From "Laundry Lists" to "Hierarchies": Changes in Thinking Process and Written Product

Author(s): Marjorie Geller

Source: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Oct., 1986), pp. 339-342
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/358051
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StaffroomInterchange 339
much more agreementin grading and community standards than we used to have when
all teachers graded alone.3

Notes

1. CharlesCooper,TheNatureandMeasurement in English(Urbana,IL:National
of Competency
Councilof Teachersof English, 1981).
2. See D. C. McClelland,"Testingfor CompetenceRatherthanfor 'Intelligence,'"American
Psychologist28 (January,1973), 1-14. Also GeraldGrantand Wendy Kohli, "Contributingto
Learningby AssessingStudentPerformance," in OnCompetence, ed. GeraldGrantand Associates
(SanFrancisco: Jossey-Bass,1979), pp. 138-59. Also PeterElbowon the effectsof competence-
basedcurriculaon teachers:"Tryingto TeachWhile Thinking About the End," in Embracing
Contraries(New York:OxfordUniversityPress, 1986).
3. We havewritten two essayswhich describethe systemmorefully: (1) "Using Portfolios
to Judge Writing Proficiencyat SUNY Stony Brook,"in New Methodsin CollegeWritingPro-
grams,ed. Paul Connolly and TeresaVilardi (New York: ModernLanguageAssociation, in
press);(2) "Using Portfoliosto IncreaseCollaborationand Communityin a Writing Program,"
WPA:Journalof WritingProgram Administration.
9 (Spring, 1986). Foran interestingaccountof
anotheruse of portfoliosfor grading(but not as a substitutefor proficiencyexaminations),see
ChristopherBurnham's"PortfolioEvaluation:Room to Breatheand Grow"in the new collec-
tion, TrainingtheTeacher ed. CharlesBridges(Urbana,IL:NationalCoun-
of CollegeComposition,
cil of Teachersof English, 1986).

From "LaundryLists" to "Hierarchies":Changes in Thinking Process and Writ-

ten Product, Marjorie Geller, Rutgers University

As part of our work on note-taking, I presentedto my students in a developmental

readinglstudyskills class a "lecture"on the developmentof languagein a primate, a
female gorilla named Koko, who had been taught by Penny Patterson to "speak"
throughthe use of AmericanSign Language.My studentshad to listen to the talk,
take notes, reviewtheir notes, and ask questionsfor clarification.Their writing task
was to use their notes to write an accountof Patterson'sworkwhich would emphasize
whatshe felt werethe majorelementsof Koko'sdevelopment.
In readingthe papers,I was pleasedto see that the studentshad obtainedthe facts,
something they had not been doing previously. However, in writing their accounts of
Patterson'swork with Koko, the majorityof them had written in prose which nar-
rated the events without indicating which ideas were more importantthan others.
Theyhad not noticedthe relativeimportanceof differentideas;they had noted the ex-
istenceof facts ratherthan the relationshipof one fact to another.Thus, the products
were "laundrylists" ratherthan hierarchicalarrangements.Below is a representative
example:
Koko was a baby when Penny got her from the zoo. Koko learned to
speakAmericanSign Language.She knowsabout 375 signs. Koko is toi-
let trained,cleansthe house, eats by herselfand is well-behaved.
TeachingKoko has not been very easy. It requiresa lot of time and pa-
tience. Koko's day is similar to the average human's day. She is up at
7:30, she has cerealfor breakfast,but loves jello. Lying is a big problem.
Yes, my studentshad "gotten"all of the information,but they had failed to per-
ceivewhich factswere moresignificantthan others, in this casethe factspertainingto
Koko'slanguagedevelopment.This failurewas reflectedin the narrative-descriptive
340 3College and Communication
Composition

frameworkof their writing. They seemedto be placing pieces of informationnext to

one anotherwithout connectingthem causallyor logically.
The questionthat ariseshere is, how can they learnto formulateconceptsand to
expresslogical, hierarchicalrelationships?CanI expectmy studentsto "learnhow" by
telling them, "Yourpapersneed developing.Here;readthis informationabouttransi-
tional, connectiveexpressions,fill out the worksheets,revise your papersand hand
them in at our next meeting"? Certainly, any of us involved in teaching writing
knowsthat this strategydoes not produceresults. Studentscannotrevisetheir papers
when they do not understandwhat they shouldbe doing with them; they cannotread
notesin a marginand transformone kind of writing into another.In orderto do this,
they need to think differently,in "hierarchies"ratherthan in "laundrylists."
In orderto help my studentsthink differently,I mused, why not have them "talk"
as a preludeto writing; this approachmight be more advantageousthan expecting
them to expressthemselvesin the written mode beforetrying to ordertheir experi-
ence in a mode in which they operatesomewhat more easily, the spoken.1 "Talk"
could thus be the springboardto dealingwith the cognitiveproblemspresentedby a
writing task.
I decidedto use my assignmentaboutKoko as an exercisefor such development.I
furtherdecidedthat, in additionto talking beforewriting, studentsneededto see how
the processworkedbeforethey "did it" themselves.CertainlyI knew this from per-
sonal experiencein the acquisitionof skills; why couldn't I treat thinking as a skill
which could be improvedthroughdirect experience?The expansionof the Koko as-
signmentcould providethis experience.The studentsalreadyhad done some thinking
and some writing, and by going throughthe processanew in a group situationwith
directionfroma teacher,they could use what they alreadyhad accomplishedto begin
to understandhow they could move from narrative-descriptive writing to logical pat-
ternsof expression.
I had the studentsbreakup into groupsand askedthem to use their originalpapers
on Koko to generatea list of all the "facts"abouther. We then got togetheras a class
to pool informationfrom the lists. Below are representativedata; the list numbered
twenty-eightitems:
1. Koko is a femalegorilla.
2. Pennywantedto teachKokoAmericanSign Language.
3. Kokois now seven.
4. Koko knows 375 signs.
5. Koko lives in a trailerwith Michael,anothergorilla.
6. Shecleansthe trailerwith a spongeand eats the sponge.
7. She readsa book by pointing to the picturesand signing.
8. Shescored85 on an intelligencetest, but it was biased.
9. Koko lies.
10. Shecan referto the past and the future.
11. She can defineobjectsand tell their functions.
12. Shesaysshe is a "fineanimalgorilla."
Discussingthe functionof this list, we concludedthat, basically,it tells the story.
In addition, it describesKoko'sactions. However,as the studentswereable to realize
once the list was on the board, it does not indicatethe relationshipsbetweenor the
relativeimportanceof the things Koko does. Thus, while we do have a sound begin-
ning here, studentsmust understandthat it is just that-a beginning.Visualizingthe
list and talking about it adds to its value as a preliminarystep in the more compli-
StaffroomInterchange 341

catedcognitivetask of writing logically organized,hierarchically arrangedprose. An-

otheradvantagehere is for studentsto see that what they havedone is not wrong;it is
simplythe beginningof a processwhich comprisesmorethan this one stage.
To establishthis point for the class, I askeda studentto use the items on the list to
tell the storyabout Koko. In speaking,he addedconnectivewords, in effect organiz-
ing the ideasinto a meaningfulsequence:
Penny wanted to teach Koko AmericanSign Language. At first, Koko
only learnedone new sign a month. She did this for 18 months. But then
she went faster.Now she is seven, and she knows 375 signs.
Some of the really important things Koko does are she lies and talks
about the past and the present. Also she expresseshow she feels about
herself.
In addition,the studentsuppliedexamplesfor generalstatements:
Thereis a culturalbias on the IQ test. Kokopointed to a floweras some-
thing good to eat and accordingto the test that was wrong. But for Koko
it wasn't.
We discussedwhat was happeningin the student'sspeechand made comparisonsand
contrastswith what had happened in the original papers. The students definitely
noticedthe differences,and I felt that such awarenesswas an importantfirst step for
anychangethat I hopedto see reflected,ultimately,in their writing.
In moving to the next stage, I had studentsbreakinto groupsagain;the task was
to categorize the information on the list. From the group discussion, categories
emerged:
1. Backgroundinformationabout Koko.
2. Koko'sbehaviorand scheduleexcludinglanguage.
3. Koko'slanguagedevelopment.
We were now readyto move on to creatinga hierarchicalstructurefor the material.
And once again, we talkedabout it first. I posed the question:"What'sso unique, so
specialaboutKoko?"
"Shecan talk."
"O.K. Did you notice anything about her talking that's very unusual, at least in
her teacher'sopinion?"
"Yeah,she lies-but when do people startto lie? They must do it after-after they
call a bottle a bottle, that'sfor sure."
We spoke about how they could use their first writing attempts, along with the
categorieswe had developed, to help them transformtheir writing so that it would
communicatethe relationshipsamong ideas ratherthan mere facts. We decidedthat
basic informationabout Koko was importantas backgroundfor the reader,that de-
tails about Koko's schedule and habits provided general interest and amusement.
But-and the "but" came from the class and was evidence to me that they were
beginningto see things in a more hierarchicalperspective-more importantwas the
fact that Koko could "speak."The studentsthen went on to orderfeaturesof Koko's
"speaking"behavior,from the numberof signs she knew to her ability to name ob-
jects, to her use of signs to discussthe past and the futureand, finally, to her use of
signs to lie. They discussedthe paradoxinvolvedin placing lying at the "top"of the
list as the supremeindicationthat Koko had some understandingof the functionof
words.Theirorderingof informationas well as their realizationof the relativeimpor-
tanceof differentitems indicatedto me that they were beginningto see not just con-
cretedetails, but relationshipsamongthosedetails.
342 CollegeCompositionand Communication

At this point in the process, students began to write. After thinking, visualizing,
going though these preliminary steps with their fellow students and with direction
from their teacher, they seemed to be more aware of process-both thinking and writ-
ing-than they had been the first time around with Koko. I had told them many
times that writing is a process, not just a product, but this experience seemed to have
impressed on them what my declarative statements had not. By talking about their
ideas, by going through the stages of thinking, discussing, writing-in other words,
by going through the process and seeing it work-they had begun to move from
"laundry list" to "hierarchy," toward accomplishing the more demanding cognitive
task of integrating data into a logically organized pattern, as exemplified by this por-
tion of a later draft of the student writing quoted earlier:
Penny has taught Koko American Sign Language and she knows about
375 signs. With these signs, she has conversations with Penny. She can
also name things in the trailer and tell what they're used for. But she also
uses signs in more advanced ways. She talks about the past and the fu-
ture. For example, once she reminded Penny that she had promised her a
treat if she was good. Another important thing she does is lie. Lying
might be wrong, but Penny is very excited about it. To her it means that
Koko can really think with language.

Note

1. HaroldRosen, "TheLanguageof Textbooks,"in Language

andEducation,
ed. A. Cashdan
andE. Grugeon(London:Routledgeand KeganPaul, 1972), p. 120.

Writing Assignments for Cognitive Development, Paula Y. Tremblay, Southwest

Texas State University

In teaching writing, I have noticed that students have extreme difficulties taking ob-
jective, observable information and making abstract generalizations about it. This dif-
ficulty becomes obvious in students' failure to make the transition from personal nar-
ratives to thesis-oriented writing. In Piaget's terms, this difficulty is the stumbling
block from concrete to formal operations. The concrete operations stage is charac-
terized by the student's ability to classify, combine, separate, order, and substitute
observable data. The formal operations stage, which is the goal of education, is repre-
sented by a student's ability to abstract, synthesize, and form coherent, logical con-
nections. The student acquires deductive, hypothetical, verbal, and propositional
thinking, syllogistic reasoning, and the understanding of probabilities without de-
pendence on physical manipulation of an object.
I have developed a series of writing assignments which help students make the
transition from concrete to formal operations. These assignments confront the writer
with an idea or piece of experience, ask her to respond to it, and then ask her how she
arrived at this response and what other responses she imagines could be made, by her-
self or someone else.
I first instruct the students to write step one as a 150-200 word paragraph; the
work is then evaluated/responded to by a three- or four-member peer group. Then I
give them the same instructions for step two, with the stipulation that they keep in
mind what they discovered about themselves from step one. Steps one and two are
used primarily as discovery exercises. I look at them and offer comments, but I do not