Poor Flowers and Hayes: Another Critique by Atkinson

Last week we talked a lot about Flower and Hayes’ process theory model, particularly about its shortcomings.  Dwight Atkinson presents another critique of their model that we hadn’t discussed: Flower and Hayes were looking at the cognitive processes at work in mainstream Western citizens, not taking into account how different cultures may approach writing.  This is related to Delpit’s article we read earlier (which I also blogged about): academic writing tends to limit itself to the dominant discourse and excludes many other voices.  However, instead of looking at word choice, Atkinson is discussing the very methods of writing that L2 learners use.

It just so happens that I presented on a similar topic last Friday at the Methods of Social Research conference.  My presentation was on contrastive rhetoric, which is a field within English studies that examines how writing styles differ among different cultures.  One of the most common and basic illustrations of these differences are shown in the diagrams by Robert Kaplan (shown above).  It’s easy to imagine why Flower and Hayes’ step-by-step approach would appeal to English writers, who like to have writing that also entails a linear logic.  However, this is not the way that all writers structure their papers, and therefore it’s likely that they are not comfortable approaching writing in the same way.  For example, look at the diagram for Romance writers.  At my presentation, when I confessed that I didn’t understand the Romance diagram, Massimo was kind enough to explain it to me.  He said that people in Italy put a strong emphasis on personal genius.  Thus, when writing, one doesn’t always go straight from point A to point B.  Italian writers are given more room to go off on tangents, giving the readers insight into how the inner genius works.  I imagine that a process approach would be very limiting to these writers, but something closer to expressivism might appeal to them.

So where does this leave us as composition instructors?  Although we are not teaching ESL composition, I’m sure all of us have had students in our classrooms who are from different cultures.  Should we just throw out our brainstorming, drafting, and revising strategies?  I was asked a similar question during my conference presentation: should we just ignore non-standard writing patterns?  My rather flimsy answer is the same: open up the lines of communication.  Make your expectations clear to your students, and ask them to describe their expectations and experiences with writing.  It can be a good learning experience for both of you.