Insights From a Professional Songwriter's Approach to Writing: Enhancing the Flower and Hayes Cognitive Model

• In Event: 42.083 - Roundtable Session 17
  In Roundtable Session: 42.083-10 - From Posthuman Literacies to the Arts: Fictocriticism, Comics, Poetry, and Songwriting

Abstract

This paper explores the connection between a professional songwriter’s writing process and existing models of the cognitive composing process. After completing a study that investigated a) how a professional songwriter described writing, b) how he took creative risks, and c) how his process reflected critical thinking, data collected through artifacts, interviews, and observations was analyzed. Four salient themes emerged, which became the basis of an enhanced version of the Flower & Hayes Model of Cognitive Processes (1981). The final sections of this paper provide an explanation of the components of this new model and offer possibilities on how this model can be used as a framework for teaching composition instructors the complexity of the writing process.

Authors

• Regina Chanel Rodriguez, West Texas A&M University

• Bryant Griffith, Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi