The Construction of Negotiated Meaning: A Social Cognitive Theory of Writing

by Linda Flower

Based on five years of close observation of students, writing and collaborative planning—the practice in which student writers take the roles of planner and supporter to help each other develop a more rhetorically sophisticated writing plan—foremost cognitive composition researcher Linda Flower redefines writing in terms of an interactive social and cognitive process and proposes a convincing and compelling theory of the construction of negotiated meaning. Flower seeks to describe how writers construct meaning. Supported by the emerging body of social and cognitive research in rhetoric, education, and psychology, she portrays meaning making as a literate act and a constructive process. She challenges traditional definitions of literacy, adding to that concept the elements of social literate practices and personal literate acts. In Flower’s view, this social cognitive process is a source of tension and conflict among the multiple forces that shape the social and cultural context, the demands of discourse, and the writer’s own goals and knowledge. Flower outlines a generative theory of conflict. With this conflict central to her theory of the construction of negotiated meaning, she examines negotiation as an alternative to the metaphors of reproduction and conversation. It is through negotiation, Flower argues, that social expectations, discourse conventions, and the writer’s personal goals and knowledge become inner voices. The tension among these forces often creates the hidden logic behind student writing. In response to these conflicting voices, writers sometimes rise to the active negotiation of meaning, creating meaning in the interplay of alternatives, opportunities, and constraints.

352 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 1994

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Students aren’t stupid—they are applying other models of writing with which they are familiar. I like the idea of encouraging this kind of metacognition—“what do you think this assignment looks like?” “What is this similar to, or different from, that you’ve done before?” Still, the cognative apprenticeship seems to slightly negate teaching and take a very, very long time. In some ways, watching someone make a rug (an example she uses) is easier than watching someone write because you can tell if a rug got screwed up, but it’s much harder to see if the writing is faulty, especially because excellent writing is still an art—the outcomes aren’t directly related to it.