Author Description

In this monograph, I investigate the 'process' notion of 'writng to learn' from two perspectives: the historical and the psychologoical. The first perspective traces the early history of writing, considering, in particular, the effect of technologies like the printing process (and word-processor) on conceptualisations of writing, knowledge and education. The latter perspective in turn draws on the work of linguists and cognitive scientists alike in an attempt to offer a theoretically coherent basis for the 'process' view equating writing and thinking. The monograph ends with a brief discussion of the thorny pedagogical question of whether it is possible to teach writing/thinking as a generalised skill.