to me to have learned to use
reader input to structure the priorities of their work.

The students who used the reader maps as a source of
ideas were the ones, it seemed to me, that developed the
clearest sense of community within the groups. I noticed
that these students were better able to handle criticism of
their work as the term progressed. I feel this way because
they were the students I observed actually seeking criticism
out among their group members, rather than waiting and

responding as other students did. My own notebook contains

224

several entries in which I recorded my surprise and pleasure
that these students seemed to be directing their attention
to improving the work, rather than improving the grade. At
one point I wrote that they seemed to be becoming less and
less students, and more and more writers.

The reader maps helped engender commitment among the
students. They were interpreted by writers according to
their own internal priorities. Once my students had gone
through the composing process and produced a draft, their
loyalty to that essay was almost total. Reader maps were
often viewed with suspicion until a way could be found to
fit them into the flow of the essay. The stronger the
writers held a particular view of their essays, the less
willing they were to accept the reader's comments without a
fight. On the other hand, the readers felt a certain
loyalty to the response they had as well, and often were not
willing to accept the writer's accusation that they had
simply missed the point. In was very important to Annie,
for instance, that her essay be seen as a narrative, written
chronologically. She was not able to proceed with her
interpretation of Wayne's map until she could find a way to
fit it into that system. Annie eventually did fit Wayne's
map into her system, as the other students did with varying
degrees of difficulty. For writers, mapping helped to
produce a topic they owned. For readers, mapping visualized

a personal response.

225

Even with closeness of the classroom in which Wayne and
Annie worked, and even though they both shared similar
experiences, Wayne still produced a map that surprised,
dismayed and delighted Annie. He produced a personal
response even though he was familiar with the big picture
about which Annie wrote. Because it was personal, he
defended it and in so doing precipitated conversation
between the writer and the reader about the work. Through
conversation, it seemed to them that the elements of the
composing process became clearer. By helping each other
through the composing process they traded roles as guide and
guided. The result was that both became more familiar with
the ways from idea to essay.

It seems to me that, by fostering a climate of
conversation, maps contribute to the realization that
meaning is constructed by the students. This is a
foundational realization according to the work of writers
such as Berthoff and Linn, among others.

Many of the authors discussed in chapter one, most
notably Berthoff and Embler, described the linkage of
control and confidence. At one time or another, every
writer in the class made mention of a growth in their
feelings of confidence. Even students who remained
apprehensive about aspects of the class, such as the
presence of the reader, found other aspects to be positive
in nature, such as the clustering. Some made confidence a

theme for the term and returned to it again and again.

226

Through the journals, conversations and my observations, I
was able to track the growth of my students' sense of
control over their essays as the term progressed. Of

course, this growth is not something I can relate only to
the spatial visualization techniques. The role of peer
groups in fostering this sense of ability in my writers
cannot be ignored. In fact, my whole strategy of reader
mapping rests on the assumption of group activities, and as
such, it is often difficult to tell which experience has a
greater effect on my student writers: the map, or the group
in which that map was created. The most plausible answer is
probably both. The elegance of the process by which writing
occurs is such that no single aspect is unaffected by the
others. Like peer groups, or drafts, I think spatial
visualizations are another voice in the choir. It seems to
me that what they provided my students, like the peer
groups, or any of the other singular techniques, is another
potential source of useful information for the writer,
which, when taken with other sources of information can
produce a decision that, potentially, leads to positive
action.

My students were excited by the fact that they could
see what had only been discussed in other writing classes.
They could see the growth of their own ideas, and the
evolving shape those ideas were taking: they could see the

reaction of the reader; and they could hold these aspects as

227

time passed and filter 56 them into the essay at a rate they
controlled.

In summary, the different types of visualizations
performed different functions. The clusters operated as
beacons, helping my students to identify the outlines of
their ideas, and the feelings that went along with them.
They gave the students a picture of what they wished to
write about, both from an intellectual and emotional
standpoint.

Organizational maps allowed for the ordering of ideas
and the addition of standard forms in a fashion that kept
the writer in control. They also carried on the discovery
process started by clusters by further sharpening the
students' view of their topic and its environment. Their
visual nature allowed my students to set aside elements of
the essay that were firm, and focus attention on those areas
still in flux. As such, I believe the students became more
efficient in terms of how their time was managed during the
writing process.

The reader maps allowed the reader timely entrance to
the transaction. They engendered conversation about a work
in progress that made the decisions by the writer more

realistic and efficient. In addition, they took some of the

loneliness out of the process, and helped to make the

 

56 I chose that word as a direct reference to Black,
discussed in chapter one. From what the students indicated
to me, it appeared they were using the maps as a filter
through which they passed not only the reader's reaction,
but the shifting ways in which they saw the essay as well.

“'P'wmm 1

228

students more aware that their are collaborative
aspects to writing.

My view of the computer softwares was essentially that
they operated as electronic spatial visualizations. In the
classroom, maps were created by the students in response to
a certain need during the composing process, likewise on the
computer, no student went through every exercise just
because they were there. Each student sought assistance
from the computer based on a specific difficulty.

The experiences Kathy had as she worked her way through
Writer's Helper Stage II was like that of a shopper in a
market with a very specific list. As such, she responded to
elements of the software that filled needs she had, and
passed other aspects by. Her needs were primarily
organizational and those were the exercises in which she
found the most good. She was looking for help in making
decisions, but the elements she was looking for all implied
a preexisting set of priorities. The student's lament, "I
know what I want to say, I just can't say it," is an
accurate description of Kathy's attitude. She told me where
she wanted her paper to go, but she was not sure how to get
it there. The exercises she found most helpful were the
ones that showed her the path leading in the direction she
had already chosen. Writer's Helper was better than
ThinkTank in this area because of its versatility. In
addition to the variety of exercises for the different

stages of the composing process, the various exercises could

229

be programmed by the teacher to give specific prompts that
related to certain kinds of assignments. In this regard the
software could become a very helpful adjunct to the writing
classroom, almost like an electronic teacher's aid of sorts.

Writer's Helper is no panacea, however. The software
made it easier for Kathy to make decisions about her work
because of its flexibility, but that same ease could cause
her to abandon her responsibilities and become a writing
technician, rather than an author. It diverted Kathy's
attention from elements of the essay such as transitions
because it did all of the assembling of sentences. The
software arranged whatever Kathy entered, without regard to
how the overall flow of her essay was affected. Further,
Writer's Helper Stage II assumed a certain level of
familiarity with the forms of writing that may not be true
of writers at all levels. I am not; however, against using
computers in this fashion. Even though the computer
organizes, it is only reflecting the decisions made by the
user. Further, Kathy had made certain non-negotiable
decisions concerning aspects of her essay that the computer
could not change. There was authorship, in other words, and
because of that I do not believe total authority would ever
be given over to the machine. Kathy saw the computer as a
way to take some of the "grunt work" out of writing.
Perhaps she simply had a different conception than I do of
where the line between meaningful work and grunt work

exists.

230

The flexibility that made Writers' Helper so useful was
ThinkTank's biggest drawback. ThinkTank was basically an
electronic hierarchical mapping software, and that is how
Daniel used it. As with the hand drawn organizational maps,
it did function as a creative tool from time to time, but
mostly he used it to organize the decisions he had
previously made, then rearrange as he made new decisions.
As with hand drawn maps, ThinkTank did help visualize
Daniel's organizational decisions, and it enabled him to see
relationships between ideas in his essay. ThinkTank
functioned as a visualization of the context into which
Daniel arranged his information. Maps, whether electronic
or drawn, helped make elements of context visible to the
students, and held these elements still while they adjusted
other aspects.

My impression, after doing this study, is that students
need information about how to negotiate the often vast and
trackless area of abstract relationships that lies between
idea and essay. Information that will allow them to initiate
and control the decision making process is the goal of
spatial visualizations, electronic and otherwise.

As an example, we may hold in our heads a map of how to
drive to Cleveland without too much difficulty, but to
simultaneously think of all the possible ways of getting to
Cleveland from jet travel to walking would provide a great
deal of difficulty. Yet, often that is what students are

asked to do. The composing process contains too many

 

231

potential paths, not too few. The maps allowed students to
turn the process inward and focus on their own strengths.
It gave them a tool to work through difficulties by giving
them what every decision maker needs more than anything
else, useful information.

The indications are that maps can assist in making the

students self sufficient. They give the students
information that can help them diagnose their own
difficulties and recommend a treatment. Spatial
visualizations are no cure all, of course, and my students

often preferred their own, occasionally destructive, habits
to the new ones.

Writing is an action, and maps enable the students to
act--to make progress through the composing process and to
recognize that progress for what it is, decision making
based on recognition of internal priorities about to go
public. It is through a recognition of the relationships
among the facts and feelings of the essay that students come
to produce discourse. Maps allow the process to grow from
within first, rather than being imposed from without. They
assist in the negotiation every writer undertakes with his
or her own internal priorities and the standard priorities
and conventions we have agreed on as readable prose.

Throughout this dissertation I have referred to spatial
visualizations as snapshots, anchors, and grab bars among
other metaphors. It is fitting that this work should end on

as symbolic a note as it began, because what the maps really

232

represent is a concretization of internal processes
undergone by the author. Just as we tell the poetry student
that the rose is not something else, but something more, so
too are the maps more than visualizations of thought

processes. They are the bones of writing.

 

 

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INN

 

 

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APPENDIX

Shirley's Cluster

Annie's Map

Wayne's Map of Annie's essay
Donald's first map

Donald's second map

 

Shirley's Cluster

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