A Writer in Constant Motion?

No matter how persuasive an argument Flowers and Hays make, I cannot agree that the process of writing is a continuous one. The basic premise of their theory is that writing is divided into three main categories. We have the writing process or task, the memory of the writer himself, and the writing enviroment. To further confuse---or to perhaps clarify for us, Flowers and Hays divide these categories into subcategories and further detail the process of writing until we're almost lead to believe that anyone who sits down to read the essay will become an instructor of esteemed proportions who will guide his students down the blissful path where research papers are a treat. Is anyone else left doubting the method?

I am a big fan of clarification and laying things out as simply as possible for beginning or strugglign writers. But when we do so much defining, we begin to seriously limit creativity and to possibly hinder the use of other methods in instruction. Some students develop free writing into perfectly usable term papers. Other writers can't put together a sentence until they have some kind of outline.

One concept I found that I applaud Flowers and Hays for mentioning is that each writer has a personal "monitor." Somehow I found this to mean that his is own our little guide for writing, this little person who evidently sits in the back of the writer's mind and takes him through the writing process step by step. How we move through the process is determined by our own habits when it comes to writing. I cannot agree however with their idea that we never get away from the writing process. Every mind has to shut down sometime.

I cannot tell from the article if they are trying to redefine old concepts with further explanation...or pass off relatively well accepted notions as their own theory.