AUTHOR: Mike Rose
SOURCE: College Composition and Communication 31(4) (1980): 389-401
RESEARCH QUESTION(S): 1) Why do some students experience writer’s block when others do not? 2) Does the way that students learn to write contribute to writer’s block or the lack thereof? 3) How does overly rule-based and/or formulaic writing instruction effect a student’s writing process?
ANSWER TO RESEARCH QUESTIONS: 1) Writer’s block can occur for many reasons, but this study only explores how the impact of learned writing strategies or styles affect the potential for this phenomenon. 2) Yes, students who learned to write from a more proscriptive writing background had composition strategies that inhibited their writing processes which could contribute to writer’s block. 3) The learning of certain heuristic rules and plans can affect the problem solving process. For example, if a student is having difficulty writing the introduction to a composition, she/he may fall back on a rule like “Always Grab Your Audience” strategy, which in turn, because of its creative demands, can further inhibit the creation of an introduction.
RESEARCH DESIGN: Case study including talk aloud protocols.
KEY RELATED STUDIES: Builds on previous studies of the effects of rules and plans on the cognitive process of writing including Flowers and Hayes”Plans and the
Cognitive Process of Writing,” 1981.
UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS: That students who experience writer’s block do so because of how they were taught to write a composition.
SUBJECTS: Ten UCLA students from a variety of disciplines, attitudes, GPAs, and socio-economic backgrounds who were competent writers and had courses that required writing assignments.
METHOD OF RESEARCH: One to three interviews with each student with questions based on observations of her/his notes, drafts, and the compositions completed.
MEASUREMENT OR ANALYTIC METHODS: The difference between the students who experienced writer’s block and those who do not.
RESULTS: Students who struggle with writer’s block have understood and/or interpreted various writing approaches as rigidly set “rules” that impedes rather than facilitates the composition process.
CONCLUSIONS: Students who try to compose based on a strict type of composition rubric will have difficulty, and even disdain, for the composing process.
IMPLICATIONS: Instructors should offer students a variety of writing techniques and not be so inflexible as to form. Students who have received a rigidly set composition pedagogy need to be “rehabed” into more flexible, natural ways of writing.
STRENGTHS OF THE STUDY: Provides an interesting insight into what student’s feel when they try to write. Highlights “writer’s block” and its relation to how students learned to write.
CRITIQUE OR LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY: The highlighting of writer’s block as it relates to prior instruction. Although an interesting idea to explore because it is also listed as a strength, it is obvious that so many other issues (physical and mental health, current environmental stressors, etc.) can affect the writing process too.
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE STUDY:
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