Process Theory of Composition - Critiques of Process

Critiques of Process

Thomas Kent argues that process theories insist, “writing can be captured by a generalized process or a Big Theory,” and that process theory makes three central claims about writing: “(1) writing is private; (2) writing is not up for interpretation; and (3) writing can, and should be, highly organized.”

When writing is conceived of and taught as a prescriptive and generalizable “process,” according to Gary Olson, useful implications arise in the creation of a Theory of Writing, a master narrative that attempts to “systematize something that simply is not susceptible to systematization”

Similarly, George Pullman positions the writing process movement as a rhetorical narrative, positioned in history as a result of writing as an undervalued, utilitarian skill that could be universally transmitted in higher education (17). This emerged out of “current traditional rhetoric” that originated at Harvard in the 1880s and peaked in the late 1960s. Writing became a highly scientific affair, rooted exclusively in empirical observation. Post-process theorists argue, however, that if the writing process “were really the way all successful writers write regardless of context, then unless all writing is somehow supportive of a single ideological system, there would be no obfuscatory ideological baggage attending the process."

Theorists continue to discuss pedagogical and systemic implications of both process and post-process approaches to composition.

Process theorists themselves have had to identify and work around certain constraints the process method brings with it; namely: