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A grounded model of writing: A qualitative investigation into complex systems of creativity and cognitive constructs associated with the writing of poetry

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A grounded model of writing: A qualitative investigation into complex systems of creativity and cognitive constructs associated with the writing of poetry

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Content A GROUNDED MODEL OF WRITING: A QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION INTO COMPLEX SYSTEMS OF CREATIVITY AND COGNITIVE CONSTRUCTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE WRITING OF POETRY by William T. Akers A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (EDUCATION) Spring 2005 Copyright 2005 William T. Akers Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3180448 Copyright 2005 by Akers, William T. All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ® UMI UMI Microform 3180448 Copyright 2005 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of a gentlemen scholar whose inordinate intellect was only surpassed by his extraordinary kindness: Professor William Burton Michael, Ph.D., Educational Psychology. In addition, the present investigation would not have been possible without the encouragement of The Committee, colleagues, friends and family. Therefore, I give my sincere thanks to: Ms. Dianne Helene Akers, whose patience and support cannot be undervalued, and for whom I will always have the deepest love and affection. Dr. Ann B. Akers and Dr. Thomas G. Akers, two wonderfully supportive fellow researchers who helped both financially and editorially, and who remain exemplars of life-long learning. The Participants, who generously shared with me their thoughts and hearts, and who have showed me the dignity, hard work, and courage the life of a poet demands. The Administration, Faculty and Staff of the Rossier School of Education, who have helped me negotiate the inevitable hurdles and pitfalls that accompany the pursuit of a doctorate. Ms. Kelley Easton, a family friend and colleague, whose insights and professional contacts were of invaluable benefit to the progress of this study. Ms. Beverly Franco, who is proof positive that a moment of encouragement is sometimes as important as the five years of study it took to get here. Dr. David Hocevar, Committee Member, whose encouragement to conduct a qualitative, theoretical investigation was present at the get-go, and whose Taxonomy of Creative Measurement was integral to my education with regard to creativity research. Fr. Albert Koppes, Ph.D., whose faith in first impressions started me down this path of teaching and research. Dr. Joan Michael, without whom I may not have had an adequate sample! And whose support has been deeply appreciated. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iii Dr. James Ragan, Director of USC's Master of Writing Program, Outside Committee Member, hero for those who have too little, conscience for those who have too much, and mentor in word and deed for those who seek to live poetry. Dr. Ryan Stark whose nascent encouragement of my interest in Prescribing the Muse is directly related to the undertaking of this investigation. Dr. David Yaden, Committee Chair, who triggered my interest in theoretical models of writing, and whose kindness and commitment during trying times will always be appreciated. Nika and Tommy Akers, who for too long have ended up at the bottom of the list, and to whom I promise will from here on out take their rightful place at the top. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONTENTS DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURES ABSTRACT Chapter I. Statement of the Problem Situation Area of Concern Purpose of the Investigation Importance of the Investigation Research Questions Delimitations of the Investigation Definitions of Terms Organization of the Remainder of the Dissertation II. Review of the Literature Organization of Chapter II Background Writing as Information Processing A Transactional Model of Writing General System Theory: A Background to the Framing of the Study Models of Creativity and System Theory System Theory and Writing Creative Processes and Incubation Previous Qualitative Studies Concluding Remarks: Framing the Methodology III. Methods and Procedures Organization of the Chapter Sample Criteria and Rationale Design and Procedures Assumptions of the Investigation Study Limitations The Data Corpus iv Page ii vii viii ix 1 2 3 4 4 5 6 17 19 19 20 23 33 35 39 46 49 51 61 63 63 63 65 68 68 69 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. V Chapter Page IV. Findings and Discussion 76 Organization of the Chapter 7 6 Research Question 1 77 Part I, Section One 77 Review 77 Writing as a Non-Liner Process 79 Writing as a Dynamical Process in an Open System 83 Writing as a Networked Process 93 Part I, Section Two 97 Inspiration and Revision 97 Conclusion to Part I 98 Part II 100 Seeking Behavior 100 Conclusion to Answer 1 108 Research Question 2 109 Overview 110 Part I 111 Writing Processes and Wallas's Stage Model of Creativity 111 Writing Without a Role for Preparation 112 Writing without a Dichotomization of Subconscious and Conscious Modes of Cognition 115 Conclusion to Part I 116 Part II, Section One 118 Modal Overlap: Attributes of Intra-Active Cognition 118 Conclusion to Part II, Section One 122 Part II, Section Two 123 Pleasure, Intrinsic Motivation and the Writing of Poetry 123 Conclusion to Question 2 Research Findings 12 6 Research Question 3 127 A System Model of Writing Processes 127 Organization of the Response to Question 3 128 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. vi Chapter Page IV. Findings and Discussion Research Question 3 (Continued) Section One: Three Modes of Processing 129 Section Two: Six Nodes of Seeking Behavior 133 Section Three: Feedback - Process, Product, Motivation 151 Conclusion to Answer 3 165 Discussion of Findings 166 Discussion of Implications 168 V. Summary and Suggestions for Further Research 187 Organization of the Chapter 187 Review 187 Summary of Findings 188 Summary of Implications 197 Suggestions for Further Research 199 REFERENCES 2 02 APPENDIX A: Selected Segments from the Transcript Data 209 APPENDIX B: Guiding Interview Questions 214 APPENDIX C: Verbal Contact Guide 218 APPENDIX D: Consent Form 219 APPENDIX E: The Study Audit 224 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Comparison of Stage-Based Models of Creative Processes 2. A Qualitative Research Matrix 3. Quantitative Description of the Data Corpus and its Utilization Relative to the Research Questions 4. Summary of Attributes of Vertical- and Lateral Thinking Page 39 52 71 172 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure I. Structure of Cognitive Process Model 2 . Hierarchal Network of Goal- Directed Writing 3. Wallas's 4-Stage Model of Creativity 4. Text as a By-Product of Overlapping Cognitive Modes 5. Modal Overlap and Intrinsic Motivation 6. Three Cognitive Modes Associated with Processes of Writing Poetry 7. Comparison of a 4-Stage Model to a 3-Mode Model of Writing 8. Six Nodes of Cognitive Processing 9. Inner Processes in Conflict with External Demands 10. Feedback and Revision II. Three Interacting Forms of Motivational Feedback 12. A System Model of Writing Processes 13. Hypothetical Assimilation of Diverse Research Findings 14. Summary of Findings in Response to Research Questions 1, 2, and 3 Page 24 25 111 122 126 129 130 134 146 156 158 164 173 193 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ix William T. Akers David B. Yaden ABSTRACT Background. General System Theory has proved useful in developing an understanding of processes that are complex, dynamic, and have a number of interacting sub processes which tend toward non-linearity and unpredictability with regard to process-associated outcomes. The writing of poetry may likewise be complex, dynamic, and have a number of interacting sub-processes which tend toward non-linearity and unpredictability with regard to the emergence of a text. In addition, the writing of poetry is a creative act, and therefore its study may benefit from placing its investigation within the field of creativity research. Purpose. The purpose of this study was to gain a qualitative understanding of divergent writing processes through interviews with accomplished poets/instructors. Out of this purpose and through the analysis of ensuing transcript data, a grounded model of the cognitive processes engaged prior to and during the act of writing poetry was developed. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Sample. The selection of an interview candidate was based on the following criteria: (a) the candidate was a recognized expert-practitioner of writing poetry as evidenced through extensive publication in peer-reviewed poetry journals and poetry anthologies; and, (b) the candidate held the position of creative writing instructor within a well established creative writing program. Conclusion. This qualitative investigation found the framing of cognitive processes associated with writing poetry within General System Theory highly useful for the purpose of describing and understanding divergent writing. A concluding System Model of Writing Processes, developed through data analyses of interview transcripts, resulted in a plausible description of cognitive and affective processes associated with the writing of poetry. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 CHAPTER I Apologia The advantage of mathematical models - unambiguity, possibility of strict deduction, verifiability by observed data - are well known. This does not mean that models formulated in ordinary language are to be despised or refused. A verbal model is better than no model at all, or [is better than] a model which, because it can be formulated mathematically, is forcibly imposed upon and falsifies reality. Theories of enormous influence such as psychoanalysis were unmathematical, or like the theory of selection, their impact far exceeded mathematical constructions which came only later and cover only partial aspects and a small fraction of empirical data.... ...Models of ordinary language therefore have their place in systems theory. The system idea retains its value even where it cannot be formulated mathematically, or remains a "guiding idea" rather than being a mathematical construct. - Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1969, p. 24) Statement of the Problem Situation Richard Young (1982) and likeminded pedagogues assume a heuristic conception of writing where "phases of the process the writer is trying to control can be carried out deliberately and rationally" (p. 135). Although Young differentiated heuristic from rule- governed writing, his self-stated "generic conception of the processes" (p. 140) no doubt supports a tendency for generic production. Furthermore, information processing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 and problem solving models have long provided support for these linear, hierarchical concepts of the teaching of writing. Meanwhile, those instructors and practitioners interested in promoting and supporting writing processes involved in creative, expressivistic text production have had to rely upon the soft-sciences to support their approaches. A perspective which Young (1982) remarked, ...Seems not so much an innovation in the discipline as a reaffirmation of the vitalist philosophy of an old romanticism enriched by modern psychology, (p. 179) General System Theory may, however, offer an alternative, hard-science framework to support the rhetorical aims of originality, divergence, individualistic voice and self-expression. Area of Concern If the writer, the writer's environment, and the emergent text interact and change over time, the written thought (text) will be unpredictably different in both content and intention (Larsen-Freeman, 1997). As linear and hierarchical models of writing may not capture this dynamic and unpredictable process Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 of creative writing, a model framed by General System Theory may offer a better vehicle to present and understand the divergent process of producing poetry. Purpose of the Investigation The purpose of this investigation was to capture, through qualitative methods, cognitive processes associated with divergent writing. The sequencing of purpose was as follows: 1. The study investigated the validity of approaching writing from the perspective of General System Theory. 2. The study sought to explore the existence, and lack thereof, of patterns of non-linear, dynamic processes influencing the production of poetry. 3. The study investigated the creative influence that sub-conscious cognitions (often described by creativity theoreticians as occurring during Incubation) may have upon writing associated processes. 4. The study, as emerging from the above sequencing, was designed to develop a grounded model of divergent writing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 Importance of the Investigation Systems science may prove useful for modeling the cognitive writing processes of those poets who have, through critical and peer recognition, demonstrated novel and divergent thinking. Furthermore, this modeling may have important implications with regard to better understanding and explaining creativity, and with regard to applying that understanding to pedagogy. Research Questions Consistent with the purposes of the study, answers to the following research questions were sought: 1. For a sample of six professional poets/writing instructors to what degree and in what manner may General System Theory and related theoretical sub constructs add to the understanding of cognitive processes associated with the production of poetry? 2. As evidenced by the transcript data, what are both the role and importance of Incubation to divergent writing processes prior to and during the production of poetry? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 3. In what manner may a grounded model, emerging out of the process of the investigation, capture and elucidate interview data associated with the cognitive and affective processes of professional poets writing poetry? Delimitations of the Investigation 1. This study was delimited to poets who had been identified as expert-practitioners through the publication of work in peer-reviewed journals, and who were faculty members of university-level creative writing programs. 2. All informants volunteered to participate in the study. 3. This study focused, through the content of the interview questions, on cognitive processes associated with the production of poetry. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 Definition of Terms With regard to the following section, those terms not referenced in the Works Cited section of this investigation, were developed and defined during the analysis of the data corpus. Academy. An informal term widely used in the interviews and commonly used in fields of literature and literary writing to describe an amorphous body, past and present, of critics who act as evaluators and purveyors of artistic merit. Adaptive System. Ashby's mathematical description of learning whereby step functions, "after a certain critical value is passed jump into a new family of differential equations" resulting in a system that starts "a new way of behavior" until it no longer comes into conflict with the critical values of the environment(cited in Bertalanffy, 1966, p.46). Attractor. A graphically plotted point or string of points in phase space (at its simplest, a numerical representation of time and place) used to locate or "bound" the limits of a system, be it a steady- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 state, a periodic, an oscillating, or a chaotic system (Gleick 1988, pp 50-51). Closed System. A system that is treated as if it is isolated from its environment. Under these circumstances the constituent parts of the system may relate to one another in a linear manner and the interactions between parts are weak (trivial). Therefore, it is possible to logically "work out" and put back together the parts in a closed system in a summative manner. When a system is treated as closed, it will tend toward a predictable state of "most probable distribution" (Bertalanffy, 1969 p.39-41) . Convergent Thinking. The generation of a conventionally accepted answer to a question (Michael, 1977). See, Problem Solving. Divergent Thinking. Bringing alternative, novel, and unconventional ideas to light through the associative activity of discovering new combinations of present and past information (Guilford and Merrifield, 1960; Guilford, 1977). See, Seeking Behavior. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. External Demand. A term used by the investigator to describe cognitive content imposed upon the writer by an outside agency, (e.g., the Academy, an instructor, a constituent, an editor). General System Theory. As summarized from General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications (Bertalanffy, 1969), a theory of general principles applicable to fields as diverse as mathematics, psychology, biology, and philosophy that may be used to frame the investigation of problems related to "wholeness," dynamic interactivity, and system complexity. Historicity. A term defined by Poet A to describe the environment within which poets compose. Historicity expresses an interactive, non-separable relationship between environmental sub-systems (e.g., culture, language, history, the Academy, artistic artifacts) and the poet's writing system (Poet A, li. 25-53). Information Processing. A theoretical model (Gagne, Yekovich and Yekovich, 1993) that describes the basic elements of human cognition (e.g., selective Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 perception, working memory, long term memory) which are further elementalized into units (e.g. declarative and procedural knowledge) and which are organized around control processes (e.g., storage, retrieval, perception, and organization). Inherent Motivation. As contrasted to both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to the extent that it appears to function indirectly with regard to reward seeking behavior, inherent motivation is a term used by the investigator to describe an a priori trait or proclivity that exists within the cognitive system of the individual, e.g., a compulsion to engage in word play. Inner-Active Mode. The least regulated mode of cognitive processing identified and defined by the investigator, the Inner-Active Mode of thinking is characterized as chaotic, highly networked, and freely associative. Though traditionally relegated to sub-conscious, unconscious, or pre-conscious processing, (Wallas, 1945) the data corpus suggested that the unregulated character of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10 Inner-Active Mode was accessible to divergent writers engaged in the Writing Process. Inter-Active Mode. The Inter-Active Mode of cognitive processing is defined by the investigator as one in which processes are oriented toward pre-existing forms and/or toward an External Demand such as an assignment or critical approval. This mode is highly regulated by a broad range of influences, e.g., supplying the correct answers to an essay prompt, revising a text to agree with conventions of written language, and/or normalizing a text to fit within a range of opinions supplied by the Academy. However, with respect to the Writing Process and the Overlapping nature of cognitive modes, the individual's writing, even at its most regulated, has the capacity to be influenced by Inner-Active processes. Furthermore, at any point during the act of writing, cognitive processes have the capacity to "jump" with regard to the dominating process modality. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11 Intra-Active Mode. As defined by the investigator, a cognitive mode of integrative overlap wherein the chaotic flow of Inner-Active processes seek the stabilizing influence of the individual's Writing Process while retaining a sensitivity to the dynamic and associative nature of Inner cognitions. (See, Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions). Leading Part. A component of a system or a system's environment that has a dominating influence on the behavior of the system (Bertalanffy, 1969). Mode. A term used by the investigator when referring to a type or character of cognitive processing. A mode's character of processing is, to an extent, related to those process nodes that are active in the system during writing. (See, Node). Node. A term used by Bertalanffy (1969, p. 59) indicating the mathematical representation of a system approaching (but not necessarily achieving) a stable state. With regard to the concluding writing model, the investigator defined a node as a leading part cognitive component activated during the writing process. Each system node locates Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12 process interactions between two networked sub systems that are in competition with each other while simultaneously seeking stability. Furthermore, nodes are in a state of "competition" with concurrent nodes during the act of writing. (See, Leading Part) . Open System. An organized, complex system consisting of parts in "strong interaction." This interaction is described as non-linear (non-trivial), utilizes feedback processes, and occurs within system parts and between the system's parts and the system's environment (as synthesized from Bertalanffy, 1969 pp.39-4 6) . Overlap. A condition of modal simultaneity described in the data corpus as occurring when the process attributes of one mode are found to co-exist with process attributes of a different cognitive mode. For example, writing while in a state of meditation. Problem Solving. "A problem is said to exist whenever one has a goal and has not yet determined the means [read: plan] for reaching that goal The standard Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13 information-processing framework for defining problem [solving] consists of 1) a goal or end state, 2) an initial or starting state, which is a description of the problem, and 3) a number of intermediate states, which describe all possible solution paths for reaching the goal. Each solution path is comprised of a number of individual steps that move one away from the starting state and toward the goal state" (Gagne, Yekovich and Yekovich, 1993, p. 211). Process Writing. An instructional model (Harris and Hodges, 1995, p. 195), in which students are given a heuristic concept of writing wherein phases of planning, drafting, revising, editing, then publishing are followed in a linear manner. (As contrasted to the Writing Process.) Seeking Behavior. A construct and process definition the development of which reflects the System assumption that product and process are inseparable. Specifically, Seeking Behavior was described by the investigator as characterized by the following two attributes: First, the writer's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14 Adaptive System imparts dynamical content and function change upon those very same cognitive processes engaged by the writer (e.g., when the writer is seeking experiential meaning, that which is sought is found within the seeker, and that which is written - the realized behavior - is not a fully externalized product, but rather the text is a byproduct of a new, internal system-state that previously did not exist). Second, the term Seeking is used to reflect the associative and often chaotic processes of open-ended and Divergent discovery as contrasted to the focused and Convergent process of Problem Solving. Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions. A process condition in which stable and unstable processes, predictable and random patterns, interact in such a manner that neither total stasis nor total chaos results, but rather what results preserves structure while engendering completely novel and unique artifacts (Gleick, 1988 p. 310-314) . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15 Strange Attractor. A point in phase-space used to locate, graphically, chaotic behavior within a system. This behavior is sometimes illustrated as continuous points in phase space that, when plotted, form recognizable patterns the lines of which never repeat (Gleick, 1988 pp. 139-153). System. "Sets of elements standing in interrelation" (Bertalanffy, 1969 p. 55). With regard to complex systems, these elements are "non-summative" (p.67- 71) in that the sum of the elements are not able to meaningfully represent the "whole" of the system. (See, Unity. Contrast to, Information Processing). Trigger. A term used by the investigator to describe a random event or unpredicted perception that initiates a cascading of networked, interactive processes associated with the act of writing. Unity. Analogous to the psychological concept of Gestalt, Unity is a term used by the investigator to describe a cognitive system's "wholeness" wherein it is not possible to "resolve phenomena into local events" (Bertalanffy, 1969 p. 31). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16 Within the investigator's System Model of Writing Processes, Unity is symbolized by the ideogram "O". Writing Process. As defined by the investitagator, the cognitive and affective processes associated with writing prior to, during, and following the writing act. These processes have the capacity to behave non-lineally to the extent that information inputs do not form a linear or hierarchal relationship to information outputs, and to the extent that goals and plans may remain inconsequential to the writing act (See, Problem Solving) . As described in the data corpus, writing processes tend to be dynamical to the extent that the cognitions that produce a text occur over time, and time imparts change upon both the writing system and constituent system parts. This change then influences anew cognitive processes. With regard to interactivity and complexity, writing processes pass through a very large number of sub-processes and recruit a number of interrelated sub-systems which Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17 respond to each other in simultaneity. These subsystems, as summarized by Schuldberg (1999), include paradigmatic, syntagmatic, and orthographic systems; declarative and procedural knowledge systems; affective systems; and neurological and physical systems, all of which interact with environmental systems. Organization of the Remainder of the Dissertation Chapter II presents a review of relevant literature the purpose of which is to contextualize a qualtitative investigation into creative processes specific to the domain of divergent writing. Chapter III provides this study's design and procedures utilized to conduct the investigation, the study's assumptions and its limitations, and a contextualization and graphic summary of the data corpus. In Chapter IV, data analyses, research findings, and discussions thereof are presented. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18 In Chapter V, findings and discussions are summarized; research implications are stated; suggestions for further research are presented; and, finally, summative remarks are made. Subsequent to the body of the dissertation are the following: Appendix A, containing a few extended sections of the interview transcripts that may of be interest to the reader. Appendices B, C, D, containing, in order of appearance, the investigation's Guiding Questions, a Verbal Script introducing the researcher and his study to potential participants, and the study's interview Consent Form. Appendix E, containing a summary of the Study Audit. Appendix F, the raw data of this study, will not be published because of its excessive length. Those professional investigators interested in the data corpus should contact the author of this study. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19 CHAPTER II Review of the Literature Organization of Chapter II Chapter II is organized into nine sub-sections. Each sub-section connects to a previous section and, in turn, contains and supports the ideas and arguments of the section that follows it. The purpose of this sequencing is intended to support and contextualize Chapter III, which details the design and methodology of the study. To summarize, following (a) a brief background describing the relationship between writing models and writing pedagogy, a description of (b) Information Processing and (c) Transactional models of writing are presented. Next, (d) a brief introduction to General System Theory is followed by (e) a few models of creativity and their potential for their framing within systems science. Then, (f) System Theory is further explored as it may apply to the creative domain of writing. It is then argued, by way of the relevant research, that much of writing depends upon (g) sub conscious processes associated with a period of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20 Incubation. Finally, (h) previous qualitative studies of creative processes related to writing are reviewed, leading to the conclusion that (i) there may be some benefit in conducting a qualitative study sampling professional poets in order to come to a better understanding of cognitive processes associated with divergent thinking and writing poetry. Background Writing pedagogy based upon the Western Tradition is as old as classical antiquity. This review of literature would be incomplete unless it referenced the works of those rhetoricians and mentors who groomed the elite for political leadership. In The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle (330 B.C./trans. 1982) described in detail how the writing occasion pre-determines the structure of a work. In his Ad C. Herennium, Cicero (100 B.C./trans. 1981), long before the term target- marketing was coined, emphasized the need for authorial stance - only through orating from the perspective of the audience could the speaker create a convincing and persuasive presentation. These classical texts described writing and oratory as goal-based, either Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21 responding to the demands of a genre or to the demands of an audience. Little has changed over the last twenty-five hundred years; today, Neo-classicists focused upon achieving the rhetorical objectives of logic and persuasive argumentation continue to dominate writing instruction. What is new, however, is that their strong appeal to educators has been updated and recast through the use of scientific, positivistic theories providing a foundation for their instructional prescriptions. Adding further to the complex relationship between descriptions and prescriptions is that prescriptions based on false descriptions can still be useful. A sundial can estimate time regardless of whether one uses a Copernican or Heliocentric model as one's framework for designing it. Meanwhile, expressivist writers and instructors of creative writing have had to rely on aesthetic appeals or psychoanalytic frameworks to support their ideals, a romantic, metaphysical argument that renders these individuals suspect in the eyes of many cognitive and social-cognitive researchers (Young, 1982). Still, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22 decades before System Theory was developed to frame his ideas; Andre Breton's "thought experiments" (Schmeller, 1967) suggested a direct connection between Breton's stream of consciousness and the cognitive processes that produced his work. In his Manifesto of Surrealism, he states, "Surrealism is sheer psychological automatism, by means of which it is intended to express verbally, in writing, or in some other way, the actual function of thinking" (translated in Schmeller, 1967, p. 8-9). Through automatic writing, the writer ...tries to shake off his tunneling and constructing intellect which runs in groves, along well-tried tracks, and is drilled to think in fixed categories. Man under automatic dictation is inwardly wide awake; he listens to his inner-self and adapts himself to it, more a fisherman casting his net than a trapper setting a trap. This is his state of inspiration Logic is eliminated, the process by which universal conclusions are obtained is reversed, and the supreme authority of the causative system is abolished, (p. 9) Yet, how does one model stream of consciousness? To a great extent, the above question demanded this investigator to consider all that positivistic models of writing failed to address. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23 Writing as Information Processing The writing model developed by Flower and Hayes (1981/1994) of the procedural and declarative knowledge activated during the writing process represents the dominant approach to the modeling of writing. The three key elements of this model are 1) Long-Term Memory; 2) Task Environment; and 3) Writing Processes. An illustration of this model appears on the following page. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24 Figure 1. Structure of Cognitive Process Model (Flower and Hayes, 1981/1994, p. 933). Task Environment The Rhetorical Problem Text Topic Audience Exigency Produced So Far Writing Processes The Writer's Long-Term Memory Planning Reviewing Evaluating Knowledge of Topic, Audience, and Writing Organizing Revising Goal Setting This model, which typifies information-processing diagrams, is framed by sequencing inputs, processes, and outputs. Planning occurs when the writer develops goals aimed at solving a specific rhetorical problem, e.g., responding to a timed essay prompt. Translating involves transforming declarative knowledge into print. Reviewing occurs as the writer reads over the generated text to determine whether the text is reaching the goal (Flower & Hayes, 1981/1994). With regard to pedagogy, the Process Writing instructional model (Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 195), in which students follow a given set of procedures of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25 planning, drafting, revising, editing, then publishing, strongly connects to the Flower and Hayes conception of the process of writing. This does not imply that the process of writing is without feedback. Plans made before writing may be revised or elaborated in light of what has been written. Detailed plans for achieving cohesion may be formulated during the writing rather than before it. Reviewing may occur even before writing starts, as when someone thinks of an idea, then evaluates it and modifies it. Reviewing typically continues throughout the writing. (Gagne, E., Yekovich, C., & Yekovich, F., 1993, p. 317) Figure 2. Hierarchal network of goal-directed writing as presented by Flower and Hayes (1981/1994, p. 940). W rite an Essay Produce a short essay 2 pages long Write an introduction Purpose W hy I Give a o f job d o it history? Clearly, the Flower and Hayes model is meant to be a reiterative one in which component processes work in parallel and collaborate with one another. Think aloud protocols used to research the relevance of this model Describe future career Appeal to a broad range o f intellect Explain things simply Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26 (Flower & Hayes, 1981/1994) indicated that writing, as they recorded it, was a hesitate-and-go process of moving forward and doubling back. Furthermore, they stated, The problem with stage descriptions of writing is that they model the growth of the written product, not the inner process of the person producing it. (p. 8) The investigator takes issue with two assumptions of this problem statement and suggests it overlooks two "problems" that the Flower and Hayes Structure of Writing Model ignores. First, the "inner process of the person" as they described it did not capture processes of inspiration, dynamism, and non-linearity. Second, the "inner process of the person" as they described it did not in any meaningful way address learning, adaptive systems. Expanding upon the first issue, their model demanded the presumption that the primary aim of writing was to solve a rhetorical problem which was achieved by channeling cognition along a pre-determined and deterministic pathway. This channeling was operationalized through two feedback elements which Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27 suggest further lack of support for writing as a non linear, non-goal-oriented activity. Their description of the writer's "Task Environment" implied that objectives external to the writer were far more significant than objectives personal and internal to the writer. The far less predictable internal exigencies such as self-expression or self-realization were left out of the model. Furthermore, the Task Environment is presented as closed. Therefore, the environment one inhabited at the beginning of the writing process was assumed to be the same as the environment one inhabited at the end of production. Again, this is a significant assumption. The second feedback element, as Flower and Hayes described it, was a Task Monitoring mechanism that continually channeled cognition toward external and fixed goals. In addition to keeping the environment "closed," this mechanism deemphasized what could be the positive, healthy impact chaotic, unmonitored, unconscious thoughts could have upon production. As a result of the above, the Flower and Hayes system description of Planning, Translating, and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28 Reviewing did not correspond with Wallas's (1945) four- stage creativity model of Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Evaluation to the degree that unconscious Incubations and Illuminations were not addressed. Perhaps this was an indication that, (a) for Flower and Hayes, writing should not be approached as a creative endeavor in the traditional sense of originality and novelty and (b) the information processing framework is most relevant to convergent, expository writing and less relevant to divergent, literary writing. Finally, unlike Guilford (Michael, 1999) who later addressed the unique characteristics of long term and short term memory, the Flower and Hayes model focused on the writer's long-term memory. Thus, writing was dominated by past knowledge (long term procedural and declarative memory) and future objectives (solving a problem). Writing processes such as here/now, short term perceptions occurring within a "flow" state (Csikszentmilhalyi, 1990) that may afford a sensitivity and responsiveness to chaotic processes and conditions Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29 cannot be placed within the Flower and Hayes Writing Process Model. In The Handbook of Creativity (1989), Carey and Flowers re-framed the Flower and Hayes (1981/1994) model, de-emphasizing the terms "information processing" and emphasizing aspects of Problem-Solving. All else remaining more or less the same, the original elements of Planning, Translating, and Reviewing were re conceptualized so that writing became a process "of solving an ill-defined problem" (p. 284). This process, theoretically, resulted in a unique solution, not because the creative process engendered a creative product, but "because of the solver's own unique [read static] knowledge and values" (p. 284). Although the concept of an ill-defined problem, rather than a fixed-rhetorical problem, made more complex the writing process as captured in Figure 1, this model still supported a position that the creative process was, to some extent, irrelevant. To the degree that Carey and Flower downplayed divergent creativity as a product of process, they downplayed the framework of a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30 systems perspective that describes a preeminence of process engendered unpredictability and novelty. In The Construction of Negotiated Meaning: A Social Cognitive Theory of Writing, Flower (1994) once again recast the Flower and Hayes (1981/1994) information processing model, this time in a social-cognitive context. In so doing, Flower "looked closely at an individual's thinking within a rhetorical, social, and cultural context (p. 34)". Her resulting theory of writing had as a key premise a dilemma-driven process of negotiation and arbitration between multiple "voices" associated with context, experience, and goals. The text, according to this theory, developed as the writer moved toward closure and resolution in an attempt to mollify or integrate multiple objectives. Certainly this perspective added again to the complexity of writing-related processes, however, even "dilemma-driven" writing remained far from Stafford's (1978) following description of writing as "receptivity". I get pen and paper, take a glance out the window (often it is dark out there), and wait. It is like fishing. But I do not wait very long, for there is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31 always a nibble—and this is where the receptivity comes in. To get started I will accept anything that occurs to me If I put down something, that thing will help the next thing come, and I'm off. (p. 17-18) For Stafford, and writers like him, internal conditions, such as open-ended readiness, had a greater influence over the generation of text than did external, dilemma-driven conditions that resulted in a need to reach closure and resolution. Perhaps this theoretical gap is based on Carey and Flower's (1989) definition of "Creative Response" and "Practical Creativity". They wrote, ...It becomes important to ask not just (italics mine) how did the "genius" class of writers produce traditionally acknowledged works, but how do people in that larger class of "effective" [quotes theirs] writers produce a creative response to a given rhetorical problem raised by school, profession, and public life.... (p. 283) Carey and Flower continued, "We take a problem-solving perspective which postulates that creativity does not depend on "special" abilities or on unconscious processes [emphasis mine] or insights..." (p. 284). As a result of this perspective, Stafford's experiences were either irrelevant or unsupportable. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 32 To conclude, the Flower and Hayes (1981/1994), Carey and Flower (1989) Flower (1994) writing models, evoked, in the order of the above, (a) writing as Information Processing, (b) as Ill-defined Problem solving, and (c) as Social-Cognitive dilemma- negotiation. These models which showed little support for a systems science model of writing, dominated the relevant literature with regard to writing models. Furthermore, if there was any doubt as to Flower's position on systems science constructs as of 1994, it could be removed when she bluntly opined that system science frameworks and the randomness they embrace, were a "useful stance in metaphysics, but become unsettling in a theory of action and education" (1994, p. 104) . From this statement, it may be assumed she bi- directionally contended that "action and education" are incompatible with General System Theory. For theorists who focus on writing cognition as a predictable mechanism of processing information, this may have been the case, especially if one defined the Creative Response within the bounds of a Practical Creativity. This researcher would posit that this was a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33 reductive perspective purposefully blind to literary creativity and was a perspective which could only hold true for those tradition-oriented theorists who felt system science only benefited educational "metaphysics." A Transactional Model of Writing Rosenblatt's (1994) Transactional Theory of the cognitive process of writing, based on the epistemological underpinnings of Dewey and Bentley's (1949) Knowing and the Knownr held a more harmonious relationship with System Theory. The Transactional Theory addressed what Rosenblatt considered to be the limitations of a purely positivistic paradigm in which "each element or unit [was] being pre-defined as separate, as 'thing balanced against thing,' and their interactions studied" (p. 1058). Thus, elemental positivism was placed in contrast to elements studied within a transactional relationship which considered the "unfractured observation of the whole" (p. 1058). To summarize the model, Rosenblatt, added a psychological dimension to what Flower and Hayes (1981/1994) refered to as the writing process Monitor. Rosenblatt used William James's concept of selective Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34 attention to develop her theory of stance as a control system over the process of writing. Accordingly, the writer constantly selected out of an information stream "by [way of] the reinforcing and inhibiting agency of attention" (p. 1062). Writer's Stance, therefore, was a process of selective attention that represented a mechanism of lighting up - directing attention to -different parts of the stream, selecting out objects that have floated to the surface in those areas and leaving the rest in shadows (p. 1062) Transactional Theory was more adaptive to both deterministic and non-deterministic concepts of writing. Her continuum of the efferent stance, wherein the writer paid attention to the public's text needs (logic, analytic, referential) in contrast to the aesthetic stance, wherein the writer paid attention to needs of personal expression (emotive, qualitative, affective) created the potential for cognitive movement between writing as a problem-solving behavior and writing as a purely artistic endeavor. In addition, the flexibility of Rosenblatt's monitoring as "stance" could support both convergent thinking, for the purpose of generating public/logic Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35 driven rhetoric, and could support chaos-influenced divergent thinking, for the purpose of generating personal/novel literary material. Finally, Rosenblatt admitted into her theory the influence of unconscious dynamics upon the act of writing. In the linguistic event, any process will be affected also by the physical and emotional state of the individual, for example, by fatigue or stress. Attention may be controlled or wandering, intense or superficial... it will be assumed that such factors enter into the transaction and affect the quality of the process under consideration." (p. 1062) Rosenblatt's model made the important distinction that models of writing need not be a priori incompatible with non-linear, dynamical frameworks. However, by relying on the pre-behaviorist concepts of William James (1890) and the epistemological writings of Dewey (Dewey & Bentley, 1949) for presenting her arguments, Rosenblatt did not place the Transactional Writing Model within a science-driven framework. General System Theory: A Background to the Framing of the Study Over sixty years ago General System Theory was developed as a research tool to be applied across a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36 diverse assortment of traditionally unrelated fields. This theory's strength lies in its applicability to phenomena that resist description and modeling through traditional, mechanistic scientific paradigms. Perhaps because of its unpretentious title and difficult reading, Bertalanffy's, General System Theory (1969) never received the popular attention that did Gleick's, Chaos (1988). Due in part to the marketability of "next wave" concepts to the general public, the novice systems researcher could be so persuaded by the emotional and intellectual appeal of System Theory spin-offs, that she or he fails to place these spin-offs where they originally developed, within the larger framework of General System Theory. For example, Gleick specifically promoted the unpredictable nature of chaotic systems and so implied that rather than falling within the boundaries of General System Theory, unpredictable systems were best framed by a science unto themselves, out of which sprang the popular tag "Chaos Theory." Casti's Complex!faction (1994), also promoted and expanded a characteristic of some systems, and so implied that complexity was best Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 37 described through yet another science unto itself, "Complexity Science" or as Casti promoted it, "the Science of Surprise". The unfortunate outcome of this sub-theorizing is two-fold. First, General System Theory was always meant to capture both "butterfly effects" as well as mechanical, linear properties of cause and effect phenomena. Although, predictable systems are advantageously described through traditional, Newtonian science, there was always the assumption by systems theorists that Newtonian science functioned within and was subsumed by systems science. In addition, that the process attributes of chaos and complexity were focused upon by some theorists is not problematic, but that these two system attributes were given their own theory was at best redundant and at worst misleading. General System Theory, the foundation for Gleick's work, was intended to frame all systems, be they non linear or linear, dynamic or static, complex or simple. In short, it would be much more helpful to the novice system researcher and to the field in general, if all Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38 such spin-off theories and their associated vocabulary were firmly and obviously framed within General System Theory. Perhaps the alternative book title, "Chaos: The Science of using General System Theory to Describe the Unpredictable," would have created less marketing hype; however, this inclusive title would have surely supported more coherence within the area of systems science. To conclude this sub-section and to telegraph what follows, this investigation was a nest-egging of a model within frameworks within theory. Working from out to in, Bertalanffy's General System Theory was used to contain and frame constructs of creativity as developed by the likes of Guilford and Wallas. The resulting "creativity as system perspective" was then used to ground an investigation into the writing processes of poets. The analysis of transcripts generated by this investigation were in turn used to develop a System Model of Writing Processes, which to underscore my original point, is not another theory, but is rather a model strongly framed by fundamentals of General System Theory. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39 Models of Creativity and System Theory Before exploring processes specific to writing literary material, four models of the creative process uncontextualized by a specific domain are herein briefly summarized including Dewey's (1910), Rossman's (1931), Wallas's (1945), and Guilford's Table 1. Comparison of Stage-based Models of Creative Processes (1965). Wallas’s 4-stage Dew ey’s 5-stage: Rossman’s 7-stage: Preparation Difficulty felt Difficulty observed Difficulty defined Problem formulated Information surveyed Incubation Solutions suggested Solutions formulated Solutions examined Illumination Outcomes considered N ew ideas formulated Verification N ew ideas tested Solutions Accepted Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40 Lubart (2001) summarized Wallas's use of the terms Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification as follows: Preparation was conscious work that drew upon one's knowledge and skills. In contrast, Incubation was unconscious work where the mind associated and/or combined ideas and rejected most of these associations/combinations as useless. Illumination described the process of an idea emerging on the edge of consciousness and breaking through in a flash of enlightenment. This stage was easily disturbed by outside distractions and by forcing or rushing the emerging idea. Mental work became fully conscious again during the Verification stage of developing, refining, and evaluating. "For a number of researchers, the four stage model or a variant of it has served and continues to serve as the basis for understanding the creative process" (p. 297). Likewise, Wallas's sub-constructs, specifically Incubation and Illumination, served to frame much of Answer One. Of interest to this researcher was that the above creativity models, although not using the technical terminology of System Theory, were nevertheless Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41 described as non-linear, and dynamical (Guilford, 1965; Luburt 2001; Michael, 1999). For example, Michael (1999), discussing Guilford's Structure of Problem Solving Model (SIPS), a later adaptation of the Guilford's Structure of Intellect Model (SOI) wrote, ...there is a marked amount of interaction or interplay of cognition, memory, evaluation, and production.... [As well] processes may be quite repetitive in what might be termed successive interactions with continual production of initially tentative and then increasingly refined solutions that are subject to an ever present evaluation as new information is being generated from the memory storage... [this] may be expected to result in modified cognitions, additional evaluations, and the ongoing production of alternative solutions... ...the repetitive cycles [emphasis mine] in some instances may lead to an unexpected or sudden insight of a solution, (p. 795-796) As described by Gleick (1988), points around which "repetitive cycles" form patterns were used to identify elements that had a particular influence on a process. The term, attractor, described these points in phase- space. For example, the point directly beneath a simple pendulum where the plenum would, uninfluenced, eventually come to rest was termed by Gleick as a fixed- point attractor. Fixed-point attractors, few in number, resulted in predictable systems (Gleick, 1988). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42 Theoretically, Evaluation was a point to which cognition returns at any phase in the creative process (Guilford, 1965, Michael, 1999). However in returning to this point, the cognitive content of thinking was dynamically altered since its previous pass-through. Furthermore, the cognitive content and the type of sub process activated by the process of Evaluation (e.g., a word problem with both verbal and mathematical demands) changed. Thus, creative process patterns, as influenced by the sub-process Evaluation, are far less predictable than those patterns formed around a fixed-point attractor. That the dynamical change within a sub process could change the process in toto may indicate to system theorists that those attractors present during Evaluation were strange attractors. Strange attractors are defined by (Gleick, 1988) as points in phase-space that were fundamentally unpredictable with regard to location within the where/when of a bounded area and with regard to influence upon the system (Gleick, 1988). In addition, the three models presented in Table 1 suggested that states of cognition could be placed on a continuum from self-regulated and conscious thought to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43 control-free and unconscious thought (e.g., Incubation). This continuum offered speculation as to whether creative processes passed through two complimentary conditions described by Gleick as states in equilibrium and states in far from equilibrium. The first denoted stability and predictability, the second "novelty and change" (Yaden, 1999). To apply the terminology, during Incubation ideas undergo a process of flux and instability; they are in a far-from-equilibrium state. At some point, however, patterns of cognition begin to gel (an intimation), and perhaps crystallize into a new idea. Once the idea has fully taken hold, the system may return to a more in-equilibrium state. That this movement between process-states of stasis and flux occurs within a system of considerable complexity may be illustrated though Guilford's, Structure of Intellect (SOI) Model, (Michael, 1999). This model was based on the Information Process framework of inputs, processes, and outputs. The SOI Model loosely sequenced creative processes through Contents, Operations, and Products (Michael, 1999). For Guilford and Merrifield (1960), raw information had no Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 44 processing value without filtering. What was important was not data, but what "the organism does with the raw material of information" (p. 5). With this clarified, Guilford and Merrifield defined Contents as responses to information that inputted in one or several of the following four forms: Figural, Symbolic, Semantic, and Behavioral. Post-discrimination, information was processed by one or several of the following five Operations: Evaluating, Memory, Convergent Production (conventional generation of information), Divergent Production (multiple and unconventional generation of information), and Cognition (recognition/understanding). The resultant generated information was classified in a hierarchy of increasing complexity. Thus, Products (outputs) were made up of the following six elements: Units, Classes, Relations, Systems, Transformations and Implications. There is not space herein to discuss in full depth Guilford's model. Suffice it to say, his 4x5x6 model presented 120 independent factors of intellect. In 1977, the model was expanded to 150 cells upon the division of Figural Contents into auditory and visual. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45 Upon Guilford's sub-dividing Memory Contents into short and long-term memory, his 1987 SOI Model included 180 cells (Michael, 1999). For the sake of arguing the complexity of creativity, it would be interesting to add to this SOI Model environmental, social, and affective dimensions. Even if many of Guilford's hypothesized independent cells presented a tendency for overlap (Michael, 1999), the complexity provided herein is astounding. It may not be surprising, therefore, considering the plethora of available variables and opportunities for confounded validity that, as Hocevar and Bachelor (1989) wrote, "reliability, discriminate validity and nomological validity cannot be taken for granted in creativity research" (p. 62). They continued, "High scorers on creativity tests are not necessarily creative people" (p. 63). To conclude, the nature of creativity as captured by Dewey (1910), Rossman (1931), Wallas (1945), and Guilford (1965) suggested that although these models have long been subsumed into the Information Processing perspective, what was lost in this subsuming may be Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46 essential attributes of creativity: non-linear thinking, process and sub-process interactions, and dynamism. Therefore, General System Theory, specifically the process constructs it embraced and described, may be better suited to frame the modeling of creativity. System Theory and Writing It has just been argued that processes of creativity have fundamental connections to process descriptions contained within General System Theory. Therefore, in so far that writing poetry is a sub- domain within general creativity, it will be argued that divergent writing may too be framed within System Theory. Three propositions that support this position are as follows: First, grounded in systems science, writing is non linear because inputs do not form a linear relationship to outputs. Between thought and behavior, writing related cognitions are bent by a variety of fixed and strange attractors. For example, a fixed attractor is a word used to label a river, such as the word "Mississippi." Yet, this word has the potential to act Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47 as a strange attractor wherein the word "Mississippi" may bend, in an unpredictable manner, the writer's associative cognitions activated during and after the recall of the word. Although unpredictable, however, a strange attractor may fall within a larger process pattern. A concrete example of patterning that develops as a result of writing may be a particular writer's style. Hemingway at his typewriter is unable to predict with exactitude what will appear on the page. Still, there is a good chance that his text will reflect his "Hemingwayesque" style. Second, writing is a dynamical process because the cognitions that produce a text occur over time, and time imparts change upon a process. This change then influences anew cognitive processes. Third, the act of writing is a complex process that passes through sub-processes and recruits a number of interrelated sub-systems which may respond to each other in simultaneity, including paradigmatic, syntagmatic, and orthographic systems; declarative and procedural knowledge systems; Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48 affective systems; and neurological and physical systems, all of which interact with environmental systems (Schuldberg, 1999). These systems, it could be imagined, interact within the creative processes of Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification. Another key concept of System Theory relevant to the process of writing poetry is the concept of Sensitivity to Initial Conditions. As stated earlier, complex systems tend to move between stable in equilibrium and unstable far-from-equilibrium conditions. For example, a large scale system in this condition, such as the weather, is highly sensitive to micro-permutations the influence of which may result in dramatic changes to macro-system patterns. Or, to reflect Wallas's 4-stage model and Michael's (1999) comments on Guilford's SIP model, a relatively small event, or chance cognition may be the triggering catalyst moving one from a period of Incubation to the "aha" of Illumination. Writer and writing theorist William Stafford (1978), in describing his process of writing, presented Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49 a receptive state strikingly similar to the principle of Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions (Gleick, 1988) . At times, without my insisting on it, my writings become coherent; the successive elements that occur to me are clearly related... That element, a thought or a momentarily fixed text, then creates eddies anew. They [words] lead by themselves to new connections. Sometimes the language, even the syllables that happen along, may start a trend...the indulgence of my impulses will bring recurrent patterns and meaning again, (p. 18-19) For Stafford, the protuberance of an idea did not take place in a static environment, but in an organic one in which associated ideas suddenly gained energy and triggered avalanches of cognitive motion which suddenly coalesced into a coherent written thought. Creative Processes and Incubation In his review, Models of the Creative Process: Past, Present and Future, Lubart (2001) summarized a number of responses to the question: What makes the creative process creative? Seven hypothetical answers were presented: (1) the creative process presented in two varieties, the first resulted in a creative, eminent product, the second resulted in a common, typical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50 product; (2) creative work was a result of variations in sub-process parameters (e.g., the time spent within a particular phase); (3) creative work resulted from the quality of material (knowledge) accessed during each phase of the process; (4) differences in sequencing and cycling of processes resulted in either a creative or non-creative product; (5) keeping sequencing constant, the overall quality of processing- good preparation, effective incubating, sound verification- engendered creative results; (6) creativity was a result of a special capacity, such as Janusian thinking - actively conceiving multiple or opposing ideas simultaneously (Rothenberg, 1999); and, 7) creative ideation and resultant production was the result of a subconscious period of ideation, earlier referred to as a stage of incubation (Wallas 1945). Quoting Taylor (1959), Lubart (2001) wrote: ...during the incubation stage, experiences mill and flow freely about for the highly creative person...for the non-creative person it is merely a matter of sorting experiences into tight, comfortable menta'l compartments, (p. 64) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51 Thus, it was the cognitive mode of processing which influenced whether a creative, novel product became realized. Taylor's description of "milling and flowing" was particularly consistent with Stafford's description of his process of writing poetry. Both of these process descriptions were compatible with process descriptions captured within a systems paradigm. Previous Qualitative Studies Offering an alternative to Lubart's (2001) taxonomy, Hunsaker (1992) suggested that qualitative research into the domain of creative writing has tended to fall into one of four stands of inquiry: Traits, Processes, Environments, and Products. Gardner (1994) further divided this research into one of two distinctive perspectives: Ideothetic Research which focused on the unique peculiarities of the individual and was connected to the psychological research tradition of the case study; and, Nomothetic Research (within which grounded theory inquiry takes place) which focused on the discovery of general laws or principles that may apply to an ensemble of cases. By way of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52 synthesis, the following matrix highlights several approaches that have been utilized to investigate creativity. Table 2. A Qualitative Research Matrix Idiothetic Research Nomothetic Research Traits Amabile, 2001 Gardner, 1993 Processes Ward, 2001 Csikszentmihalyi, 1990 Environment Nakamura & Bloom ,1973 Csikszentmihalyi, 2001 Products Fitzgerald, 1926/2000 Cohen, 1987 This matrix does not imply an exclusive categorizing of qualitative research. It is only meant as an instrument to organize the following review of literature. For the sake of brevity, not all categories are fully addressed. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53 Ideothetic-Traits Amabile's (2001) case study of the fiction writer John Irving presented creative endeavor as largely dependent on a willingness to work hard. Stated Amabile, Irving describes working hard from the time he was just a child... He continues to work hard, often writing 10 hours per day on his electric typewriter (p. 334) Amabile then quoted Irving who asked the rhetorical question, "Do you know of anyone who goes to the Olympics without working at it ten hours a day?" (p. 334). Through interviews, reports from others, biographical and autobiographical sources, Amabile filtered her data through a component model of creativity as follows: 1) domain relevant skills; 2) creativity relevant skills; and, 3) task motivation, specifically intrinsic motivation. Through interviews, Irving revealed that he struggled in school and had always had to overcome severe dyslexia, a handicap that one would suppose would deter him from entering into writing as a profession. On the other hand, Irving recalled with happiness that as a child he had abundant Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54 freedom to daydream and to be alone and make-up stories to tell his family. In sum, the data according to Amabile suggested that domain-relevant and creative relevant skills were in no way extraordinary in Irving's case. Amabile concluded, This analysis of John Irving's creativity suggests that, at the very least, raw talent, a clever imagination, and a creative personality aren't nearly sufficient to ensure creative success, (p. 335) In regard to practical implications, Amabile proposed that rather than identifying the most gifted or talented child, policy makers and educators should implement programs that supported and developed a learning orientation of discipline and perseverance. Nomothetic-Traits In contrast to and complimentary to Amabile's ideothetic study, Gardner (1994) developed an integrative theory of creativity emerging out of an in- depth study of seven creative individuals revolutionary in their impact upon our modern era. In The Creators' Patterns, he identified two phenomena consistently present among his cases. First: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55 ...Each of them seems to have made contact with the years of early childhood - preschool years.... [They] seem drawn to the same basic, elemental, simple forms that attract the mind of the child before it has been too influenced by the conventions of society, (p. 156) This finding echoed, to some degree, Irving's childhood recollections of his freedom to daydream. Second, Gardner stated that creators may take two seemingly contrasting paths in response to the influence of their domain; they may "question every assumption and attempt to strike out on one's own..." or "probe more systematically, deeply, and comprehensibly [into the domain] than anyone has probed before" (p. 156). These tendencies were in a similar vein to those identified in Bloom's Anxiety of Influence (1973), addressed later in this section. Ideothetic- & Nomothetic-Processes Whereas Ward (2001) developed a Cognitive Process approach in response to a single author relating his experiences developing, rejecting, and combining "initial ideas", Csikszentmihalyi (1990) pulled together data from hundreds of domain-diverse individuals from a broad representation of humanity. From this data he Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56 developed a theory of cognitive processing that he proposed was applicable to all individuals regardless of age, race, domain expertise, class or gender. He termed this state of optimal experience "flow". Csikszentmihalyi concluded that optimal states of experience, optimal implying that the experience resulted in superior performance and a concurring deep- felt level of intrinsic satisfaction, were a result of the following six tendencies: (1) the activity was interpreted as challenging; (2) the involvement in the activity was such that awareness of "self" dissolved as all attention was consumed by task-relevant stimuli; (3) the movement toward either a defined or discovered objective; (4) the sense of control over the process/activity and/or a lack of process related anxiety; (5) the loss of "time sense" or a feeling of the timelessness of an activity; 6) the loss of self- consciousness, or as one of his interviewees put it, "When things become automatic, its like an egoless thing" (p. 62); and (7) the task activating the interviewees' cognitive processes tended to become an autoletic experience, meaning that the activity, even if Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57 initiated for other reasons, became an end in itself and was thus intrinsically rewarding. From these seven reoccurring patterns of experience, Csikszentmihalyi developed his Theory of Flow. He then applied this theory to a range of physical and mental activities including the cognitive activities of highly creative and influential thinkers. Finally, he used his theory, and the sub-processes that supported it, to offer a pragmatic approach to its achievement by everyone. Ideothetic-Environment A decade later, Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi (2001), investigated environmental factors that influenced the work of the biochemist, Linus Pauling. Their investigation concluded that Pauling's career was dependent first, on the influence of a guiding mentor who had a knack for matching interests and aptitudes with specific areas of scientific research; second, on the corrective evaluations of his speculations by peers, his field's scientific standards, and the theoretical limitations of his area of research; and third, on his need to "follow the money" (p. 340). In short, a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58 gatekeeper at the Rockefeller Foundation stated that Pauling should leave behind physics and enter into the new field of researching biology through chemistry. If he did so, funding would follow. Prior to this advice, according to sources cited by Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi, Pauling had been repelled by organic chemistry and had no professional background in biology. Today, Pauling is considered a founder of molecular biology. Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi concluded, Pauling's achievements were ascribable to multiple influences rather than to his intellectual and personal qualities alone The phenomena we agree to call creativity cannot be observed, measured, evaluated or reported independently of the judgments of a field of experts whose opinion has currency in a particular society at a specific point in time. (p. 341) Nomothetic-Environment As were Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi (2001), Bloom (1973) was interested in investigating the influence environmental factors had upon the creativity of historically eminent figures. In his well received Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, Bloom detailed the literary environment that professional writers negotiated as they struggled to produce original art. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 Specifically, through close text analysis and biographical information, Bloom described the psychological impact canonized literary giants had upon those who followed. He suggested that only through a "misreading" of the past can the struggling new poet create "imaginative space" within which his or her own voice may be heard. Bloom, by casting his hypothesis within a psychologically framed tension between tradition and creation, complexified the reductionist's perspective of causal, source-study critiques of literature. This tension, Bloom proposed, resulted in creative, ethical, and moral swerves, antithetical texts, inspirations, denials, and returnings to the dead. Each of these artist to the anxiety of being influenced was given specific definitions supported by examples. Ideothe tic-Products As related to creative products, a recent trend has occurred wherein "draft" versions of literary masterpieces are published. For example, prior to the publication of The Great Gatshy, F. Scott Fitzgerald furnished his editor, Max Perkins, with an un-revised Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60 copy entitled Trimalchio (1926, 2000). Through editorial advice and the process of rewriting (Perkins supplied the much more marketable title) Fitzgerald's text was crafted into what has become one of the most read examples of American Literature. As of this writing, comparative textual analysis does not appear to have moved outside the circle of literary criticism and into the field of creativity and educational research. However, Fitzgerald's un-revised texts, and the un revised texts of a great number of canonized writers are available for whoever deems them worthy of a systematic investigation. Nomothetic-Product This investigator's classification of qualitative research concludes with a study that focused on musical material of several unknown rock musicians. Cohen (1987) described how the music created by "up and coming" bands in Liverpool was influenced by (a) the need to write original and ground breaking songs; (b) the need to create products satisfactory to a commercial environment; and, (c) the related need for sustenance. It may be noteworthy that Cohen's findings resonate with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61 those of Nakamara and Csikszentmihalyi (2001) with regard to the decisive influence money had upon creative output. Concluding Remarks: Framing the Methodology The 2 x 4 matrix depicted in Table 2 has so far been used as a descriptive device for organizing and comparing categorically different qualitative studies. In addition, this matrix may be used to prescribe a particular inquiry mode and pre-select studies that may act as methodological models. Because flow states and writing cognition are, to a large extent, process specific phenomena, and a primary objective of this study is to develop a grounded theory describing the writing processes of poets, Csikszentmihalyi's Nomothetic-Processes investigation was a relevant example to follow as it had much to offer with respect to methods of data collection and hypothesis forming. However, it would be inappropriate to assume that Flow (1990) may be used as a template to prepare a qualitative study into writing. Csikszentmihalyi's, intent was to develop a description of a process that could be applicable to a diverse Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62 population. Therefore, his study utilized maximum sample variation (Patton, 1990) to capture shared patterns non-specific to a domain. This present investigation into the cognitive processes of writers entailed homogeneous sampling. In addition, the investigator chose to examine a particular type of creativity - divergent thinking - - within a specific domain - writing. As poetry is accepted by most literary critics as presenting the greatest leeway for divergent production, a sample of poets was selected to help develop a better understanding of divergent thinking associated with writing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63 CHAPTER I I I Methods and Procedures Organization of the Chapter This study used qualitative methods of capturing, analyzing, and interpreting data generated through in- depth interviews with expert poets regarding personal perceptions of cognitive processes associated with the production of poetry. The objective of this chapter is to discuss (1) the selection the sample; (2) the design and procedures of the study; (3) the analysis of the data; (4) the assumptions of the investigation; (5) the study limitations; and, (6) the data corpus. Sample Criteria and Rationale The participants in this study fulfilled three sample criteria: (a) they were recognized by their peers and institutions as expert practitioners; (b) their area of expertise was within the field of poetry; and (c) they had substantial experience in the teaching of creative writing. The reasoning for these criteria was as follows. First, negotiating personal judgments as to what is creative and who is creative is highly subjective. As Hocevar and Bachelor (1989) attested: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64 ...because creativity is often subjectively assessed, one must hope that the judges are able to distinguish creativity from other constructs.... Unfortunately, a review of some appropriate studies indicates otherwise, (p. 61) In order to minimize, or perhaps side step this issue of subjectivity, it was thought best to defer to the judgments of professionally and academically active individuals within the field of poetry. Therefore, the study sample was limited to those who had been published in peer-reviewed poetry journals and/or had their poetry published by recognized book publishers. Second, poetry was selected as the focus of the investigation because it was determined by this investigator that (a) current models of writing have been strongly biased toward the description of cognitive processes associated with rhetorical texts and the convergent, problem-solving cognitions that support their production and that (b) the poetic form allows for the greatest degree of divergent thinking and the least dependence on convergent interpretations of content and structure. Another confounding dilemma in the study of creative endeavor was that as practitioners reach a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65 greater level of mastery, the processes activated during their work become ever more intuitive (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). However, an expert-practitioner of an art form who has spent a great deal of time instructing novice practitioners as to its mastery would be more likely to have metacognitively considered his or her own creative processes than those expert-practitioners who had mastered an art form, but who had never been required to pass that mastery on to others. Therefore, it was determined that interviewing published poets who were also poetry instructors would yield the depth of data necessary to build a grounded model. Design and Procedures Qualitative studies inherently run the risk of unwinding and fragmenting. In order to give structure to this research methodology, the investigator followed Kvale's (1996) guidelines for conducting interview- dependent research. Therefore, the investigation proceeded as follows: Thematizing. Prior to the start of an interview the what (investigating cognitive processes associated with poetry) the why (in order to develop and theoretical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 model) and the framing of the investigation were clearly understood. (See Research Questions, Chapter I). However, the theoretical framing of this investigation contradicted some qualitative researchers who suggest that a "tablua rasa'' approach should be implemented (Glaser, 1992). Although this perspective is suitable for longitudinal ethnographic studies entailing in-the- field information gathering, for the purpose of this investigation it was thought that a theoretically unframed and undirected approach was neither advantageous nor pragmatic. Designing. In response to the needs of the above, guided questions were developed and then piloted with the assistance of Dr. William B. Michael, Ph.D. of the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education. Dr. Michael's extensive expertise in the areas of creativity and research design was invaluable during the preparatory stage of this study. The software application Ethonograph 5.8, developed by Qualis Research (2002), was tested, selected and incorporated as a methodological instrument. Consent forms, verbal scripts, and guiding questions were Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67 completed and approved by the Institutional Review Board. Interviewing. Potential interviewees were contacted through collegial networking. Informed consent was obtained prior to the start of all interviews. Interviews were based upon the interview guide (see Appendix B). Questions seeking clarification and restatement were used during the interview to facilitate later interpretation. Transcribing. Individual interviews were tape recorded. These recordings were transcribed prior to analysis. Analyzing. The bulk of the data analysis was facilitated through computer aided coding of transcript data using Ethnograph 5.8 (Qualis Researh, 2002). Following coding, data was further interpreted and analyzed to determine patterns, commonalties and discrepancies among and within the interviews. Verifying. Validity was sought through the use of contrast questions (Spradley, 1979) to seek and capture conflicting data themes and for the purpose of hypothesis recasting. Member checks were conducted Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 through requesting transcript confirmation by the study participants. Finally, an audit was conducted by an audit committee at the conclusion of the study (see Appendix E) the suggestions of which were incorporated into the study. Reporting. The findings of the study were communicated in a form that sustained scientific criteria, considered the ethical aspects of the investigation, and resulted in a readable dissertation. Assumptions of the Investigation 1. The participants' experiences and knowledge were sufficient for the production of meaningful results related to the research questions. 2. The investigator was able to remain objective during the process of collecting data and avoided a loss of critical perspective due to "going native" (Creswell, 1998, p.61). Study Limitations To the extent that any one of the above assumptions was not met constituted a weakness of credibility in the inquiry results. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 69 The Data Corpus Collection of the Data The Data Corpus was collected as interviewees responded to questions put forth by the investigator. These Guiding Questions were just that, they "guided" the course of the interview. Thus, the interview followed the semi-structured format suggested by McCracken (1988), whereby questions were often taken verbatim from the interview guide; however, spontaneous follow-up questions seeking a deeper clarification of ideas and experiences were used throughout the course of data collection. Furthermore, while the ordering of the questions were for the most part followed as directed by the Guide, the interactive nature of the research topic often necessitated the interviewer to follow the natural progression of the conversation rather than forcing the interviewee to follow a fixed sequence of questioning. Finally, as stated in the Procedures section of this chapter and specific to Research Question 1, many Contrast Questions (Spradley, 1979) sought negative examples to uncover evidence of a lack of correspondence Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70 with particular propositions of System Theory. Specifically, questions that sought explicit support for a Problem Solving framework, as contrasted to a Systems framework, were used with consistency throughout all six interviews. Finally, positive responses to these contrast questions would later require the assimilation of this data into the Findings and Discussion section of this study. Context of the Data Collection The ordering of the interviews was indicated by the letter assigned to each poet: Poet A was interviewed first; Poet F was interviewed last. All of the interviews took place in the office of the interviewee with the exception of Poet C with whom the interview was conducted at a table in his kitchen. This informal setting may explain why Poet C's was a comparatively long interview. No coding or analysis was conducted within the intervening time between interviews, although it was assumed that as the interviewer became more experienced with the interview process and the interview protocol, the data collection reflected this gained familiarity. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71 Table 3. Quantitative Description of the Data Corpus and its Utilization Relative to the Research Questions (RQ) Poets in order of Interviewing Lines per Interview Words per Interview Citations in RQ1 Findings Citations in RQ2 Findings Citations in RQ3 Findings Total Citations Chapter IV Poet A 1,497 6,996 5 2 6 13 Poet B 1,229 5,145 6 1 6 13 Poet C 3,139 14,937 3 2 3 8 Poet D 1,147 4,942 4 3 3 10 Poet E 1,449 6,508 5 4 3 12 Poet F 878 3,627 3 4 5 12 Lines in Words in Data Data Corpus Corpus 9,339 42,155 The Tallying Process Regarding the above chart, the line totals were those supplied by Ethnograph 5.8 (Qualis Research, 2002), whereas word counts were supplied by cutting and pasting the transcripts into a word processing software and using a word count feature. For locating individual citations within the body of Chapter IV, a "Find" feature was used for each Poet, e.g., "Find: 'Poet A'.'' Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72 Once found, the poet's data reference was contextualized for the purpose of tallying. As for the tally processes, a number of variables affected the tally outcome. For example, should three quotes supporting one concept referenced to a single poet have as much weight as three quotes supporting one concept cross-referenced to by three different poets? When an interviewee made a statement and then gave an example to support the statement, should this have been noted as one tally or two tallies - one for the statement and one for the example? If a statement was made by an interviewee that was again referenced in a summary statement, should that have counted as two separate citations or as one for both the statement and the summary? Therefore, the following (conservative) tally guideline was followed: A poet was only tallied once for a particular concept or topic. More than one example given by a single poet to support a single concept was still counted as one (1) citation. A given statement and its corresponding explanation were counted as one (1) citation. A data reference and a restatement of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73 that reference within a section's summarizing paragraph were counted as one (1) citation. And finally, multiple references given by a corresponding number of interviewees to support a single concept or topic resulted in each poet receiving a separate tally count for the given concept or topic under investigation. The Data Corpus and Elite Bias: A Threat to Credibility and Transferability As used herein the term elite bias (Miles and Huberraan, 1994) refers not so much to participant status as to the interviewee's contribution to findings and model building. As a result of articulacy and topicality, some transcripts were more analytically accessible than others. For example, a transcript filled with a series of interesting stories and anecdotes with regard to colleagues and to the writing profession, although containing a greater quantity of data, contained less qualitative information related to the investigation. In addition, the data density of a transcript may have biased the researcher with regard to retrieving and selecting data segments for the purpose of supporting findings and building the study's model. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74 As can be ascertained from the above quantification of the data corpus, not all interviewees contributed equally to the findings of the study; for example, Poets A and B contributed to the building of the concluding model more than did Poets C and D. Four courses of action were considered in response to the above threat to credibility: 1) Reduce the number of citations of those were over-represented; 2) Increase the number of citations of those who were under represented; 3) A combination of 1 and 2; and, 4) Leave the data corpus as it was originally utilized and acknowledge the possibility of a threat. The investigator did not think it would increase credibility or transferability if data references were taken out of the findings. However, if the investigator had increased the saturation of support for a particular concept or topic, taken out of the context of the original emergent analysis, the amended findings may or may not have reduced a threat, while the post hoc amendment may have increased the possibility of "data forcing" (Glaser, 1992). Therefore, the last of these alternative responses was followed, and the investigator Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75 acknowledges that elite bias may have impacted the development of his findings. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76 CHAPTER IV Findings and Discussion Organization of the Chapter This response to Question 1 is divided into two parts. Part I, Section One details transcript excerpts relevant to writing associated processes characterized as non-linear, dynamic, and interactive. Part I, Section Two details evidence to the contrary, e.g., descriptions of writing associated with poetry that is linear, static, and, to use one interviewee's term, "mechanical." Part II addresses the seemingly contradictory process descriptions related to Part I. Specifically, it is argued that fundamental assumptions of the Problem-Solving framework are incompatible with regard to much of the research data. In response to this incompatibility, the researcher hypothesizes that Seeking-Behavior, defined therein, better captures cognitive processes described in the study data than does Problem-Solving. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77 Research Question 1 For a sample of six professional poets/writing instructors to what degree and in what manner may General System Theory and related theoretical sub-constructs add to the understanding of cognitive processes associated with the production of poetry? Part I, Section One Review In Chapter II, a brief description of System Theory was given followed by a discussion of process attributes that are captured by this theory. Next, constructs and processes that characterize creativity were reviewed. From these discussions, conclusions were drawn suggesting the feasibility of grounding creativity within the framework of General System Theory. This conclusion is supported by Richards (2001) who, revisiting Guilford's SOI model writes that system sciences offer researchers, ...Models and metaphors based on an ever more rapid, sensitive, holistic, non-linear creative process [that may] honor one's mental history and complex preconditions while responding instantly to information as subtle as a puff of air, (p. 249) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78 It was furthermore stated in Chapter II that for General System Theory to be considered a valid foundation upon which to build a writing model, three tendencies of writing processes would have to be confirmed with regard to cognitions associated with poetry production: (1) the interview data related to the process of writing would tend to suggest that inputs (initial information Contents) do not form a linear relationship to outputs (written Products) and that poetry associated writing processes are non-linear; (2) there would tend to be evidence in the transcript data that time and process changes manifest through a dynamic, temporal dimension would have a fundamental influence on writing processes; and (3) there would be evidence in the transcript data that writing was a complex, interactive process that recruited a number of networked sub-processes. These three process- attributes, non-linearity, dynamism, and interactivity give shape to the presentation of findings that follows. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79 Writing as a Non-linear Process Interview data collected from all six poets indicated that non-linear cognitive processes were associated with the writing of poetry. This characteristic of non-linearity was found to be especially important influential with regard to the initiation of the writing act. From a traditional perspective of composition, each writing endeavor is preceded by a clear rhetorical problem that needs to be addressed, e.g., a writing prompt, an assignment, a need to persuade or inform. These problems are primarily external in nature to the degree that an external agency - a teacher, an editor, a constituent - demands the response. Yet, from this perspective, where does one place a writer's need to respond to rotting leaves? burnt toast? a white flower? a hummingbird? These are just a few of the internal, and unpredictable triggers reported by the interviewees. In speaking of the process of writing his poem Autumn, Poet B told of how, "I was not expecting anything, except I got to get to work" (li. 126). He explained: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80 Some leaves are stuck in my windshield... My mechanic showed me how they decompose, then they rust out your car just like salt does to your car in the North. The main thing I thought was, "I'm pissed off at this leaf on this windshield." It wasn't really a poetic emotion at all. I remember picking the leaf up and taking hold. If you pick something up, you sort of make it yours. And in claiming the leaf, I was aware that the leaf was discolored like an Autumn leaf, even though it was warm outside. And so I started thinking about making a poem about it and this is the poem I started making up in my head while I was driving to work. Q: So it seems like a random occurrence... Poet B: Random. Yes, random. Very ordinary. Hardly going out and seeking some situation, (li. 69-110) With regard to the unpredictable, Poet B added that the "best part of it [writing]... is the sense of the unexpected (li. 120-122). This scenario, an unpredictable occurrence triggering the production of a poem reoccurred with regularity among the interviewees. Poet A related how the unpredicted events of reading an article about toast, observing a dog fight and seeing a book on an airport conveyor belt, each triggered a series of unforeseen cognitions that resulted in producing a poem, the content of which was far removed from (and far more complex than) the initializing trigger. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81 Poet A: The extraordinary experience of this [poem] was that I actually read about this in the New York Times. That someone had been given a grant to study toast falling. That's all I had was a little blurb, and I read this and I could not believe it. That was astonishing to me that the government would actually give money to study if toast would always fall buttered side down. So, of course it is a humorous poem too, but in all my poems I try to reach the universal level still. I take it out of the literalness of it, and take it up to the figurative and touch on something much larger, so in this case it was about birth. I'm talking about the way we fall out of the womb. It is the same principal, somehow, at the end of the poem. If you read the last line... "Born out of the pure needs of annoyance..." There are many things in our life just like that... stubbing your toe. Then I say, "The aggravation, though, is clearly one of duty, to drive the mind to madness, and everywhere and in all descent the toast's fall to earth as in birth remains unfair and always to its creator seditious." See, in other words, the creator of the toast and the creator of the child or infant - "the creator of the inconvenient, and pain in the derriere." Like they slap you on your rear when you are born, I'm trying to capture that. (li. 281- 324) The explication of this scenario presents a phenomenon that defines non-linearity: While it is possible to play in reverse the process that resulted in the concluding output, in this case the published poem, it is absolutely impossible to predict that an article in a newspaper could have triggered the poet to write a poem about a topic as complex as fate and the human Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82 condition. (One could even suggest a fractal relationship between the non-linearity of the process of creating this poem and the non-linearity implied in the poem's theme). Poet E offered a similar scenario when she related an unexpected encounter at an outdoor party: I just kept staring at it and staring at it, the way the light was hitting it. And I noticed people were talking to me and I wasn't following the conversation because my eye kept going back to that flower (li. 90-96). Out of this unexpected meeting with a white flower, emerged an unforeseen poem, the theme of which was related to her bringing closure to her feelings about a personal relationship. However, it should not be construed from the above examples that triggers only occurred at the onset of a poem and thus only influenced the initiation of a product. Poet F, discussing the influence of extraneous information influencing a work in progress stated, "I'll be writing and a hummingbird will come by and hover outside the window. I mean hummingbirds have appeared that way and entered my poem..." (li. 316-320) . Regarding Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83 interruptions, Poet C related the following while conversing with the interviewer: Q: But at the same time, are you restricting outside influences from coming in? Poet C: Let it [sic] come in. Q: Say that maybe the phone rings? Poet C: And I put it in. Q: And you can't really predict that. Poet C: Absolutely. You put in anything that might occur to you. (li. 2323-2331) Writing as a Dynamic Process in an Open System As stated in the introduction to this section, another fundamental principle of systems theory is the proposition that complex processes are dynamic. To fully address the interview data, however, the investigator suggests that one must first differentiate two types of systems addressed in General System Theory, those systems that are "Closed" and those that are "Open". By way of analogy, for a fountain with water running through a piece of bamboo and into a slowly filling bucket there will be a certain point at which/when the bucket's weight is greater than the counter weight and with a sudden clunk it will empty itself out. For this simple analogy, it is assumed that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84 the bucket only tips once, and that the water source is a reservoir, not a pump. In this process, change is obviously a factor of time. Given the component parts - reservoir volume, mass of empty bucket, length of lever, mass of counterweight, water flow rate as a function of tube diameter -- one can predict with accuracy the change-state of the mechanism and its "tipping point." Furthermore, since unpredictable interactions between the component parts are very small, the parts can be summatively described. Thus, a change of the counter weight will have a predicable influence on the process as will a change in the lever length or reservoir volume. System Theory describes such systems as Closed Systems because they are based on reversible reactions (Bertalanffy, 1969). Given the equation, TP = f (Bw,Ll,Cw,Rv, t,Fv) Where TP (Tipping Point) as kinetic energy is a function of Bucket weight, Lever length, Counterweight, Reservoir volume (potential energy), time and Flow volume (as a function of tube diameter), one may move from the reaction TP to the component parts or from the component Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 85 parts to the reaction. Furthermore, following the reaction TP, the system will return to a steady state where no additional potential energy is added or kinetic energy released. Therefore the system is neither dynamic nor unpredictable with regard to a time/state change relationship. It is the researcher's argument that this closed system is the same system that ultimately frames the model constructs presented by Flower and Hayes (1981/1994) of Planning, Transcribing, Reviewing and Monitoring. Thus, one could argue that, T = f (P,Tr,R,Rp,t,M) Where Text (T) production is a function of Planning (P), Translating (Tr), Reviewing (R), Rhetorical problem (Rp), time, and Monitoring. T represents kinetic cognitive energy, Rp represents potential cognitive energy. Functions P, Tr, M, once activated by Rp remain static. Function t is assumed to be of trivial influence. Upon the completion (problem-solving) of the written work, the system returns to a steady state. Furthermore, one may reverse the equation resulting in a predictable change in the Written Product. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86 To further differentiate Closed from Open Systems, one may take the fountain analogy out of the laboratory, so to speak, and place it within a naturalistic environment. Realistically, a working fountain is continually receiving energy, and by doing so it is, in fact, part of a far more complex, and Open, energy production system, whether the fountain is gravity fed by a river or electrically fed by a river dam's turbines. Furthermore, both of these energy sources (gravity feed or electrical feed) are influenced by more complex systems yet, such as weather related drought. The interview data collected by the investigator showed no support for the position that poetry unfolds from within a closed system or for the proposition that interactions between component parts and sub-processes were non-dynamic or, to use Bertalanffy's term, trivial (1969). Rather, the data overwhelmingly suggested that writing poetry was a product of an open system wherein writing processes were highly interactive, dynamically irreversible, and environmentally influenced. Data support for this conclusion was lightly touched upon earlier with regard to Poet A. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87 Two themes with regard to the interactivity emerged out of the data. These two themes included 1) External process-interactions such as Historicity and The Academy; and, 2)Inner process-interactions such as Personal History, Life Changing Events, Professional Growth, Maturation of Perspective, and Development of Personal Style. Yet, dichotomizing External process-interactions and Inner process-interactions, however useful with regard to data coding and model building, is not meant to deny the obvious degree of interaction between the two. A well-published poet's Professional Growth will share a great deal of overlap with The Academy, just as one's Personal History will share a great deal of overlap with Historicity. Making this overlap concrete, Poet A defined Historicity as ...the ability to understand poetry, all of its influences that bear on the work itself and on the author, whether they're social, political, religious, philosophical, racial, the combination of all of these influences is what we call its historicity. You're actually studying the work in terms of a combination of all of these different impulses, and it places the work in that context of a period of time when all of these forces are at work. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Q: And then, it also implies that past poets do have a connection to whatever is taking place in the present. Poet A, continued: ...All work that is written in the present is necessarily there because of work of the past. Whether it is a work of art we have rejected or accepted, it is still part of our new creation of a work of art. (li. 25-53) Continuing this interview vein, the investigator asked, Q: . . . S o [these influences] could be seen as certain structures that are in place, as you are writing, not necessarily determining what will be placed on the page, but certainly present in terms of the cognitive environment within which you are writing.... Poet A: Let's put it this way, in the Renaissance period there were poets and authors and scientists who addressed the concept of the perfectibility of man, which is what they attempted, through their arts and sciences, to achieve. Well that search for perfectibility also gave itself to rigidly structured form. This is how the Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets found their genesis, and why we refer to them as classical forms. If you understand that period of time, while you are working in the 20th century and you choose to engage that type of formalism, that classical structure, you do make a statement by doing so. (li. 65-95) Herein, Poet A described the writer as one in constant interaction with an open environmental system Historicity, wherein political events such as the First World War directly influenced the form fragmentation of Modernism. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89 Another example of a process influence, captured by the theme External Interaction, was identified when cognitions associated with individual words were explicitly influenced by an external system of poetic criticism (a.k.a., The Academy). This influence was typified by the poet's struggle to avoid cliche. Poet E: Oh, that's the most horrifying thing. Yes, especially the idea that you read and then somehow you're recycling, even down to the zeros. Have I somehow absorbed somebody else's line and I've put it in my own poetry and I'm not even aware that I'm doing it. Panic attack over that <laughter>. (li. 1303-1310) Poet E was not alone in this concern. All of those interviewed related scenarios of avoiding cliche or purposefully seeking its opposite, originality and novelty. Furthermore, that there are entire schools of literary criticism attentive to the social, political and cultural norms influencing both readers and writers underscores the conclusion that cognitive processes associated with the writing of poetry are best understood as operating from within an open system receiving constant and changing input from external, environmental systems. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 90 Adaptive Feedback, Growth and Learning As captured by the Flower and Hayes (1981/1994) model, feedback was operationalized through Review, Revision and Task Monitoring; the purpose of said feedback was to promote attainment of Goal Setting objectives. Later, in Section Two, the investigator will present transcript data associated with writing revision that shows support for this Problem-Solving writing model. It did not appear however, that the above feedback process or the process of revision as reported by the interviewees captured in any meaningful way the capacity of the interviewees to behave as adaptive, learning entities. On the other hand, one of the strengths of General System Theory is its capacity to apply general principles to a variety of adaptive systems. For example, Asby, (cited by Bertalanffy, 1969), used differential equations and system principles to develop a mathematical model wherein step-functions defined a system. Asby demonstrated that after a certain critical value was passed as a result of feedback within the system, a function would respond by "jumping" into a new Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 family of differential equations. Thus, "After passing a critical state, the system starts off in a new way of behavior" (p. 46). A few examples from the study data of feedback induced system change appear below. Scenario 1: Poet A: ... If you are following any artistic practice, you grow in them no matter where the poem started, you grow as an individual in those weeks, months [while writing the poem]. You grow in experience, you grow in thought, cognition, everything. So whatever image may have started the poem, you've arrived as a poet, when you are able to throw out the very line that inspired the whole poem because it no longer works within the growth of that poem and within the growth of the poet. (li. 184-196) Scenario 2: Poet E: I did go to a post-graduate writers1 conference in Vermont and worked with [a poet], who looked at my whole manuscript and gave me some feedback and pointed out a few strategies in my poetry, things I do without being aware that I do it, setting the stage, and he said maybe I need to get rid of that. And that was very helpful. [So now] when I look at it and say, okay, have I done that thing? Do I need to get rid of the first three lines again? (li. 511-524) Scenario 3: Poet D: Many of the things that I was writing about then, evolved with the same things [sic] I'm writing about now. I happen to have different perspectives on it and different ways of looking at Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92 them and everything, but they're the same kinds of thematic obsessions, (li. 100-107) Each of the scenarios presented above appear to reflect a homologous relationship to step-function changes induced by feedback which resulted in "a new way of behavior." In the first scenario, Poet A presented the artist as one engaged with continuously changing processes and behaviors. According to this writer, to work otherwise would be antithetical to what a poet is: a growing, learning organism whose cognitions associated with writing processes are necessarily adaptive. The second scenario presented the poet receiving writing associated information that, after passing through a critical state (perhaps a form of internalization) has step-wise altered her revision process. The third scenario introduced to this analysis the important principle that, although the processes of non linear, dynamical systems are irreversible and unpredictable, this does not mean that deep structures (herein identified as "obsessions") were not influencing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93 process outcomes. However, again in contrast to a reductive model, Scenario 3 presented the case that, although there are structures in place that result in behavioral patterning, e.g., thematic elements in one's work, the fundamental nature of the writing process was such that the system was incapable of producing unchanged reiterations of writing associated processing. Writing as a Networked Process Guilford's model of intellect placed 180 factoral cells in theoretical isolation within a three dimensional grid (Michael, 1999). Keeping the confounding variables of time and co-varying process interaction more or less fixed, a test subject would be said to reveal Ability Level N at grid Ability location CPO(Contents, Operations, Products) X, where X represented a specific cognitive trigram, e.g., DSI: Divergent production of Symbolic Implications). Perhaps one of the most personally stimulating experiences of conducting this study was that by framing the investigation within System Theory the investigator perceived that he was attending to Guilford's factors Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 94 put in motion. This motion was identified as Networked Processing. Scenario 1: Poet C: The thing that is different about the [latest] poems, is that they give likeness to, what may or may not be, the so-called explosive way that my brain works. Which is that things come in from all different angles. So line one might not lead to line two. It might connect to line 12. And line 3 might connect to line 14 or line 7. But not- and not always in the most direct way. It may connect metaphorically. It may connect narratively. It may connect associatively. It may begin with an idea that could be pursued. Or it may not at all. You can't count on it. It may be another thing that's thrown into the pot. I feel the license to go ahead and do that. That may be happening for everybody, but they decide not to use it because they think it's too nuts. (li. 1095-1127) Scenario 2: Poet B: In this poem, it is about going jogging on the levee on the Mississippi. And the crows that are up there and the light. [And there] was the immediate situation of the crows dipping the bread into the water. But then I went off, the jogging off was through the word Mississippi [emphasis mine] because it was a spelling word. It is always a spelling word in Detroit and so then I went backwards to childhood. And I thought, I don't want this poem to be about childhood so I came back to the present situation with the crow dipping its bread. Then I wanted to go back again so the poem returns again and then I say in the poem. [Reading] "On one chunk of that bread, someday up ahead, my last day is written clear as the printing on my birth certificate on file in Michigan." [Stops reading]. I mean, wherever we are born is a record of our birth. Where were you born? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95 Q: East Lansing, Michigan. Poet B: How weird. In East Lansing they have your birth Recorded, (li. 216-255) Poet B continued, supplying his own analysis: And I would say one of the things that I know about how my own mind works is that it is not really linear. That it is associative, it works though clusters of associations the clusters of associations are the crow and the bread, the birth certificate, Detroit, Mississippi. Here's the Mississippi River, here is a spelling word in Detroit. That's associative... that is a sound in an association cluster, you know. When I had to spell the word Mississippi in Detroit, I had no idea what it meant. I just knew it had a lot of "S's" in it, and I had better get it right, (li. 266-300) Scenario 3: Poet D: For me, if I look at a stair, first I see the stair rail. And then I see the sweat stains. And then I think about the hands. And then I think about the person. And then I think about the life and the narrative. But it comes out of the thing for me. And from seeing the stain, of something soaked in, something getting soaked into it. And that's, in part, where things happen for me, so I tend to move quickly, (li. 597-612) Scenario 4: Poet A: There are images outside that are literally stimuli to what is inside, and they make a connection, almost like dreaming sleep. It happens a lot in my poetry. The fact that I use symbolist kinds of images where you get two images up against each other not normally seen together... Such images probably also come out of unconscious, subconscious Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96 levels that somehow drive themselves forward until they end up consciously on the page. (li. 825-838) The data just presented above indicates that the cognitive network of the poet at work on a first draft allows for interaction between and among a variety of processes and sub-processes, such as those processes associated with different memory contents including imagistic, narrative, auditory process; affective processes; and linguistic processes all interacting and emerging through to the immediate moment of transforming ideational content into a text product through the writing process. To summarize, the investigator hypothesizes that following an unpredictable trigger "associations cluster" apparently because the writer's information network is diffused rather then channeled. That diffusion is sustained to the degree that the poet's inner processes remain sensitive and open to process dynamics rather than selective and closed as a result of externally imposed demands. Diffused networking allowed for contents and processes to interact in a temporal dimension where the past, (a classroom in Detroit) the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97 present (jogging along the Mississippi) and speculation projected upon the future (taking communion, death)could blend in the temporally ambiguous moment of creating poetry. This temporal interplay and fluidity was but another attribute of writing poetry that did not fit within the linear and sequentially channeled processing captured within a problem-solving model wherein mechanisms of task monitoring and verification constantly and necessarily focus the demands of the past (an assignment) on achieving a goal, the attainment of which hangs, like a brass ring, somewhere in the future. Part I, Section Two Inspiration and Revision Indeed, not all writing cognitions were reported as non-linear and dynamic in nature. Many subjects reported that writing often consisted of two distinctively different modes of processing whereby after leaving an inspirational mode of writing one entered into a problem-solving mode of revision. . . . you allow that sense of the censor, that [sense of the] judgmental, and that precise way of looking at the world, to enter late in the revision process Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98 at the time when its appropriate, and when its not as limiting. (Poet D, li. 504-509) Poet D went so far as to use the term "mechanical" to describe his revision process: I think it is mechanical. ...Because I actually, its not that I have a kind of template or a kind of list that I write down, but there are certain things that you always check for. I mean at that point [of writing] you are concerned about punctuation. Because punctuation affects cadence and pause and how somebody reads it. And whether they hear your voice in it. And suddenly, you have to be very worried about those small things. It does get very technical. But that doesn't mean that I will necessarily stay there, (li 727-745) Revision presented a type of processing in stark contrast to inspirational writing processes. In addition, there may be a need to keep these two modes of processing separated as one mode may interfere with the other. Poet E explained: I go from intuition and instinct into maybe something... more mental work. And there I tell myself, okay, well, maybe I need to do a little research and then something in that research will then get the poem going again. But that's usually once I come out of what I call that inspired space. I've never had it quite mesh together, (li. 37 6- 385) Conclusion to Part I In Part I, an analysis of the data presented the interviewees' sensitivity to cognitive triggers as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99 fundamental to the process writing poetry. Content triggers appeared to differ from externalized prompts in being outside one7 , s ability to predict or to direct them toward a predetermined objective or goal by way of preparatory planning or task monitoring. Furthermore, during the process of writing, the poet's sensitivity did not necessarily diminish. Often additional unexpected triggers were allowed to further influence a text in progress. It is concluded, therefore, that the non-linear and unpredictable nature of triggers and the poet's dynamic and networked responses to them that occur within an undeniably open system was not captured or described in any meaningful manner by traditional models of writing, specifically those based on an information processing framework. This analysis of the data does not, however, conclude that the entirety of the poet's writing processes were non-linear and unpredictable. The process of text revision closely fit a linear, objective-oriented model of writing. Furthermore, there was evidence that these two modes of writing, a more Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100 chaotic and divergent process of text discovery as compared to a more predictable and convergent process of text revision, were best kept separated during the process of transforming triggered cognitions into a final, published text integrated within an external, historical system of constraints and demands. Part II Seeking-Behavior Thus, I am saying that all genuine problem-solving is creative. I leave the question open as to whether all creative behavior is problem-solving. - Guilford The above quote appeared in Frames of Reference for Creative Behavior in the Arts (1965). Herein, Guilford distinguished between two kinds of thinking, convergent thinking in which only one correct solution is possible for a given problem and divergent thinking in which a variety of solutions to a problem are possible. Obviously, both types of processing, as Guilford defined them, depend upon a basic a priori assumption: thoughts are occupied with solving a problem. This assumption presented the case that regardless of the degree of complexity or the extent of reiterative feedback Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101 problem-solving models account for, there will always be a deep, lineal substructure necessitated by what may be referred to as a "solving assumption." So the question begged to be asked, "Is all creative behavior problem-solving?" The investigator found this question delineated a paradigmatic disconnect between (a) that which could be captured through traditional models of writing and (b) that which was presented in the transcript data. As manifest in the data corpus, the investigator concluded that the answer to Guilford's question was, "No." Problem-solving may be necessarily creative, but creativity is NOT necessarily problem-solving. The investigator will later suggest that this "not necessarily" is modelable. Products, By-Products, and Seeking Behaviors In contrast to solving a problem (ill-defined or otherwise) during the process of writing a poem, all of the interviewees reported what the investigator termed "Seeking Behavior" during the process of their writing. However, prior to offering a definition of Seeking Behavior, a few transcript segments that the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 102 investigator coded as "seeking" will be provided. Then, by comparing seeking processes to problem-solving processes, the investigator will describe what Seeking Behavior is and what it is not. Finally, through the use of systems principles and terminology, a formal definition of this construct will be offered. Scenario 1: I am very willing to pursue [emphasis mine] lines of thought that I believe... my conscious mind will tell me that they will not go anywhere. My conscious mind will say this is not going to go anywhere, but I know I'll want to pursue those [lines] if I'm really going to write something that is poetry. (Poet B, li. 891-899) Scenario 2: And I think for me the best thing, my best writing comes when I have no direction, and I really need to discover [emphasis mine] the direction. (Poet F, li. 42-45) Scenario 3: I sit down to write. And then and I see what happens. And I follow [emphasis mine] it. (Poet D, li. 327-328) Scenario 4: . . . I t is more important that the poem has an insight, a universal insight. So I'm chasing [emphasis mine] that poem for that insight. (Poet A, li. 228-231) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 103 "Pursuing," "discovering," "following," "chasing," each of these seeking terms referred to cognitive processes that the researcher proposes are distinct from those cognitive processes associated with solving. This distinction reflects two findings: the first relates to the step-wise adaptability of the writer, the second relates to a lack of cognitive directionality with regard to the process of creating a poem. Seeking Behavior as a step-wise function change. With regard to traditional models of writing, an externalization or separation of the problem from the process was strongly implied. This resulted in the representation of a cognitive system that, itself, remained unchanged as a result of production. However, Seeking, as described by the study subjects, appeared to indicate that process and production were inseparable. For example, when the poet sought experiential meaning, upon its finding, that which was sought was found within the seeker, and that which was written was not a fully externalized product, but rather a byproduct of a new, internal system-state that previously did not exist, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 104 e.g., an individual finding closure through the process of writing. For example, Poet E: And it was only through sitting down and starting to write about the flower that then other things started coming out and, in a way, it's amazing for me. It's, like, oh, okay, so that's what I was thinking. Q: Did you actually write that poem? Poet E: Yes, I did. Q: And what was it that was going on? Poet E: That [poem] was about a romance that had ended. I think I was putting that relationship to rest and, actually, that poem was closure for me. Q: And the connection to the flower? Poet E: I guess the frailty, the way the light was hitting it, remembering, well, remembering a time when we had been to a garden.... (li. 104-128) Poet E's seeking behavior, initiated by a flower, led to a networked association of thoughts. Out of this networking emerged a cognitive change of state. It appeared from the transcript that Poet E, prior to personal insights with regard to a past relationship was organically different than Poet E "prime" who was discovered during the writing related processes initiated by the flower. Thus, her poem was not simply an external product of internal processes, but rather was a by-product of an adaptive system that had undergone a step-wise function change. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 105 Seeking Behavior and writing without an end in mind. The second observed distinction between writing as problem-solving and writing as the interviewees presented it, related to the directional characteristic of problem-solving wherein progress toward a goal was consciously monitored through verification. However, those tangential cognitions that do not directionally support the completion of the task were irrelevant to process. Monitored attention countered evidence of pursuing, following, chasing, discovering. These latter descriptors implied that direction and purpose were, at the moment of inspired creation, completely unknown. In fact, if purpose did present itself in the writing of Poet F, it took on the characteristic of an "anti purpose" and the abandonment of directionality: Poet F: I mean, even if you do set out with a purpose in mind, if you're a good artist you'll subvert yourself some-how and end up, somewhere, not, you know, not there. (Poet F, li. 524-528) Seeking Behavior: A System-Framed Theoretical Construct To reflect the above analysis and discussion, for this investigation, Seeking Behavior is defined as a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 106 process of networked sub-processes interacting with each other and with changing nodal structures as the cognitive system attempts to return to a condition of Unity, the by-product of which, within the limits of this study, is poetry. A break-down of this definition will begin with the term Unity. Unity is used in this definition of Seeking- Behavior for reasons specific to General System Theory. As presented by Bertalanffy (1969) Unity acknowledges that systems are often composed of competing rather than complimentary sub-systems. Unity, therefore, infers an active and reactive stability borne out of tension between parts rather than from an inert passivity among parts. To further illustrate the above definition of Seeking Behavior, it may be of benefit to review, through illustration, a few concepts initially presented in Chapter II. In that chapter the unpredictability of strange attractor sites within cognitive processes were used to support the application of General System Theory to better understand how micro-changes in a process can result in inordinately large effects upon an entire Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 107 system. A related phenomenon is a node of process stability. The relative stability of these process nodes act to create a discernable pattern, like an eddy within a stream, within the unpredictable flow that surrounds them. Schema theory presents a model by which new, destabilizing information can force a complete re organization of a schema around a particular knowledge node as an individual seeks to restore Unity (understanding) back into the cognitive system. A psychological interpretation of cognitive process nodes may identify a node as a personality "trait," in Educational Psychology a process node may reveal a Learning Style, in Literature a Writing Style. In each of these examples nodal structures of dynamic stability give shape to the continuous stream of system processes. Conceivably, this concept of writing as a process of Seeking Behaviors within a system of sub-processes seeking Unity may explain why poetry writing was sometimes used for therapeutic benefit: Poet E: That sense, also, of whatever it is you're dealing with... it's therapeutic in the way that it's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 108 a release of that, whatever that idea is.... (li. 1038-1043) Later in the interview, Poet E gave a specific example: I volunteered as an EMT years ago, that was when I first started writing. My first run was horrendous, just horrendous. It was a tanker that had caught fire at a gas station. It could have blown up half of the island and I ended up, on my first run, with this patient who had been burned over fifty percent of his body and it was terrible. And it was years later when I wrote about it. And when I finally finished that essay, I stopped having nightmares about it. (li. 1087-1113) Accordingly, Unity may result when a disordered psyche, as indicated by the poet's nightmares, undergoes a process of Seeking Behavior and returns to a more stable state. Conclusion to Answer 1 This Answer to Question 1 described the study data as manifesting fundamental attributes found in open systems, attributes characterized as non-linear, dynamic, and networked in nature. In addition, the theoretically grounded non-example of linear, static writing that occurred during revision may imply that for a model of writing to be comprehensive, it must be able to capture two different modes of writing. To address this dual-mode of cognitive processing, the investigator Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 109 suggests the following data interpretation: although "problem-solving" and "seeking behavior" may be related, as they are both associated with Production, they are not equal; the two processes do not allow for the rule of substitution. A writing process directed toward external objectives differs, paradigmatically, from a process wherein processes and production are inseparable and text emerges as a creative byproduct of a system seeking unity. As for Guilford's relational question between Creativity and Problem-Solving, the researcher, hypothesizes that Problem-Solving can be integrated into System Theory by assuming the following: Problem-Solving is a specific kind of Seeking Behavior, but Seeking Behavior is not a specific kind of Problem-Solving. In other words, Problem-Solving is a sub-process of Seeking Behavior. Research Question 2 As evidenced by the transcript data, what are both the role and importance of Incubation to divergent writing processes prior to and during the production of poetry? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 110 Overview Part I of this answer begins with an assessment of Wallas's 4-Stage Model of Creativity (1945). The investigator discusses two aspects of incongruity between Wallas's Model and the findings of the study: (a) the presence of a conscious Preparatory stage prior to a period of Incubation was emphatically absent from the writing processes of the poets interviewed; (b) the dichotomization of conscious and sub-conscious modes of cognition proved highly problematic with regard to describing cognitive processes of writing poetry. Part II, Section 1 of this answer to Question 2 addresses the above incongruities by formulating the hypothesis that during the act of writing, Wallas's dichotomized modes of cognition - rather than functioning sequentially or independently - Overlap and function in a mode of simultaneity and interaction. In addition, Part II, Section Two, describes evidence that this process overlap engenders an affective, motivational dimension to writing the importance of which is made explicit in the transcripts. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ill Part I Writing Processes and Wallas's Stage Model of Creativity Figure 3. Wallas's 4-stage model of creativity (1945) S ubconscious Processing Incubation verification Illumination Preparation Conscious Processing Incubation was defined by Wallas (1945) as a) a stage or period of b) subconscious cognition that c) follows preparation. However, when the investigator attempted to incorporate Wallas' stage emphasis of creativity and his subconscious and conscious dichotomy, he found it ill-represented the process of writing as described by the study sample. With regard to dichotomized consciousness, this difficulty was of little relevance to traditional writing models. Carey and Flower (1989) stated that their problem-solving model assumed that subconscious processes were not to be allowed into consideration. When trying to capture processes associated with writing, this limitation does solve a lot of problems: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112 from having to define the subconscious, to differentiating subconscious from conscious thought, to describing the subconscious processes, to hypothesizing the role and importance of subconscious processes, to determining the contents of these processes (including affective contents), to describing subconscious process interactions with other processes. In short, all that pure behaviorists understandably avoid was drawn into the discussion when one investigates the role and importance of Incubation. However, Incubation and related subconscious processes have long been recognized as a fundamental component of creative endeavor, (Breton, cited in Schmeller, 1967; Ghiselin, 1952; Poincare, 1913; Wallas 1945). For Wallas, a subconscious Incubation Stage played a germinative role in the creative process. Likewise, subconscious processes were fundamentally inseparable from processes of writing poetry. Writing without a Role for Preparation I don't ever have an outline, in fact that's one of the reasons I'm not a fiction writer or a screenwriter, because in terms of narrative structure I think it's a good thing to work with an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 113 outline, but for me it deadens the writing process. (Poet F, li. 29-36) As operationalized by Wallas' 4 Stage Model, Incubation occurred following a stage of Preparation. Yet, as noted in depth in the response to Question 1, the study data suggested that the opposite tended to be the case. The lack of association between Preparation and Incubation may be related to the internal orientation of writing poetry. External interference with internal sensititity may result in a "deadening" of the writing process, especially considering that the data contained repeated evidence of a trigger response typifying the onset of production. For those few poets who did enter into an Incubation stage following an externally imposed influence, the function of Incubation appeared to be one of subverting and internalizing external demands rather than consciously planning to engage in a writing assignment. Q: Is inspiration always personal? For instance, can someone ask you to write a eulogy to a particular person? Poet E: It's amazing how few poets actually work that way, actually do that assigned task. And usually, when they do, the poets that I know who Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 114 have done something like that have found it really problematic. They pace for days before they get an angle, a way into it. And they think that's where the inspiration comes i n . . . . You have one journal in mind and they seem to like certain types of topics and you walk around thinking, okay, if I could write something about horses I might have a poem in there and then you have to weave through that in an interesting way until there's a chord that strikes. Until you strike that chord somehow and it resonates within you, nothing's going to happen. (li. 9-30) From the perspective of systems science, those interviewed tended to write while in a state of Sensitive Dependence in which subconscious incubations were readily triggered by new information. For the above scenario which described a specific period of incubation following a specific input (write about horses), writing on demand was difficult. To reflect a systems perspective, the struggle in response to this on demand writing was not one of processing per se, but one of sensitizing the system - recalling memories and allowing for subconscious associations - so that the external demand could take on the characteristics of an internal trigger. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 115 Writing without a Dichotomization of Subconscious and Conscious Modes of Cognition As reflected by the 4-stage model, Illumination occured within Incubation while the writer was mentally, "elsewhere." For example, Poet E: The very first poem I had published was a poem that I dreamed. I dreamed the poem. It was, here you go, a gift. And then I just got up the next day and wrote it and played with it a little bit and it was done. And that was an easy poem. That doesn't often happen that easily. Q: Does it happen occasionally? Poet E: Yes. It does happen occasionally. Oh, yes. And there are those poems that sometimes where you struggle. It'll take months and months and months and then one day you'll just sit down and write and it's done. (li. 443-460) When Poet E stated "that doesn't often happen" she did not say that a subconscious Illumination did not often happen. It could be argued that Illumination is at the very center of writing poetry. Instead, she stated that Illumination did not usually occur with ease outside of the conscious process of writing. For Poet F, writing was the preferred process one engaged in when one sought to attain Illumination and to "make discoveries" (li. 281). In concurrence with this scenario, and in contrast to hoping for a dream to give Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 116 one Illumination like a gift in the night, Poet A presented what was a more typical path to poetic enlightenment. We have astonishing experiences every day. Coming down here I saw a driver cut off another guy and they pulled off the road and they were going after each other's throats. Meanwhile, I'm watching these thunderstorms just in front of them. And my attitude of looking at these thunderstorms over these two thunder-stormed people is, "that's an extraordinary experience." But what insight do you get from that? That's what you chase in [emphasis mine] the poem. (li. 240-254) The statement "in the poem" did not refer to readers chasing an insight as they read the poem. The "chasing," "following," "pursuing," and "discovering" explicated in Answer One, was done by the poet writing. The result of this chasing, which occurred as both conscious writing behaviors and subconscious incubations interacted, was, to quote Poet A, the discovery of "a universal insight" (li. 228-231) or, to again refer to Wallas, an Illumination. Conclusion to Part I 'Tis the sport to have the engineer hoisted with his own petard.... (Hamlet, Act III, Sc. iv) In hindsight, prior to writing Research Question 2, the investigator should have predicted the difficulty of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 117 describing the role and importance of the Incubation Stage in isolation from the whole of a System. The reason for this difficulty lies in the systems science approach to phenomena - it is a given that one can not understand the whole by isolating the parts. By allowing for and perhaps capturing traditionally isolated processes in modes of interactivity, System Theory offers researchers a way to describe cognitive processes that would otherwise fall between the gaps of a stage approach to creativity and writing. For example, if the poet is dreaming, one could state that the poet is processing in a subconscious mode. If the poet is revising on a piece of paper, he or she is processing in a conscious mode. However, in what mode is the poet if she is day-dreaming about a revision? In what mode is the writer if he is planning the outline of a dissertation while driving? Using Wallas's stage approach, how should one categorize Incubation if it occurs within a trance or during meditation? Yet the importance of describing this place of overlap was imperative in order to capture phenomena essential, even definitive, to the process of poets creating poetry. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 118 As for the term Overlap. Herein, Overlap describes a cognitive mode differing from the undeniable influence of one mode upon another, as when an artist's subconscious influences his or her consciousness and thus an idea (perhaps, repressed if one is a Freudian) surfaces in the creative work. Rather, an overlapping of modes refers to a modal blending or simultaneity which the investigator defined as an Intra-Active Mode of subconscious and conscious processing. Hypothesis forming and supporting data for this construct follows in Part II. Part II, Section One Modal Overlap: Attributes of Intra-Active Cognition "How would you describe your state of mind as you are in the midst of working on a poem?" With this guiding question the investigator sought to determine the degree of problem-solving or "puzzling" behavior the interviewees experienced as they worked on a particular piece. For example, if the interviewee had said, "frustrated," a follow up question would have been, "What do you think was the source of the frustration and how would you describe the mitigating process." This Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119 line of questioning was originally grounded in the concept of the "Ill-defined Question" (Flower, 1989). Unexpectedly, instead of finding a confirmation or elucidation of this concept, the investigator was confronted by something completely different in nature: Scenario 1: Poet E: I think when I write poetry it's a feeling of slowing down. And it's a very meditative state and it's a space where I normally need more quiet. It's tapping into something very different for me than was the fiction writing. The fiction writing was fun but it wasn't as meaningful to me as the poetry writing is. And it's really hard to explain that difference except it does feel like I'm going down much deeper inside myself, that the fiction was more on the surface and this [poetry writing] is much deeper, (li. 1006-1022) For Poet E, writing processes were described as occurring from within or resulting from a "state" of meditation. For Poet D, a similar state was described by him as self-hypnosis: Scenario 2: The thing that keeps us going is that when things are really good, when you're really working on the first draft, it's a form of, kind of, self hypnosis. There's a sense of otherness in which your experience of time is different. You know, one thing about writing that is of real interest to me is how my relationship to time is changed by it. I'm living in a kind of present, but the past becomes very, very present and immediate to me. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 120 The sense of the potential future and the relationship between cause and effect, and seeing these kinds of connections between things. Why this happens, this happens, and this happens. Bringing those three different kinds of parts of time together is very different in the [poetry] writing process for me. And so the sense of memory, and memory's connection to the present, and that effect on the future, all is very wrapped up in that, and it's kind of hypnotic, and it flows, and it's fluid, and there's this sense of when it's going well. (li. 813-840) In addition, Scenario 2 entered into this analysis the possibility that a perception of time blending or lack of temporality may serve as a marker for a cognitive mode that was neither purely subconscious nor purely conscious. Scenario 3: Poet C: Timelessness. Yeah. And you, I mean, it's what happens to anyone who's so thoroughly engaged by something that it was midnight and now its 4:00 a.m., and you don't know where the time went. You don't care either, (li. 163-168) Poet D added another descriptive attribute that may coincide with the previous descriptions of writing from a place of meditation and timelessness. Scenario 4: Poet D: It just feels like what you're supposed to be doing. You feel whole. You feel complete [emphasis mine]. You feel like- not necessarily that you really understand something about the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 121 world, but you feel that you're doing the right thing for once. (Poet D, li. 840-849) In summation, the above scenarios suggested to this investigator that for a model of writing to fully capture the process of writing as described by the data corpus, it must have the capacity to capture subconscious processes, conscious processes and a third mode of cognition which is not ether/or, but rather both/and. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 122 Conclusion to Part II, Section One Figure 4. Text as a by-product of overlapping cognitive modes. Writing Proc. Subconscious Proc. Text Therefore, by way of definition, modal Overlap is a highly intra-active mode of cognitive processing that allows for subconscious, often chaotic, processes to function simultaneously and in unity with inner- oriented, stabilizing writing processes. The investigator posits that this unity, in addition to describing poetry as a by-product of modal overlap, results in a feeling that Poet D described as "completeness" or being "whole" (li. 845). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 123 Part II, Section Two Pleasure, Intrinsic Motivation and the Writing of Poetry In response to a follow-up question, Poet E further developed her earlier statement. Q: And then going into that deepness, is it pleasurable? Poet E: Yes, definitely. Definitely. It's very soothing. Even though it's like an obsession in a way, there's such a sense of release by the time the poem is done. So, yes, very relaxing. Q: Would that be a motivator for writing poetry? Like runners looking for a runner's high? Poet E: Yes, I think so. Actually, yes. (li. 1024-1039) Although there is some ambiguity as to whether her enjoyment came out of a "release when it is done" which would find agreement with those who support the cathartic characteristic of writing, Poet E also implied that as well as a release, the processes itself was very relaxing. Poet F clearly suggested that the process rather than an outcome of the process was a motivating influence. Q: We're in this writing moment, how would you describe psychologically, sensually even, how you're feeling as you're in that state of writing? Poet F: It's the only time in my life, it's the only time I know of when I'm not aware of the sort of noise in the brain, you know, the voice sort of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 124 reminding yourself of the laundry giving yourself grief over something stupid you did, the chattering that goes on all the time which the Buddhists are trying to silence. And maybe you can silence it, maybe you can't. But while I'm writing it's silenced, all of that stuff, and I'm right in the space of my writing, and it's very quiet, and the only voice I'm aware of at all is the voice that's putting the words on the paper or on the screen, and making the decision about where to go, and thinking about what was just said. It's a really, really blissful experience for me. (Poet F, li, 579-608) Meditation has long been a formal practice for escaping the chattering mind. Poet F's scenario developed the possibility that meditation can both contain a relaxed frame of mind and cognitively active process of writing. Poet C restated this idea of the intrinsic rewards of escaping the quotidian. He concluded his response by making the observation that one may be so in the moment and within the process that it was hard to recall what the process felt like. Poet C: Well, one of the things I've come to believe about it is that I write to stamp out my brain... but it also is a way of escaping a lot of the "drudgery thinking". I don't know how to say it. A loss of- yeah, a lot of the cheese- a lot of the more unpleasant thinking. This is a kind of thinking that's pleasurable. Q: Well, and that pleasure then. Is that a form of motivation to go and write? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 125 Poet C: It would be if you could remember [it] from one time to the next. (li. 133-168) Poet F and Poet C have described a need to escape unpleasant mental chatter as a motivator to write. Finally, Poet B was very explicit in connecting a sensation of timelessness to an intrinsically motivating process characteristic associated with his writing poetry. I lose track of time when writing poetry. That is one of the most wonderful parts about it. I'm not the first person who has compared it to the experience of having sex. (li. 486-491) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 126 Figure 5. Modal overlap and intrinsic motivation. Text Intrinsic Motivation Subconscious Conclusion to Question 2 Research Findings Can one experience a feeling of "wholeness" without the inclusion of one's sub-conscious during the act of writing? What is left out when instructors assign tasks that are non-responsive or don't accommodate the student's inner processes? To what degree could meditative modes of writing and intrinsic motivation support the creation of a text? These are just some of the questions that develop when one integrates rather than separates or ignores the role of Incubation in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 127 process of writing. For now it is enough to conclude that these queries would not have surfaced if a traditional framework of rhetorical writing had channeled the investigator's line of research. However, it is not enough to state that Incubation played an important role in the creation of poetry. It was the interaction of incubating subconscious processes with conscious writing processes that appeared to render poetry possible and made the possible pleasurable. Research Question 3 In what manner may a grounded model, emerging through the process of the investigation, capture and elucidate interview data associated with the cognitive and affective processes of professional poets writing poetry? A System Model of Writing Processes The System Model of Writing Processes developed in response to findings and hypotheses relevant to Research Question 1 and Research Question 2. This model attempted to address two inter-related thematic perspectives elucidated in Chapter II of this dissertation: (1) the writing of poetry is a creative Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 128 act and therefore should accommodate research elements found within the field of creativity, specifically related to divergent thinking; and, (2) a writing process model grounded in General System Theory may better frame the processes and sub-processes of divergent thinking associated with poetry than a writing process model grounded in an Information-Processing framework. Organization of the Response to Question 3 The organization of this response is sequenced to facilitate model building. Therefore, each section builds upon the previous section's model elements and in turn serves as a base for the model constructs discussed in the sections that follow. Section One develops the hypothesis of cognitive Modes as illustrated in Figure 6, and describes Three Modes of Cognitive Processing. Section Two introduces the concept of process Nodes to describe patterns of process interaction associated with writing poetry. Six Nodes of Seeking Behavior are then identified and placed within the Three Modes of Processing. In Section Three, three feedback processes are added to the system model, the first addresses Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 129 ideation, the second text production, the third motivation. Section Four describes and discusses the completed System Model of Writing Processes. Section One: Three Modes of Processing An analysis of the interview transcripts identified the three modes of cognitive processing. The least regulated of these modes and similarly the most chaotic is associated with those imagistic and affective processes present during an Inner-Active Mode of processing. Inspired, illuminative writing was identified'as occurring during an Intra-Active Mode processing. The most regulated of these modes, and similarly the most externally oriented, characterizes those writing cognitions active during an Inter-Active Mode of processing. Figure 6. Three cognitive modes associated with processes of writing poetry. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 130 These terms are intended to capture three study- findings basic to the composing processes: First, as noted in the response to Question 2, Part II, interacting cognitive states as analogized through the concept of overlapping modes better describes the mental "place" and the activated sub-processes of writers as they write. Second, within a System Model of Writing Processes, all processes are present and potentially active at all times in the system. Figure 7. Comparison of a 4-stage model of creativity to a 3-mode model of writing processes. Gray area denotes writing specific processes. Inner-Active Intra Inter-Active External Demand t ive Verif ication Illumination Incubation Preparation Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131 One may be able to associate a particular mode with a particular writing task, but the extent to which a less influential mode can influence writing production is always relevant though not predictable, nor easily measured. Third, and related to the above, the researcher deems the study's terms better able to address the ambiguous nature of subconscious as contrasted to conscious cognitions. A further definition and description of these three modes of cognition follows. Inner-Active Processing The Inner-Active Mode is defined by the investigator as a "pure" cognitive state wherein there is no externalization of a process through product specific behavior, e.g., sketching or writing. Inner- Active processing tends toward sensitivity, associative thinking, and non-linearity. This does not imply that the contents of this process mode go without patterning: structures identified in the literature and supported in the data, such as Personality, Experience, Thematic Obsessions, and Language (all of which are to a degree Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 132 dependent upon processes of memory recall) strongly influences the Inner-Active Mode. Intra-Active Processing The Intra-Active Mode describes an integrative overlap wherein the chaotic flow of Inner-Active processes seek the stabilizing influence of Writing Processes while retaining a sensitivity to the dynamic and associative nature of Inner cognitions. If External Demands over-ride the inner orientation of the Intra- Active Mode, the poet's Inner-Active Processes may not remain accessible. This was earlier supported by those interviewees who commented on the interference that preparatory demands, such as an outline or a topic, had upon their inspired writing. Inter-Active Mode The Inter-Active Mode is oriented toward pre existing forms and/or toward an external demand such as critical approval. As reflected in the data corpus, this mode was highly regulated by a broad range of influences, such revising a text to fit the conventions of written language or to normalizing a text to fit within a range of opinions supplied by the Academy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 133 Section Two: Six nodes of Seeking Behavior A Node is defined in this study as an area within a specific cognitive mode that is seeking unity and stability, the process of which was initially presented in Question 1, Part II wherein the construct of Seeking Behavior (as contrasted to Problem-Solving) was developed to describe the interviewees' descriptions of their creative process. This is not to imply that once unity and stability among competitive nodes is reached the system remains static. Rather, nodes are in a state of continuous adjustment to a variety of internal and external influences. Either extreme within a system, total chaos or complete stability, will result in the system failing to function. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 134 Figure 8. Six nodes of cognitive processing associated with writing. Gray area depicts writing specific processes. Unity, as defined above, is symbolized by the ideogram "0". / WP ED Illustrated above is the System Model of Writing Processes as containing six hypothetical process Nodes of Seeking Behavior in relation to Three Cognitive Modes of processing. The Nodes are denoted as follows: Within the Inner-Active mode are the Nodes (1) Self seeking unity with the Self (S/S), and (2) Self seeking unity with the Universal(S/U). Within the Intra-Active Mode of the Writing System is the node of (3) Self seeking unity with Writing Processes (S/WP). The Inter-Active Mode of the Writing System contains (4) Writing Processes seeking unity with the Written Product (WP/P). For the most part outside the influence of the poet's Inner-Active processes, the investigator suggests that (5) the Written Product seeks unity with External Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 135 Demands (P/ED). Finally, the transcripts strongly indicate that there is present within the Writing System an "anti-node" wherein the overlap of (6) Inner-Active Processes and External Demands (S/ED) impeded the act of writing. Self/Self and Self/Universal Process Nodes Without going into the difficulties of differentiating self from art, the author from the object, it appears from an analysis of the data that when writing those interviewed are processing incubating experiences which have not reached psychological resolution, as when Poet B spoke of his childhood abuse at the hands of his older sister (li. 413-414) or Poet E discussed her experiences as an EMT (li. 1049-1075). The researcher hypothesizes that a process node pattern (an "eddy within the flow" of associative cognitions) occurs when the poet seeks to discover how her past experiences connected to her present identity. This node is identified as (1) Self-Seeking-Self (S/S). Those writing cognitions engaged in the extension and contextualization of this self identity by connecting it to universal conditions are identified as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 136 forming the process Node of (2) Self-Seeking- Universality (S/U). A few process examples of S/U included Poet A describing his writing a poem about the poet Rilke (li. 401-450) wherein he sought to, self- reflexively, understand what it meant to be a writer of poetry (see, Appendix A). In another section of his transcript, Poet A related a story about a dog fight he observed (li. 881-952). In this data segment he explained his written response to it, and his attempt to discover what it meant to live in a modern world influenced by primordial, territorial drives. Finally, referring to a poem (cited earlier) reflecting upon the "buttered toast phenomena" (li. 283-338), Poet A told of how, in the process of writing the poem, he sought to explore the capacity of the self to confront and/or accept the universal forces of chance and fate. These two process nodes, Self-Seeking Self and Self-Seeking Universality, nodes have long been present in human discourse from Socrates' admonishment to "know thyself" to those philosophical and political treatises (See Rousseau and Marx) elaborating upon the idea that "thyself is a product of society." Furthermore, even Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 137 though Self-Seeking has been placed with the Inner- Active Mode of processing and therefore may be active during subconscious incubation, Self and Universal Seeking may explicitly and consciously influence the Poet's approach to her or his craft. (S/U) Scenario 1: Poet A: The duty of the artist, whether it is poetry, painting or any other type of writing is to prick the conscience of society, and to comfort the afflicted (li. 7-13) (S/S) Scenario 2: Poet B: . . . And for me the process of writing a poem is about self-discovery... And to see what I can do (li. 465-467). Poet B elaborated upon this scenario in a later segment of the transcript: It [poetry] is a simulacrum of experience which is parallel to our experiences that we are having as human beings. . . . I t is the creation of a parallel universe in which we can play. And when we play in the parallel universe, we discover things about ourselves and we discover ourselves (li. 974-983) Finally, as was stated with regard to other elements of this System Model, the separation of Self- Seeking into two separate nodes does not intend to suggest that, by separating these nodes for the sake of data analysis, they are, in fact, separable. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 138 Interaction and overlap between and among elements is a system principle that defies exclusive categorization. Self/Writing Process Node One of the hallmarks of successful training occurs when one's equipment becomes so integrated into the physiological and cognitive processes of the individual that it (a foil, a keyboard, a horse) becomes a transparent extension of the individual. Likewise, creative act is one wherein the cognitive activity of the artist seeks to become fully integrated with the equipment of his craft to the point where the merging of thought, language and text are complete. This integration of Inner-Processes and Writing Processes results in a necessarily idiosyncratic product. Indeed, as pertaining to divergent writing, the more idiosyncratic the published product, it is suggested, the more integrated the processes that produced it. As captured by the investigator's model, this process-integration forms the node (3) Self- Seeking-Writing Processes (S/WP). With regard to transcript evidence of the Self- Seeking-Process Node, its very transparency may make it Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 139 only visible by its precursors or its effects. By way of triangulation, Herrigel writes: Practice, repetition, and repletion of the repeated with ever increasing intensity are the distinctive features [of instruction] for long stretches of the way.... The teacher considers it his first task to make him [the student] a skilled artisan with sovereign control of his craft only to discover in the course of years that forms which he [the student] perfectly masters no longer oppress but liberate. He grows daily more capable of following any inspiration without technical effort. The hand that guides the brush has already caught and executed what floated before the mind at the same moment the mind began to form it, and in the end the pupil no longer knows which of the two - the mind or the hand - was responsible for the work, (from Zen in the Art of Archery, p.40-41) It is assumed that the professional success of all of those interviewed is related to "a capability to follow an inspiration without technical effort." The Self-Seeking-Writing Processes Node intends to capture this capacity, although it is assumed that all writers, both expert and novice, to varying degrees, have active a Self-Seeking-Writing Process Node. With regard to the affective by-products of this ability, in this study they have previously been associated with positive feelings and perceptive states unique to an Intra-Active mode of processing. As Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 140 captured in Self/Writing Process node, these sensations occur as the self seeks unity with the process of writing poetry. Writing Process/Product Node A sonnet and free verse, a five paragraph essay and a state of the union address are each examples of external forms. Within the System Model the (4) Writing Process-Seeking-Product Node captures patterns of writing related thoughts as they seek integration within these forms. This integration, although dependent on an often rigid structure remain simultaneously sensitive to inner-active cognitions. Therefore, it would be incorrect to suggest that satisfying the demand of form was simply a goal or problem that the poet attempted to reach or solve. Rather, as presented by those poets interviewed, form was a mechanism and strategy for activating a process in order to regulate and shape highly chaotic cognitions. In addition, form was often a consequence of that engagement process and not its cause. Seeking Behavior as facilitated by form. With respect to the activating behavior of form, in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 141 transcripts there was repeated support for the idea that "form is freedom". For these poets ideas and images were so erratic and non-linear that they rendered the writer incapable of bringing them under 'the control necessary to produce a text. C: This [the latest book] is the most formal book I have ever written. There are sestinas and villanelles and sonnets. Form draws out emotions, definitely. Form allows emotions to be heard, (li. 461-465) By following the structural demands of a form, thoughts were pressed into shape out of which inspiration could flow. To again quote Poet B: Because the unconscious doesn't have any way of expressing itself. It just... It wants to express itself, but it does not know how to get out. And the form teases [it out]. And the unconscious is material in us that we don't know how to bring to the surface, that we don't know how to talk about. But the form teases the material out of the unconscious mind. And partly... the form teases it out, and gets the material out of the unconscious because the conscious mind is so busy trying to come up with a rhyme, to rhyme ring and sing and wing, that your mind is busy with these problems of craft, so that the unconscious stuff rises up through that. (li. 345-362) Thus, the poet in her search for a word that rhymes with "strange" may have large amount of distracting associative thinking placed outside her writing related Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 142 cognitions. However, this does not necessarily limit possible creative outcomes. Rather, by playing with the word "range" as a possible rhyming word, an unforeseen association between "strange" and "range" may lead to new and original thoughts that in turn lead to undiscovered possibilities. Poet F: ...because it's [form is] a constraint which can produce things that you wouldn1t have produced without having the constraint, (li. 414-417) Therefore, to the extent that form frees one from distractions and opens one to unexpected associations, form is freedom. Form as a consequence of Seeking Behavior. Another manner in which the Writing Process/Product node appeared to influence writing processes was described by poets for whom the poem in process creates a need for shape. Poet A: I remember going to [the poet] Pasternak's home. . . . I t was very Spartan in its furnishings. And I remember being in awe when I began to write this poem... this long epic poem about Pasternak. I swear to you Bill, it couldn't get past the 14 lines of a sonnet form. It just kept containing itself. It was almost as if it [the form] was "containing the awe. " Q: Because the classical form in a way reflected... Poet A: The form somehow allowed it to keep it there. The poem didn't want to go larger. And yet Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 143 I thought that is what I would do, and yet somehow, it was almost containing the awe that I felt. So sometimes that occurs with a poem, where a poem shapes itself without your trying, (li. 99-128) Poet F concurred when she stated, . . . I n this book I'm working on now, the poems are prose poems and they look like paragraphs. And for some reason, I don't know why, but for some reason the material I'm working with now suits that form, and I get that far down on a page and that's where I finish the poem. (li. 422-432) For Poet A and Poet F, form was not an a priori demand placed on the writing process, instead form was discovered as the writer wrote. This contrast of form as a seeking process vs. form as preconceived product has pedagogic import. For example, Poet C felt very comfortable assigning writing exercises that forced his students to integrate theme, specific words, or poetic form into personal experiences (li. 747-786). Poet B made extensive use of similar assignments, as when he required his students to write a sonnet from the point of view of a sociopath (li. 1053-1054). However, Poet A, stated that for the advanced writer artificial stipulations upon writing assignments could potentially impede the "nature impulse" (li. 644-647). And finally, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 144 Poet F reflected the Janusian point of view of the instructor-creator. I teach form, I teach formal poetry, so I'm very fond of it and I have spent time, different periods of my writing life writing forms. I find that it's a little bit like getting from A to B for me, and I usually-- if I'm using a form I'll vary it, I'll subvert i t . . . I will start writing a Shakespearean sonnet, but part way through I'll abandon it and go somewhere else. (li. 391-402) If instructors impose upon students the sonnet form, what aspects of self-seeking and inspiration are impacted? If one places little or no restrictions on poetry assignments, to what degree may the student successfully negotiate his or her own cognitive chaos? More on this topic will be discussed in the implications section of this dissertation. Product/External Demand Node Writers write for publication, especially those working out of creative writing departments. Regardless of the degree of novelty or quality of thinking, poets must come to terms with satisfying both artistic impulses and the constraints of the Academy. These constraints include the need to self-censor, to follow rules of syntax and mechanics, and to satisfy gate Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 145 keepers of publication. This need to satisfy inner and external demands is at the crux of artistic endeavor and identified by the node (5) Written Product-Seeking- External Demands. Yet, as noted earlier and in what follows, when poets attempt to satisfy both inner and external demands simultaneously, rather than separating these conflicting nodal influences, writing may come to a halt. Self in Conflict with External Demands: A Description of an Anti-Node The theoretical concept of the anti-node (6) Self in conflict with External Demands (S/ED), is meant to suggest that some sub-processes when placed in an inter active relationship within the writing process have a deleterious effect on the functioning of the system as a whole. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 146 Figure 9. Inner Processes in conflict with External Demands, the inter-active affect of a cognitive process anti-node. Inner Processes Associated With Self Processes Associated With / External Demand — / One could propose that there may be biological constraints upon cogitative processes that limit one's ability to think both convergently and divergently, to have areas of the brain suppressed and activated at the same time (Rozoumnikova, 2002). Be that as it may, the writers interviewed herein voiced the need to separate inspirational writing from editing the resultant text. Detailed evidence of this node was set forth in Answer to Question 1, Part I, Section One, "Inspiration and Revision". Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 147 Nodal Competitiveness However, it is one thing to state that nodes conflict and another to state that they compete. The first stops the process, the second is the process. In accordance with this differentiation, writing process nodes within a functioning system may best be interpreted as being in competition or tension with and among each other rather than functioning within a condition of mutual support. By way of explanation, Bertalanffy (1969) addressed this systems concept. If we are speaking of "systems" we mean "wholes" or "unities." Then it seems paradoxical that, with respect to a whole the concept of competitions between its parts is introduced. ...However, these apparent contradictory statements both belong to the essentials of systems. Every whole is based upon the competition of its elements, and presupposes the "struggle between parts" (citing Wilhelm Roux, source unknown). The latter is a general principle of organization in simple physio- chemical systems as well as in organisms and social units, and it is, in the last resort, an expression of the coincidentia oppoisitorum that reality presents (p. 66) . As applies to a System Model of Writing Processes, poetry is an expression of the "coincidence of opposites" wherein one's Self-seeking-Self (S/S), stated by Poet B as a need for self-discovery, may Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 148 compete with (S/U) a need to express universality, which competes with (S/WP) limitations of writing processes (thus the obvious presence of multiple artistic mediums), which competes with the needs of (WP/P) poetic form, and with (P/ED) expectations of Academy. Hypothetically, when one process node overwhelms all others, or if the poet loses her capacity to remain open and receptive to a networking and interaction of process nodes, writing becomes incoherent (e.g., schizophrenic), unrewarding, or even impossible. When the poet negotiates these competing influences with sensitivity and fluidity, adjusting to each new pull or push of the interacting nodes, the Model suggests that the poet is in the process of writing from within a fully functioning system. Sub-Nodal Processes and Attractor Sites Finally, sub-nodal processes are active during the writing of poetry. It is at this level that one may bring into play the concept of sub-nodal attractor sites, be they strange, periodic or stable. As discussed in the Literature Review, the number of attractor sites associated with cognitive processes of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 149 writing is beyond measure. The hypothetically available associative possibilities of a single word attractor, such as "blue" - denotations, connotations, phonemic potentialities, and graphic/visual characteristics are, for all practical purposes, infinite. The interview transcripts provided numerous examples of particular attractors playing themselves out in the creative process of writing poetry. For example, Poet A spoke of a colleague's remark about Poet A's use of imagery. Scenario 1: Poet A: There's a lot of river imagery a lot of water imagery in my poetry. And someone finally said, "That's not strange for you, you grew up in Pittsburgh, on three rivers." I had never thought of it. ...The imagery finds itself without your forcing it because it is something that has been there, ready to be tapped, (li. 809-838) The System Model of Writing Processes suggests that within Poet A's Self-Seeking Node, the attractor of water memories, through associations conscious or not, influences his writing related cognitions to the degree that the attractor "water" is a leading part of the seeking process. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 150 To return to Bertalanffy (1969), leading parts were components dominating the behavior of the system and exerting ...trigger causality [which] by way of amplification mechanisms cause large changes in the total system, (p. 213) Although he did not use the term attractor, Bertalanffy's concept of a leading part is congruent with the concept of a process attractor site. For the purposes of this investigation, the amplification mechanism would be Poet A's writing processes. Poet F offers another example of a single attractor dominating a node and impacting the totality of the system: Scenario 2: Poet F: So when I begin a new manuscript and I start fooling around with poems, most of what informs me will be, "I don't want to do that, I don't want to do that, I've done that," and so I don't allow myself to do certain things, in fact I even will tape a list of words to my computer, "Don't use these words," because they're words I felt I've used already and maybe used too much in earlier work. (Poet F, li. 114-125) With Poet F's example, the attractor site, a list of words taped to her computer, was described as an external demand rather than a subconscious cognition. Both Scenarios 1 and 2 of this section support the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 151 proposition that specific attractors functioned as leading parts dominating a node which through process amplification inordinately influenced nodal competition and therefore impact, unpredictably, system production. Section Three: Feedback - Process, Production, Motivation Process Feedback on the Edge of Chaos An aeronautical engineer (Ponzini, 2004) who is familiar with the flight control systems of stealth aircraft, related the following: In order for stabilization systems to be sensitive enough to react in time to highly variable flow dynamics, the design objective was not to make the system (the aircraft) stable. Rather engineers had to design the craft to fly on the very "edge of instability." The reason being, inertial stability would, in a relatively insensitive system, not react quickly enough to dynamic, unpredictable changes in airflow and inputs of navigation. Thus, static stability would result in system failure. It could be imagined that engineering an aircraft to be unstable was anathema to traditional engineering concepts of flight. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 152 Still, an aircraft on the edge of instability needs something to steer it. Yet, because of its extreme sensitivity, even small inputs will send the airplane over the edge and into system failure. Thus, built into the steering mechanism is a control loop. This control loop "smoothes out" pilot processes so they can interact with aircraft processes while leaving the total system highly sensitive. This scenario can be extended in order to describe writing as a control loop whereby writing processes (word recall, rules of syntax, elements of craft, etc.) provide a feedback mechanism for normalizing ideation (associative clustering) so that otherwise exceedingly rapid and disjointed ideas and images can be contemplated within the writer's field of awareness. This process was touched upon earlier with regard to the Writing Process/Product Node. Feedback operationalizes this process. How may this feedback relate to producing a poem? Again, by way of analogy, raw E.E.G. patterns appear as jagged or spiked wave forms when analogically plotted. A control loop, when induced to this raw wave pattern Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 153 would result in a smoothing effect on the resulting plot. The resultant smoothed pattern would contain the same information as the original pattern, but noise from overly erratic data would be reduced. To conclude, it is hypothesized that writing functions as a control loop which normalizes Inner-Active cognitions to a degree that they can be comprehended by the writer and then processed into a poetic product in such a manner that patterns and processes of intuition and illumination are captured in the poem. Production Feedback However, not all feedback is of this order of complexity. Eventually, the more mundane cognition that "I need to place a coma here," becomes, as well, an important aspect of process feedback. And then you come into all the technical stuff, which is where I am now [referring to a current work]. Do I have enough information there? Do I need other words? Do I need to change a line break? A stanza break? (Poet E, li. 226-231) All of the poets with whom I spoke wrote to be read and had publication as the final objective of their writing. This objective, especially in the later phases of their writing, induces a form of feedback which Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 154 renders writing, to a degree, "mechanical," as noted by Poet D (li. 727-738). To the extent Inter-Active feedback is externally oriented is the extent to which it fits within the Flowers and Hayes (1981/1994) construct of Task Monitoring. However, as suggested by the transcript data, the movement toward an externally oriented text is not unidirectional. At any point in the process, the poets interviewed have the capacity to jump from externally oriented back into inner oriented feed back processes. Furthermore, the goal attainment cue of "Is the poem done?" is an elusive question for the writer rather than a concrete point of recognition. Poet A: Most poets that I know, at least most established poets that I know, do a lot of revision. So that whatever they started off writing, that poem goes through many, many changes. Sometimes a poem of mine will, over two years, go through sixty pages of revision. So if you're revising, and you're allowing that, and you know that that's going to happen, sometimes it finds itself. It's like I say in class. "You chase a poem until it catches you, " ...and it might take so many drafts [until] it finally finds its form. That's more common than not for the good, established poet. (li. 156-172) Poet B supported this need for extensive revision: ...And most of my poems are revised an awful lot. Anywhere from twenty-five to a hundred times, (li. 195-197) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 155 Yet, eventually, the plenum needs to stop swinging if the text is going to make it to publication. Finally, although the System Model developed out of interview descriptions of non-linear, interactive processes, this model does not pre-suppose that (a) all writing is non-linear and/or dynamic or that (b) a System Model can not be applied to linear writing. The movement from chaos to control, from image to proofread text may be reflected in the partial applicability of the Flowers and Hayes (1981/1994) model to the degree that external demands are allowed to become dominate parts in the system as the writer emphasizes publication. However, to restate a previous conclusion, the data determined that for writing to be wholly modeled it is necessary for the subsumation of information processing models within a system framework. As illustrated by the investigator's System Model of Writing Processes, processes of feedback and revision associated with constituent modes of cognition and text production appears on the next page. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 156 Figure 10. Feedback and Revision: Process reiterations among 1) Inner-Active, 2) Intra-Active, and 3) Inter- Active Modes of cognition associated with writing. s -0- WP ED iPUBLICl PERSONAL FORM & GENRE ^ TEXT REVISION Motivational Feedback Up to this point, the building of a Systems Model has focused on matters concerning the how and what of writing poetry. Initially this was to be the extent of the investigation. Unexpectedly, as fully discussed in the answer to Question 2, upon interviewing the research participants, evidence of writing associated pleasure surfaced. Therefore, the researcher felt it necessary to more fully incorporate motivational aspects of writing poetry. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 157 As tends to happen when working within systems science, however, when one begins an analysis of one aspect of a construct, other aspects of that construct become relevant. In short, in investigating evidence of intrinsic motivation, it became necessary to investigate evidence of extrinsic motivation. Furthermore, while analyzing motivational data associated with these two process elements, the investigator found it necessary to include data evidence of a third motivational factor relevant to writing processes. This factor was termed Inherent Motivation. Therefore, with regard to the organization of this section, data segments and data analyses associated with (a) Inherent, (b) Intrinsic, and (c) Extrinsic Motivation are presented. The section concludes with a short hypothetical description of the mutually supporting interactive effect that the above motivational elements may have upon each other. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 158 Figure 11. Three interacting forms of motivational feedback as captured by the System Model of Writing Processes. Inherent Intrinsic Extrinsic WP ED Writing as a Goal Directed Activity Pleasure as a By- to Gain Reward and Product of a Avoid Punishment Meditative State and/or Escapism Inherent Motivation The terms intrinsic and extrinsic have been accepted as terms to describe two forms of motivation. The first describes internal, self-attributed reasons to engage in an activity for its own sake. The second describes external, other-oriented reasons to engage in an activity as a means to gain material reward, praise, or to avoid punishment (Pintrich and Schunk, 1996). By using the additional term Inherent Motivation, the researcher intends to describe an a priori Text as a By- Product of an A Priori Inner Meed or Trait Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 159 motivational attribute unique to and pre-existent in the individual writer. It was outside of the scope of this study to determine if this element was related to, dependent upon, or a byproduct of other attributes such as ideational fluency (Hocevar, D., 1979), creative style and hemispheric dominance (Neisser, 1966), personality (Dallas & Gaeir, 1970) or compulsive tendencies (Poet C, li. 31-75). Nevertheless, this construct suggests that the writer brings something to the process in addition to and different in character from a desire for either intrinsic or extrinsic reward. Within this investigation, the presence of Inherent Motivation is supported by the following transcript scenarios. Scenario 1: And so I went up for a battery of tests. And the tests were pretty interesting because so many of them were tricks. For example, she [the researcher] dumped a little suitcase of stuff on the table and said, here, put this into four groups. Well, you look at the stuff. It's just stuff. Its locks and keys and ashtrays and pens and... how am I going to put it in four groups? I mean, according to size or color or transparency or function... but of course it's a trick. You know what the trick is? Q: No, I don't. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 160 Poet C: It's actually a test of compulsion. She wants to see if you can stop. And she'd say to me, "Well, you got it yet?" And I'd say, "No, no, no. Just a minute." (Poet C, li. 26-57) Scenario 2: . . . I was also kind of entering into adolescence and the usual kind of feelings that alienation and isolation that everybody feels. And that sense of being misunderstood and having been lied to. And you're- you're on the verge of adulthood and realize that no one knows what they're doing. ...And then the world begins to collapse, you know? And poetry was a place for me to kind of take those sub-verbal feelings and to have something to do with them. (Poet D, li. 63-75) Scenario 3: ...Whatever it is you're dealing with... it's therapeutic in the way that it's [writing is] a release of that, whatever that idea is .... (Poet E, li. 1040-1043) The investigator concludes that the above evidence of a compulsion to play with words, a desire to express sub-verbal feelings, and a need for self-therapy, describes a motivational factor that is different in both kind and content as compared to evidence of writing to stimulate process induced pleasure and to evidence of writing to gain status, money, and/or acceptance. More support may have been found for processes related to inherent motivation if the investigator had given Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 161 greater emphasis to this sub-process of writing within the guiding questions used to conduct the interviews. Intrinsic Motivation That motivation continues to be of primary importance within the field of education further furthers the need to include aspects of motivation within a model that intends to describe behavior. Revisiting the previous findings of Research Question 2, Part II, Section Two, the interviewees stated that while fully engaged in the writing process they entered a state of consciousness that was trance-like or meditative. Two by-products were the result of this state. The first was text production that resulted when engaging or "tapping into" subconscious contents and associational activity. The second was a positive feeling of peacefulness, wholeness, or escape. Furthermore, the forcefulness of the interviewees' personal anecdotes in regard to pleasure and writing is such that it would be hard to understand their engagement in this art form had not the engagement process been so intrinsically rewarding. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 162 Extrinsic Motivation And I brought it back, and she put it a little red "A" on it. (Poet D, li. 42-42) Problem-solving models of writing framed within information processing conceptions of cognition are necessarily built upon an assumption of extrinsic motivation. Why verify whether one's "task so far" is following a plan that intends to solve a problem or achieve a goal unless there is some reward involved in doing so? Although poetry generates little monetary reward even for the most renowned poet, it would be naive to suppose that poets could support themselves and their families without institutional backing (just as the artists of the past relied on individual sponsorship to allow them to create their works of art). It is assumed, then, that all of the writers I interviewed, like the student seeking a high grade, were in the pursuit of external rewards. However, indirect access to a livelihood may not be the only extrinsic reward sought by poets. Q: There're other things that we start seeking when we start comparing notes, and seeing what our peers Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 163 are doing, and finding out, "Oh, you got published with them." And, "That's a good binding on that book." Poet D: Oh, absolutely. And in some ways it makes it worse, because it's like a prison economy it's what happens in English departments across the country. You'll kill for a pack of cigarettes. There's so little there, that you're actually more violent about trying to get your little piece of it. (li. 1066-1090) Interactive Motivation Feedback Among Inner-, Intra-, and Inter-Active Processes To conclude, motivational feedback supported multi modal interaction. What may start out as a tendency for word play or a therapeutic need to write enters one into a process that is pleasurable that, in turn, generates a text which leads to a tenure track where daily one is allowed to satisfy an inner need while making a living. A speculative feedback progression assuredly or what Maslow (1976) termed Self-Actualization or what Joseph Campbell (1988) described as "following one's bliss." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. MOTIVATIONAL 164 Figure 12. A System Model of Writing Processes. cu ^ o e 0 . 4 - ' o CL, hHI tn I Q L ) m e- U - h i c p i bn m N Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 165 Conclusion to Answer 3 A year ago this researcher had no idea that the results of his data collection and transcript analysis would result a model (Figure 12) of cognitive processes associated with the writing of poetry. Initially, because of the dearth of writing models found in the research (especially considering the plethora of reading models) and because what was there failed to engage aspects of divergent creativity, this investigator began his research to simply explore the validity of using systems theory to discuss creative writing. Hopefully, the System Model of Writing Processes offers a bit more substance for further investigation. It will be argued in the section that follows that although a good amount of research, both qualitative and quantitative, is needed to further develop and support the model, even with a tentative acceptance of its process descriptions, one may suggest implications in regard to assimilating and contrasting previous models of writing and creativity as well as developing pedagogic rational for specific writing instruction. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 166 Discussion of Findings From a methodological perspective, the dissertation findings were potentially problematic as a result of the following concerns: 1. The proposition of theoretically grounding the research was debatable with regard to qualitative inquiry. Glaser (1992) argues for the advantages of the atheoretical emergence of research findings. His position was that "grounding" so influences analysis as to result in data forcing. 2. The investigator's experience as a teacher of creative writing brought into play aspects of the researcher/practitioner and attendant bias. 3. The size of the study sample was too limited to generate an accurate representation of the population of professional poets. 4. The sample of expert practitioners of poetry could impact the finding's transferability to a dissimilar population. Each of the above concerns has a corresponding rebuttal: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 167 First, as argued in Chapter III, (a) atheoretical research presents the danger of aimless research producing inconclusive findings and (b) framing one's research in theory makes explicit concept bias whereas unframed research may make presumptions of objectivity which are for phenomenological reasons impossible. Second, there is within the field of qualitative inquiry strong support for the benefits of the research/practitioner's capacity to filter superfluous data and analyze information efficiently and with verstechen (Patton, 1990, p. 57). Third, although the sample was small, findings such as the importance and influence of Incubation have a great deal of triangulating support within the study population, within the Review of Literature, and within the research field of creativity at large. Furthermore, a limited sample sized does not preclude a study's capacity to increase phenomenological understanding. Finally, fourth, although the study sample reflected a narrow research focus, homogeneous sampling allowed for a more powerful investigation into the specifics of creative divergence among expert- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 168 practitioners. A broader, more diverse sample population including both experts and novices, both poets and journalists may have resulted in such a diluted data pool that thematic data coding and the development of a model would not have been possible within the imperative dissertation restrictions of time and space. However, in no way does the above rebuttal suggest that the study concerns are either insignificant or unimportant. Discussion of Implications The following implications are dependent upon the degree to which it is considered that study limitations and concerns are minimal. Furthermore, the discussion of implications will focus on Research Question 3, as the System Model of Writing Processes includes and summarizes the findings of Questions 1 and 2. This implications section will limit discussion to five areas of concern: 1. The use of General System Theory to frame Intra- and Inter-Active Modes of cognitive processes and to theoretically capture, assimilate, and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 169 operationalize a diversity of findings relevant to educational research. 2. The implication of intrinsic motivation generated as a by product of Intra-Active processes. 3. The theoretical influence of an Anti-Node of conflicting processes, as differentiated from competing processes, with regard to (a) offering an alternative interpretation of Amabile's research into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation; (b) better understanding mechanisms related to writer's block; and c) developing pedagogic practices framed within an Expert/Novice paradigm. 4. The possible need to directly instruct some expert writing practitioners (regardless of their meta-cognitive self-knowledge) as to the negative impact external demands may have upon creativity and the positive impact student-centered seeking behavior may have upon divergent production and intrinsic, process engendered motivation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 170 5. The use of a System Model of Writing Processes to support writing pedagogy associated with divergent creativity. Implication 1: The System Model of Writing Processes and Construct Assimilation Educational research demands the capacity to assimilate a diversity of disciplines from physiology to social science, from philosophy to pedagogy and everything between. Each of these research fields seeks understanding through specialized language and methodology. System science was "originally intended to overcome current over-specialization" by offering a "broad view which far transcends technological [read methodological] problems and demands, a reorientation that has become necessary in science in general..." (Bertalanffy, 1969, p. vii). It is this broad view that allows for a high degree of research impact and pragmatic utility. By extension, this investigation's concluding model may present a pragmatic assimilation of often dichotomous findings within a diversity domains. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 171 For example, Neisser (1966) stated, "historically, psychology has long recognized the existence of two different states of mental organization." His summary included rational vs. intuitive, constrained vs. creative, logical vs. pre-logical. While the first half of these dichotomies indicated the processing of individual cognitions sequentially, the latter half of these dichotomies indicated the processing of multiple cognitions simultaneously. Congruent with Neisser's research summary, Guilford (1965) had differentiated convergent from divergent thinking whereas Debono (1970) developed the concept of Vertical Thinking to describe left hemisphere function and Lateral Thinking to describe right hemisphere function. Debono's dichotomization is presented on the following page. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 172 Table 4. Summary of Vertical and Lateral Thinking Attributes (Debono, 1970) Vertical/Right Lateral/Left Hemispheric Process Hemispheric Process Determine the correct approach Open to multiple approaches Correct Choice Depth of Choices Directional Direction Seeking Analytical Provocative Sequential Process Non-Linear Process Correct at every step Exploratory "No, but." "Yes, and." Eliminate/ignore what is perceived as irrelevant Unexpected, chance intrusions welcomed and valued Categorically static Categorically fluid Tends to follow most likely path Tends to follow idiosyncratic path Finite process Probabilistic process In response to the above, the investigator suggests it may be illuminating to frame these dichotomies within systems science. This summary does not imply a perfect fit of assimilated research; rather, it is meant to suggest the potential for the System Model of Writing Processes to find congruence within the broad field of educational research. An illustration of the hypothetical assimilation of past and current research Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 173 as associated with the System Model of Writing Processes appears in Figure 13. The degree to which this assimilation of diverse constructs holds true is beyond the scope of this investigation. Nevertheless, this figure does attempt to present the following implication: If one intends to address the "whole" student via learning theory and pedagogy then highly dynamic, non-linear processes, such as emotions, the unconscious, and imagistic thinking should not be isolated, controlled for, ignored, or made secondary to more linear and predictable modes of thinking simply because of the difficulty of capturing interacting processes via traditional methods of quantification. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 174 Figure 13. Hypothetical assimilation of diverse research findings within a System Model of Writing Processes framed within General System Theory. *Gray sphere represent cognitive processes associated with written language. \ ____________ General System Theory _____________ Bertalanffy (1968) Open System vs. C losed System N etw orked Processing vs. Sequential Processing C haos Science G leick (1987) Strongly Influenced by Strange A ttractors vs. Fixed A ttractors Creativity Science G uillford (1965) D ivergent Thinking vs. Convergent Thinking B rain R esearch R ozoum nikova (2002) D iffuse E E G Patterning vs. N arro w E E G Patterning Inform ation Processing Findings, Q uestion 2 Seeking B ehavior vs. Problem Solving Psychology N eissser (1966) Intuition vs. Logical s _ . ' ■ * ! Intra--A.olivo Pi oi'.sssm** 1 s -O- w p illiiii TiHoi - Active Processing P w p p \ / ED - - V. Behavioral Research Intrinsic Motivation vs. Extrinsic Motivation Learning Theory Expert Practitioner vs. Novice Practitioner Pedagogy Art Instruction vs. Craft Instruction Transactional Model Rosenblatt (1994) Aesthetic Stance vs. Efferent Stance Writing Models Andre Breton (1924) vs. Flower and Hayes (1994) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 175 Implication 2: Intrinsic Motivation as a By-Product of Inter-Active Processing Understanding motivation is of primary concern to those seeking efficacious instructional methods. As a result, a large body of motivational research has been conducted, beginning with the work of the early behaviorist B.F. Skinner and continuing with the social- learning investigations of Albert Bandura (1963) . For those interviewed, a primary source of writing associated pleasure and motivation occurred as a by product of the process, not the as the result of production. This process generated motivational construct confirmed Csikszentmihali's (1990) investigation into flow states of "optimal experience." Not only was the presence of flow states confirmed among those interviewed, the model indicated a theoretical framework for those writing strategies that separate inner seeking process from external demands and attendant task monitoring, such as Elbow's (1998) free writing and Akers (2002) tactile writing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 176 To summarize the implication of this finding: Not all students are writing prodigies and some students will always resist writing instruction, still one may assume that if writing related pleasure is operationalized and then supported by writing curricula, that the teaching of writing would be far more effective and efficient. (See Gottfried, 1990, "Academic Intrinsic Motivation in Elementary School Children"). Implication 3: Evidence of a Writing Process Anti-Node Another implication of the System Model of Writing Processes, possibly related to motivational constructs, is connected to the hypothetical activation of a system Anti-Node. It was suggested by the writers interviewed that this activation occurred when Inner-Processes were activated in simultaneity with External Demands. The result of this attempted simultaneity was system compromise or system failure. This construct may offer an alternative interpretation of Amabile's (1985) findings that those subjects explicitly told to be creative were less creative than their counterparts who had no such instruction. In her study, 72 students were directed to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 177 write poetry. The control group was given external reasons for writing: impress their teachers, get into graduate school. The experimental group was given intrinsic reasons to write: satisfaction, self- expression. The comparative loss of creativity, as judged by a panel of 12 independent poets, among the external demand/control group reflected, Amabile concluded, the importance of intrinsic motivation with regard to creative endeavor. Without addressing the potential for confounding variables and small sample effects threatening the validity of Amabile's findings, this investigator suggests that by applying the construct of a process Anti-Node, an alternative and complimentary explanation for the research findings may emerge: When a request for "creativity" is such that it is perceived as an external demand put upon the individual, it is interfering cognitions (does my work fulfill an external criteria of creativeness or of impressiveness?) rather than a lack of self-motivation alone that may hinder creative production. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 178 In other words, although one may be able to contemplate two opposing ideas at the same time, it is quite another to require simultaneous processing in both an Intra-Active and Inter-Active Mode. Therefore, rather than an affective response to external demands (loss of motivation) hindering creative production, what could be occurring is a complimentary system response imposed by physiological system constraints. By extension, writer's block may be related to the above described system constraints. For example, a writer who feels forced to satisfy external demands - the needs of a publisher, the need for professional recognition, or the need to make house payments - may find it cognitively impossible to engage Inner- processes, and thus the oft quoted, "when I sit down to write, my mind becomes blank." Furthermore, this description of writer's block utilizing the Anti-Node hypothesis offers a scientific basis for those writing instructors and theorists who suggest that the best practice for overcoming writer's block is to remove all external demands. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 179 Finally, the investigator suggests that the Anti- Node hypothesis has implications with regard to learning theory's Expert/Novice paradigm (Anderson, 1993). To summarize and apply the paradigm expert-practitioners have so automated a process - be it the use of form, imagistic description, writing mechanics, or rhyme and rhythm - that during the act of writing the poet's field of awareness can be filled with other, non-directional, writing associated processes, for example "chasing the poem." In contrast, for the novice practitioner each non automated process element must be fully considered in a step-wise manner to the exclusion of artistic expression, such as aesthetically communicating universality or inspiration. Furthermore, the novice practitioner has to constantly self-monitor in order to satisfy external demands and to confirm whether a task objective has been reached. As noted in the transcript data, there is a clear contrast of instructional methods between those who assign exercises and those who do not. Poet A flatly stated, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 180 I don't know of any self-respecting poet who could ever write poems out of an exercise. ...Write so many images on the word purple or choose how many different colors you can put in a poem. There are people who literally teach creative writing classes that way. I think that stops and impedes.... It strikes me as inauthentic, artificial. Whereas poetry, a living entity, does arrive out of personal explorations of the private mythos because they [poets] are more aware of it, of that experience of the astonishing moment, an experience that will come because they are open to it. (Poet A, li. 593-613) Poet A's position is supported by the hypothesis of an Anti-Node. If one is instructing writers who have achieved a degree of expertise, any external constraints placed upon that expertise may impede the artistic process of communication the "astonishing moment." On the other hand, if one is instructing novice students about craft, little emphasis should be placed upon creative achievement, because external demands over emphasizing task monitoring will necessarily impede artistic, novel production. In a related vein, there may be something to the idea that for the "break out" novice for whom artistic achievement comes prior to rigorous craft expertise, achievement is often presented in a novel and original form. The reason being, if one is creating one's own Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 181 form, there is no external demand with which to compare it nor the activation of an Anti-Node to conflict and interfere with Intra-Active processes. Implication 4: The limitation of meta-cognitive awareness to impact teaching pedagogy - a need for direct instruction The investigator purposefully selected a sample population for whom it was hypothesized that the process of teaching students to write poetry would increase the likelihood that the sample would, from a meta-cognitive perspective, have a related increase in the understanding of their own writing processes. This hypothesis appeared to be confirmed as evidenced by the wealth of writing process related information captured in the data corpus. However, as noted in the audit (see Appendix E), an important finding of this study (Yaden, 2004) was that, having a better understanding of one's own writing cognitions did not mean that personal experiences would necessarily become incorporated into instructional practices. Specifically, all of those writers interviewed described a vast majority of their poetic Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 182 writing as responding to personally resonating triggers which initiated a seeking process, the by product of which was an emergent text. Yet, with the important exception of Poet A, this same majority did not transfer their own experiences to their writing pedagogy. Obviously, teachers need to teach something, and craft should take precedence over creativity with regard to the novice writer. Yet, in speaking of the teaching of craft, again with the exception of Poet A, there was little evidence presented that an imposed demand could possibly affect the creative output of students just as an external demand could affect the creative output of themselves. As writer/instructor Harry Bent (1985) stated: I must confess that rarely do I consciously follow the advice I give my students about the composing process. I wander through the woods, occasionally intersecting one of the sacred pathways of invention or arrangement, but never follow it for very long I like to wander when I write, creating my own roads, (p.4 6) It is very possible that more self-reflection along these lines would have come forth if more emphasis were placed on this topic during the interviews. Be that as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 183 it may, an important implication of this study is that writing instructors who are themselves expert writers may need to be given direct information during their own teacher training regarding instruction aimed at supporting creative endeavor as opposed to instruction aimed at teaching the mastery of craft. This is especially important if expert writer/instructors wish to support both process motivation and artistic divergence among those students who have already mastered the rudiments of writing poetry. To conclude this point, working as a professional writer/instructor does not guarantee that one understands, in full, one's own processes or the cognitive and affective impact particular external demands may have upon students' creative endeavor. The System Model of Writing Processes and the transcripts from this study indicate that all teachers of writing instruction, published or otherwise, may themselves benefit from receiving direct instruction with regard to theoretical constructs associated with writing pedagogy and divergent production. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 184 Implication 5: A Scientific Framework Supporting Pedagogy Associated with Expressivistic and Divergent Writing Much of the writing, particularly prose writing, produced by students within public and private institutions of education has been supported by the acceptance of Information Processing models of cognition which, in turn, support generic conceptions of writing and writers. Furthermore, until recently, those writing instructors seeking to encourage the development of voice, individualistic expression, and self-discovery have had to rely on emotional appeals and the soft- sciences (Freudian psychology and/or educational philosophy) to support their instructional practices and objectives (Young, 1982) . With Regard to Understanding. The primary implication of this study, therefore, is that the study model may find ready application to the anecdotal discussions on the creative process of writing - from the Greeks' concept of "Following One's Muse," to Andre Breton's pseudo-scientific thought and writing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 185 experiments (Schmeller, 1967), to practical reflections by writing instructors such as Harry Bent (1985), William Stafford (1978) and Peter Elbow (1998). With Regard to Pedagogy. An important secondary implication of a System Model of Writing Processes may be this: It places cognitive processes associated with both convergent and divergent writing inextricably within an organic, open system. This placement argues that for a system to function optimally, process integration and interaction must be allowed for and pedagogically reinforced, not simply because of the benefit of psychological catharsis, but rather because of the scientific support for the systems grounding of pedagogy. In addition, the System Model of Writing Processes may support the position that the learning efficacy of writing will be increased if instruction supports both divergent and convergent processes, because non-linear, dynamical processes are fundamental to biological, adaptive systems. Obviously, this reframing of the "whole student" concept with regard to learning efficacy demands further investigations to test this model-based Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 186 hypothesis. Still, by describing Problem-Solving as a sub-process within Seeking-Behavior, the presence of voice, originality and divergent thinking within a text may serve as indicators that cognitive processes associated with writing are fully integrated and organically functional. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 187 CHAPTER V Summary and Suggestions for Further Research Organization of the Chapter Chapter V opens with a brief review of the investigation touching upon purposes, methods, objectives, and research questions. Following this review is an itemized summary of first, the study's findings and second, the implications of those findings. Suggestions for further research brings this study to a close. Review This investigation began with the proposition that one method to develop a better understanding of divergent writing was to investigate those who have achieved professional success both in writing and in teaching poetry, perhaps the most divergent of all written genres. The researcher, therefore, analyzed over 200 pages of transcript data generated through interviews with six poet/instructors. Ethnograph 5.8 (Qualis Research, 2002), was used to assist coding, thematizing, analyzing, and segment retrieval for the purpose of hypothesis generation. The investigation concluded with the building of a model describing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 188 cognitive processes associated with the writing of poetry. The course of the study was guided by the following research questions: 1. For a sample of six professional poets/writing instructors to what extent and in what manner may General System Theory and related theoretical sub constructs add to the understanding of cognitive processes associated with the production of poetry? 2. As evidenced by the transcript data, what are both the role and importance of Incubation to divergent writing processes prior to and during the production of poetry? 3. In what manner may a grounded model, emerging out of the process of the investigation, capture and elucidate interview data associated with the cognitive and affective processes of professional poets writing poetry? Summary of Findings The following is a summary of selected findings from this investigation. For additional information Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 189 about the formation of these findings, please refer to Chapter III and Chapter IV. Summary of Findings: Question 1 1. Data collected from all six interviewees strongly supported the proposition that cognitive processes associated with the writing of poetry are highly non-linear. Process non-linearity was supported across three dimensions of creative thinking: A. Writing Content (the subject material) was more often than not "triggered" by unplanned for, random occurrences in contrast to being "prompted" by an external writing demand. B. Writing Processes were highly dynamic. This dynamism was a result of "clusters of associations" networked within an open and adaptive system interacting over time. C. Writing Products were the by-product of Seeking-Behaviors rather than the result of Problem-Solving. Seeking Behaviors were characterized as (a) often engendering a step wise function change in the system, e.g., Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 190 personal growth and (b) often associated with an absence of task monitoring and planning. 2. In addition, the findings showed support for linear processing during the writing of poetry. Linearity and Task Monitoring were identified as occurring during processes of revision whereby the writer sought to satisfy external writing demands. 3. Interviewees reported great difficulty in simultaneously processing Inner-Active cognitions and External Demands. The investigator hypothesized the existence of a Self/External Demand (S/ED) anti-node that, when activated, inhibited the writing of poetry to the point of writing system failure. Related to this issue was the possibility that externally prompted writing needed to be internalized during a period of Inner- Active incubation prior to accessing cognitive processes associated with writing poetry. 4. Related to the above findings, the investigator hypothesized that Problem-Solving and Seeking-Behavior are distinct processes and proposed that the former, which tends toward Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 191 linearity, may be subsumed as a sub-process of the latter. Summary of Findings: Question 2 1. Incubation was not strongly associated with a preceding Preparatory phase of cognition, nor was incubation characterized as a periodic stage within writing associated cognitions. Rather, the poets interviewed appeared to be sensitive and responsive to processes of continuous and ongoing incubation. Furthermore, the transcript data contained strong evidence that preparation, such as planning and goal setting, was purposely avoided as conscious preparation was reported to have an inhibiting effect upon creative writing processes. 2. Illumination, identified by Wallas (cited in Lubart, 2001) as an unconscious process following Incubation, was not strongly associated with writing poetry. Rather the poets interviewed described Illumination as emerging out of and during the conscious process of writing. In response to evidence that typically unconscious and "inner" processes identified in the data as highly Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 192 imagistic, non-linear and associative were active during the conscious act of writing, the investigator hypothesized that the writing of poetry involved the overlap of unconscious and conscious modes of cognition. The investigator identified this overlap as an Intra-Active mode of consciousness, the by-product of which was a text. 3. In addition to generating text, there was strong evidence among those interviewed that Intra- Active processing was associated with a unique cognitive state. This affective epiphenomenon, described in the transcripts as timeless, meditative, and engendering perceptions of "wholeness" appeared to contain characteristics of both a subconscious mental state (e.g., as occurs during dreaming) as well as a conscious awareness of the writing act. 4. Associated with the above, there was strong support among the study participants for the hypothesis that Intra-Active processing and a resultant meditative state had the potential to generate intrinsic motivation. Evidence for this Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 193 phenomenon included explicit descriptions of the pleasure of writing-induced meditation and the possibility for Intra-Active writing to allow one to "escaping a lot of drudgery thinking" (Poet C, li. 144) . Summary of Findings: Question 3 Figure 14. Summary of findings in response to Research Questions 1, 2, and 3: A System Model of Writing Processes. Gray area represents writing specific processes. Processes seeking Unity are symbolized by the ideogram "<t>". IPUBIICI FORM & GENRE ^ TEXT REVISION Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. P l . U O S P , - » - > 194 1. As findings emerged during data analysis, it was hypothesized that cognitive processes associated with the writing of poetry could be captured by a System Model of Writing Processes. This model addressed two interrelated perspectives: (a) the production of poetry is a creative act dependent upon divergent thinking and therefore should address concepts found within the research field of creativity, and (b) consistent with the findings of Question 1, General System Theory was a valid framework for capturing and describing processes and sub-processes of creative and divergent writing as presented by the sample population of professional poets. 2. The analysis and coding of the transcripts identified three distinct yet interacting modes of writing associated cognition. First, the least regulated of these modes, defined as the Inner- Active mode, denoted a condition of highly dynamic, non-linear and associative thinking. Second, the Intra-Active mode of cognitive processing was identified when inner-active Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 195 processes overlapped with writing processes during the act of writing. Finally, the most regulated cognitive mode was defined as the Inter-Active mode of processing and was described as the overlapping of writing processes with External Demands. 3. Following the definition of a Node as an area within a cognitive Mode that signified processes seeking Unity, and the definition of Unity as a condition of process stability that remained sensitive and adjusted to a variety of internal and external influences, the investigator described six process nodes documented in the study data. Within the Inner-Active Mode was hypothesized the presence of the (1) Self-Seeking- Self (S/S) and the (2) Self-Seeking-Universality (S/U) nodes. Within the Intra-Active Mode was described the (3) Self-Seeking-Writing Process (S/WP) node. Within the Inter-Active Mode was described the (4) Writing Process-Seeking-Product (WP/P) node. Predominantly occurring outside of the sphere of Inner-Activity, the (5) Product- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 196 Seeking-External Demands (P/ED) node was described. Finally, consistent with Research Question 1, Finding 3, the investigator hypothesized that there was the potential for an "anti-node" within the cognitive system that could inhibit writing sub-processes. This inhibitory node was documented as occurring when (6) Self- Seeking nodes and External Demands (S/ED) came into nodal conflict. 4. In response to the evidence of feedback active during the writing of poetry, the investigator described three distinct feedback processes: First, it was suggested that when thoughts are externalized into text, feedback acted as a control loop through which highly dynamic and often chaotic Inner-Active cognitions were stabilized and made cogent. This cogency was then internalized. Without a stabilizing feedback incorporating the structures of a given language into an individual's thought processes an externally undecipherable text could result. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 197 Second, in congruence with aspects of The Structure of Writing Process Model (Flower and Hayes, 1981/1994), the System Model supported the movement of text revision responding to the external demands of audience, craft and professionalism. This movement was captured as Product feedback. Third, responding to Question 2, Finding 4, the investigator suggested that the generation of process induced pleasure produced motivational feedback whereby the act of writing intrinsically engendered the desire to write. Furthermore, as modeled herein, Intrinsic Motivation interacted with Inherent Motivation, an a priori compulsion to express oneself through written language, and with Extrinsic Motivation, the need to make a living and gain professional stature. Summary of Implications Within the Discussion of Implications, the investigator submitted the following five areas of potential influence upon educational research and pedagogy: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 198 1. The Intra- and Inter-Active modes of processing as captured by the System Model of Writing Processes may potentially assimilate a diversity of dichotomized constructs relevant to educational research. 2. An important by-product of Intra-Active processing was intrinsic motivation. Thus, if the overlap of inner processes and writing processes are supported, the findings suggest a resultant positive impact upon teaching efficacy and student learning. 3. The hypothesis of an Anti-Node activated during writing related processing may (a) offer alternative research explanations related to motivational factors associated with writing, may (b) influence conditions associated with writer's block, and may (c) be relevant to the development of a balanced writing curriculum especially with regard to a pedagogic awareness of the cognitive, creative difference between seeking poetry and determining the "correct" response to a writing prompt. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 199 4. Per the Study Audit (Yaden, 2004) the findings suggested that direct instruction for some creative writing teachers may be needed to better support processes of divergent creativity among their writing students. 5. The System Model of Writing Processes, as implied by the inclusiveness of both convergent and divergent creativity within an organic system, may lead to a better understanding of both creative and analytic writing and by extension may provide scientific support for writing pedagogy associated with divergent creativity. Suggestions for Further Research In response to this study's limitations and to the discussion of its findings, the following suggestions for further research are offered: 1. Extending the qualitative findings of this study, future research could be considered to identify and evaluate alternative methodological instruments to measure attributes of cognitive processes associated with the writing of poetry. Not only could accepted methods of quantitative, inferential Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 200 statistics be utilized, but studies could also include EEG telemetry and MRI imaging research to capture, in real time, cognitive processes of actively engaged divergent (poetic) and convergent (rhetorical) writers. 2. Research utilizing the study's guiding questions while expanding the sample population may be undertaken to enhance the credibility of the research findings specific to the present study. 3. Additional research may investigate the broad transferability of the study findings. For example, classical acting is rooted in predictable modes of oratory and pantomime whereas modern acting is an outgrowth of The Method, a technique of "tapping into" unconscious and personal inner processes of the actor or actress (Nemiro, 1999). Thus, acting prior to the 1950's, may appear hyper natural because the actor is, in fact, acting. In contrast, successful Method actors appear utterly complete and unpredictable and in so doing seem not to be acting at all, because with regard to inner- processes, they are not. Therefore, if Method is a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 201 process whereby "the actor enters a creative state that allows for both discovery and control simultaneously" (Nemiro, 1999, p. 6), then Intra- Active processing as framed by General System Theory may lend some insight into the art and craft of acting. 4. Finally, a longitudinal study utilizing randomly selected control and experimental groups and with access to pre- and post-intervention scores on standardized writing tests could investigate the affective influence and academic efficacy of pedagogy developed out of and framed within the Systems Model of Writing Processes and its assumption of the need to support both divergent and convergent writing, as compared to pedagogy guided by traditional, analytic, and problem solving models of writing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 202 REFERENCES Akers, W.T. (2002). The tactility of writing. English Journal, 91(6), 58-62. Amabile, T.M. (1985). Motivation and creativity: effects of motivational orientation on creative writers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 393- 399. Amabile, T.M. (2001). Beyond talent: John Irving and the passionate craft of creativity. American Psychologist, 56(4), 332-336. 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Ruddel & H. Singer (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading, 4th Ed. (pp. 1057-1092) . Newark: IRA. Rossman, J. (1931). The psychology of the inventor. Washington D.C.: The Inventors Publishing Co. Rothenberg, A. (1999). Janusian process. In M.A. Runco & S.R. Pritzker (Eds.), Encyclopedia of creativity, (Vol.l, pp. 103-118). San Diego: Academic Press. Rozoumnikova, O.M. (2002). Function organization of different brain areas during convergent and divergent thinking: EEG investigation. Cognitive Brain Research, 10(2000), 11-18. Schmeller, A. (1967) Surrealism. (Trans.) Hilde Spiel. New York: Crown. Schuldberg, D. (1999). Chaos theory and creativity. In M.A. Runco & S.R. Pritzker (Eds.), Encyclopedia of creativity, (Vol.l, pp. 259-272). San Diego: Academic Press. Smith, S.M. and Dodds, R.A. (1999). Incubation. In M.A. Runco & S.R. Pritzker (Eds.), Encyclopedia of creativity, (Vol.l, pp. 39-44). San Diego: Academic Press. Spradly, J. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt. Stafford, W. (1978). Writing the australian crawl: Views on the writer's vocation. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 208 Taylor, I.A. (1959). The nature of the creative process. In P. Smith (Ed.), Creativity: an examination of the creative process (pp. 51-82). New York: Hastings Press . Wallas, G. (1945). The art of thought. New York: Harcourt Brace. Ward, T.B. (2001). Creative cognition, conceptual combination, and the creative writing of Stephen R. Donaldson. American Psychologist, 56(4), 350-354. Yaden, D.B. (1999). Reading disability and dynamical systems: When predictability implies pathology. In P. Mosenthal & D. Evensen (Eds.), Advances in reading/language research: Reconsidering the role of the reading clinic in a new age of literacy, 6. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Yaden, D.B. (2004). Personal communalization. Young, R. (1982) Concepts of art and the teaching of writing. In J. Murphy (Ed.), The rhetorical tradition and modern writing (pp. 130-141). New York: MLA. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 209 APPENDIX A Selected Segments from the Transcript Data On the Overlapping Nature of Language: Poet C: Here's how language works. Every once in a while I do this in a class. The students get a big kick out of it. O.K. I don't even have to look to do this diagram. It's overlapping circles, right? O.K. Sure language has slippage. Sure language is changed by time and circumstances and bias and prejudice and everything else. Sure language is subjective and relative. Big deal. Get on with it. You knew that when your mother said no a different way the first time. Q: Right. Right. Poet C: You knew that. O.K.? But it overlaps. Our language overlaps, so if you say "I'm gonna hit you," I know enough to duck. O.K.? I think writers work in here where the language overlaps a lot. And I think theorists of language, and some critics perhaps, work out here where it doesn't overlap very much, showing us that it doesn't. So language, just like the world, is impure. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 210 Writers just get on with it. They accept that impurity and they get on with it. There are some writers, of course, who make it their subject.... (li. 199-227) Poet A recalls Rilke: Now that poem, look at what happened with that poem. That came out of a real experience of having flown back after a long trip, standing there waiting for your baggage, an ordinary experience. Most people there did not see a book come down onto the conveyor belt by itself. It probably passed them by. I always make the joke at my reading that as I watch their faces looking at the book, going back around, back and forth, looking for baggage and then the book, then the baggage and I make the joke that this was the first time that they were forced to acknowledge literature. ...And I decided to leap it from the ordinary into something more extraordinary. This book by Rilke, his poetry, represented so much more than the whole scheme of that evening. And there it was confronting us. I went in so many different areas in response to it. I finished the poem at one point and then added another stanza to it Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211 because one day, when I [had] thought I had really found the poem, the insight, Jesse Helms was preaching censorship and then I added the last stanza. "Unless unsung like a soldier's duffel, duty bound, fear spreads its tarp along the spine of language." Creation can end that way, abrupt and final, like travel to the ends of the world with no intent or vision but destination. It's like staring at the commuter rush hour traffic and you have to think "Are these people going any place or not?" That's why I love that poem because it speaks to that [universal] level that I'm after, (li. 402-448) Poet B on Rewarding the Method, literally: Poet B: And it is it is a loss of self. It is like losing oneself in time. Q: If you do lose self, though, that means the idea of writing being strictly purposeful may fall away because... the constant focus on process? [questioning]. Poet B: Well, you see, the method is the purpose. The method is, this [writing] is the first thing I will do when I get up in the morning. I will not do anything until I do this. I will begin trying to do this [write] Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 212 while I have my first cup of coffee. It must certainly be continued during the second cup of coffee. And you cannot more than three cups of...(laughter). Q: These are the rules! Poet B: These are the rules. These are very serious. You cannot have more than three cups of coffee unless something has been done. You can't do it. You cannot go outside. You cannot talk to anyone. You can only read something in order to use it as a trigger mechanism. You can't have the fun of reading for yourself. You cannot go running. You can't listen to music. You cannot take a shower, you cannot wash your face. You can't have anything to eat. So I start getting hungry. Nothing to eat. That would ruin it. If you want something to eat, you can't have it. You can have the third cup of coffee, but you can't have any more than that. Coffee makes me hungry. You can't have any of those other things until you have done something. Those are all the rules. Those rules make me do something. I'll write a poem so that I can have an English muffin (laughter). I will write a poem so that I can have a bagel. I promise myself, if you finish Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 213 this you can have a toasted bagel, you can put some cream cheese on it if you finish. I have these little bargains with myself. Q: It's a different type of purpose... hunger i s . . . this is external to the text. Poet B: Yes, it is external to the text, but it makes a lot of sense to me. My bribes are English muffin, bagel, orange juice... Q: Yes, and to get back t o . . . [his poems] , I enjoyed so much the poem that ended with "marmalade... one lump or two..." Poet B: Right. Q: Within this context I can see, there's [Poet B] and he's on his third cup of coffee and he's thinking about... marmalade...? (li. 516-603) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 214 APPENDIX B Guiding Interview Questions Big Picture How would you describe your process of writing a poem? In what manner do you think this process may reflect your thinking as you are working on a particular piece? Is your writing related thinking similar for writing an essay or letter of recommendation or writing a poem? Plans and Inspiration Please comment on the following quote: Sometimes I start with a set subject... or to solve in a block of stone a sculptural problem I have given myself..." Do you ever have a specific desired effect or rhetorical purpose in mind that you work toward as you write a particular poem? Do you ever work from an outline or some other type of preconceived plan? One person suggested that some may learn by their work as they proceed, to see and feel what had not been a part of the original plan or purpose. Would you please comment on this idea? Does your writing result following a sudden insight or is it the result of a more gradual process? Please relate this to a particular piece of your writing. Process To what degree and in what manner do initial inspirations manifest themselves in your final work? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 215 That is, do you usually end up where you thought you were going? One poet said he throws out the line‘that was the original impetus for the writing of poem. Could you comment on that? When do you find yourself at your most "creative" or most poetically productive: a) prior to your writing during unfocused thinking or selecting a theme or topic, b) while planning a work not yet begun, c) as you are writing, d) during a break in you work, e) upon reviewing a work in progress? Why do you think this is so? If applicable, what phase of writing do you think the least creative? As you are reading over what you have written, do you find that your attention tends to jump off in unexpected directions or does it tend to further focus on a particular direction or trend? To what extent do you find yourself rejecting random thoughts as irrelevant as you move toward the completion of a work? As you are going through the drafting process does your work qualitatively change or do you find the rewrite process one of refinement? Conscious and Subconscious Processes How would you describe your awareness of the writing process, that is your conscious control over the craft of poetry -- metaphor, imagery, sound patterns, etc? What role does a writing structure, a particular form or "school of poetry" play in determining the shape and content of a poem you are working on? Who/what determines the poetic form that is used in a poem, an initial objective or does the process of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 216 writing determine form? That is, does process follow form or does form follow process? Did a particular school of poetry (prompt: Confessional Poets) impact your early work. How do you think their presence manifests itself in you work today? Was this impact a conscious desire to produce work in the same vein or was it more of an unconscious inclusion of their work into your own poetry. To what degree or manner do you think subconscious processes, experiences, memories influence the content of a poem. Do you ever write poetry with a particular audience in mind? How would this prospective audience affect your writing and your thinking about your writing? Are there circumstances that you find interfere or block your thinking or poetry writing? How would you describe your thinking when you are feeling the most productive? Purposefulness and Motivation Do you have a specific purpose in mind as you write (Prompt: Human Condition? Politics? Self-Discovery?). If so, how does this purpose play itself out in the creation of your poetry? In terms of craft, what do you consider the "responsibilities" of the poet? How would you describe your "state of being" as you are writing a first draft, perhaps following an initial inspiration? How would you differentiate between your thinking and feelings associated with a first draft as compared to your thinking and feelings associated with the process of revision? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 217 Do you often move from one mode of writing into another as you are working on a poem or do you tend to stay in a particular mode as the occasion of the writing demands? What environmental conditions support your best thinking as you are writing poetry? Writing Instruction Some instruct their pupils to use a process or planning strategy to help them write, such as first brainstorming, then outlining, then rough drafting, then revising and proofing. Would you please comment on this procedure? Do you use it? Why or why not? To what extent do you think particular creative writing exercises may support the novice writer? For example? Are they applicable to the professional poet? The age old debate: Art vs. Craft or as another writer put it, "sensitivity vs. sensibility." How does this dichotomy manifest itself in your writing instruction? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 218 APPENDIX C Verbal Contact Guide for Recruiting Study Candidates Hello. My name is Bill Akers, and I am a doctoral candidate at USC's Rossier School of Education. As part of my doctoral studies I am preparing a dissertation entitled: A Grounded Theory of Writing: A Qualitative Investigation into Complex Systems of Creativity and Cognitive Constructs Associated with the Writing of Poetry. I am contacting you because you have been identified as one who has taught creative writing and has published work in peer reviewed journals and/or anthologies of poetry. The questions that I would ask, if you consent to participate in my study, would concern your thoughts on cognitive processes related to the act of writing. My study is not concerned with specific personal events nor with biographical information that may influence or occur in your work. For example, a typical question may be, "Do you use an outline prior to writing out a particular poem?" You are in no way obligated to participate in this study. During the course of the interview, you may withdraw your consent to participate. You may participate in complete confidentiality if you so choose. The entire interview should take approximately one hour, and will be held at your office, at a time that is convenient to you. You will be provided with an informed consent form if you agree to an interview. This consent form complies with procedures and policies established by the Institutional Review Board. If you would like more information, I will give you my phone number and my email, and the phone number and email of my committee chair. Thank you for giving me the time to speak with you. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 219 APPENDIX D Sample Consent Form University of Southern California Rossier School of Education CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH A Grounded Theory of Writing: A Qualitative Investigation into Complex Systems of Creativity and Cognitive Constructs Associated with the Writing of Poetry You are asked to participate in a research study conducted by William T. Akers, M.A., and David Yaden, Ph.D., from the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. Results will contribute to Mr. Akers Ph.D. dissertation. You were selected as a possible participant in this study because of your expertise as a practitioner of creative writing and your profession as a writing instructor. A total of six subjects will be selected from a group consisting of published creative writers who are professors of writing instruction to participate. Your participation is voluntary. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY This study aims to better understand how poets think as they write poetry. PROCEDURES If you volunteer to participate in this study, we would ask you to do the following things: Nature of the Participation Participate in a 45 to 60 minute audio-taped interview focusing on perceptions of cognitive processes present prior to and during the production of poetry. There may also be follow-up questions to seek clarification or further understanding. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 220 Nature of the Questions The research questions will focus on perceptions of cognitive processes present prior to and during the production of poetry. Questions will not be personal in nature. There may be follow up questions to seek clarification or further understanding. The interviewer will restrict questions to those relating to the investigation. A few sample questions are as follows: - How would you describe your process of writing a poem? - Is your writing related thinking similar for writing an essay, a letter of recommendation, a poem? Please explain. - Do you ever have a specific desired effect or rhetorical purpose in mind that you work toward as you write a particular poem or is your poetry writing more of a process of discovering a particular effect or purpose? - Do you ever work from an outline or some other type of preconceived plan? POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOM FORTS There is a minimal risk of loss of confidentiality. There is the potential risk that the interview will cause the interviewee a minimal level of inconvenience. POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO SUBJECTS AND/OR TO SOCIETY You will not directly benefit from participating in this study. Potential societal benefits may include a better understanding of writing and creative processes as they relate to the production of poetry. This understanding may result in specific pedagogic implications. PAYM ENT/COM PENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION You will not be paid for participating in this research study. CONFIDENTIALITY Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be identified with you will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or as required by law. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 221 The interview will be audio-taped and tape transcripts will be made by the researcher. You have the right to review/edit the resulting audio-tape and tape transcript. Information access will be limited to the researcher William Akers and to this study's principal investigator Dr. David Yaden, who, for the purpose of establishing data verification, assessing methodological accuracy, and confirming ethical research conduct may review audio-tapes and tape transcripts. With exception of the above noted investigator, access to audio-tapes and tape transcripts will be strictly limited. Audio-tapes will be stored in a locked file cabinet and all electronic data storage will be kept on a network-isolated, off line external hard drive. Audio-tapes will not be used for educational purposes outside the scope of this study. When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no information will be included that would reveal your identity. Aliases will be used on all tape transcripts. Aliases will not reveal any biographical information, e.g.: "Poet A." All interviewee names will be appear as generic aliases upon the transcripts. In the event that further use will be contemplated related to the interviewee's tape- transcript beyond the scope of this dissertation, for example a follow-up study by the study principals, the IRB consent process will be reinitiated. No use of the interviewee's tape transcript will be made without the signed consent of the interviewee. PARTICIPATION AND W ITHDRAW AL You can choose whether to be in this study or not. If you volunteer to be in this study, you may withdraw at any time without consequences of any kind. You may also refuse to answer any questions you don't want to answer and still remain in the study. The investigator may withdraw you from this research if circumstances arise which warrant doing so. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 222 IDENTIFICATION OF INVESTIGATORS If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact: William Akers or Dr. David Yaden, faculty sponsor, University of Southern California, Rossier School of Education, Waite Philips Hall, University Park Campus 90089. RIGHTS OF RESEARCH SUBJECTS You may withdraw your consent at any time and discontinue participation without penalty. You are not waiving any legal claims, rights or remedies because of your participation in this research study. If you have questions regarding your rights as a research subject, contact the University Park IRB, Office of the Vice Provost for Research, Grace Ford Salvatori Building, Room 306, Los Angeles, CA 90089 (213) 821-5272, orupirb@usc.edu. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 223 SIGNATURE OF RESEARCH SUJECT I understand fully the rights of a potential subject in a research study involving people as subjects. My questions have been answered to my satisfaction, and I agree to participate in this study. I have been given a copy of this form. ( ) I agree to be audio-taped. ( ) I do not agree to be audio-taped. Name of Subject Name of Parent or Legal Representative (if applicable) Signature of Subject, Parent or Legal Representative Date SIGNATl RE OF INVESTIGATOR I have explained the research to the subject or his/her legal representative and answered all of his/her questions. I believe that he/she understands the information described in this document and freely consents to participate. Name of Investigator Signature o f Investigator Date (must be the same as subject’s) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 224 APPENDIX E The Study Audit A Study Audit was performed by an Audit Committee consisting of the Committee Chair, Dr. David Yaden, Ph.D., of the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education who has published extensively in the fields of Systems and cognitive processes associated with reading; Dr. David Hocevar, Ph.D., of the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education who has published extensively in fields of creativity and creative measurement, and Dr. James Ragan, Ph.D., Director of the Master of Writing Program at the University of Southern California, who has published an extensive collection of poetry and books of poetry and who teaches creative writing to graduate students when he is not presenting to audiences in the United States and in Europe. Their suggestions have been included in the final preparation of the study. These suggestions and comments fell into four general categories: 1) Suggestions to support clarity and comprehension. 2) Suggestion to better contextualize and quantify the Data Corpus. 3) Suggestion to address the potential for a threat to credibility as a result of Elite Bias. 4) Suggestion to better highlight a finding in the Implications section of the study. Suggestions to Support Clarity and Comprehension Inclusion of a Definition of Terms Section There was a high degree of complexity with regard to the framing of this study, with a number of theoretical and emergent constructs nested one within the other. Originally, terms were defined within the body of the text as they appeared. However, the number, density, and interaction between a variety of terms and process descriptions rendered the body of the text difficult to follow and decipher. Therefore, a Definition of Terms was included in Chapter Three. As Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 225 an additional benefit, a close reading of the Definition of Terms section serves as an advance organizer to the dissertation and summarizes the networked construction of the Review of Literature and Discussion of Findings. Simplification of the Limitations and Delimitations Section Limitations and Delimitations were originally written in the format of a quantitative study wherein threats to validity and confounding variables were each defined and described. In that vein, the investigator included such information as, "It is assumed that the Interviewee will tell the truth." However, directly making such an assumption opens Post-positivistic concerns (e.g., what is truth?). Therefore, it was felt by the auditing committee, and agreed upon by the auditee, that, while not denying these issues, they are a "given" with regard to qualitative research rendering their inclusion in a limitations section, to a great degree, redundant. Suggestion to Better Contextualize and Quantify the Data Corpus Upon the advice of the Committee, the data corpus was contextualized with respect to the ordering and to the setting of interviews. In addition, the collection of data was contextualized within a "method of use" description with regard to the investigation's Guiding Questions. Finally, a chart was developed to summarize the size of the Data Corpus and its utilization as related to the Discussion of Findings. In addition, a section was added in the Data Corpus section with regard to the potential for elite bias (Miles and Huberman, 1994, p. 264). This bias was captured and presented in the Data Chart. A short discussion acknowledging this threat was presented. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 226 Suggestion to Highlight a Finding in the Implication Section of this study The disconnect between poetry writing as professional writers describe it and poetry writing as professional writers teach it was first introduced in the Literature Review section of this study. And although the researcher concluded that the data, with the exception of data relevant to Poet A, confirmed this disconnect, the researcher failed to fully discuss this important finding within the content of the study's Implications Section. Therefore, the Implications Section was amended and expanded to better highlight the importance of a professional practice/professional pedagogue disconnect with regard to supporting the divergent endeavors of students. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Akers, William T. (author)

Core Title A grounded model of writing: A qualitative investigation into complex systems of creativity and cognitive constructs associated with the writing of poetry

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Education

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag education, language and literature,language, rhetoric and composition,OAI-PMH Harvest,psychology, cognitive

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Hocevar, David (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-356913

Unique identifier UC11340911

Identifier 3180448.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-356913 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 3180448.pdf

Dmrecord 356913

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Akers, William T.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA