The mind is not a black box: Children's ideas about the writing process

We studied children's conceptions of the writing process while the complex cognitive activity of writing is carried out through a pictorial representation of the writing process. Sixty children attending Kindergarten, first grade and fourth grade in Bariloche, Argentina, were presented individually with a sequence of four questions about the content of a child's thought at four key moments of writing production (anticipating, writing, revising, rereading), which were depicted on picture cards. Textual analysis, the application of Simple Correspondence Factorial Analysis (SCFA) and Modal Response procedures, indicated significant developmental changes in the focus of children's ideas about writing. More specifically, we looked at children's conceptions of the nature of thinking while writing, given cognitive processes of increasing complexity and internalization. Main educational implications indicate the need to rethink practices for teaching writing at initial and primary school levels in order to promote teaching interventions directed at getting pupils to be explicit, revise and redescribe their conceptions about the writing process. We suggest that learners' conceptions of writing processes outline a tacit learning curriculum of writing, which operates by guiding learning efforts and self-evaluation standards.