Inquiry and composing: A case study of the combined processes of a freshman writing student in the university library

This study explores and examines the complex strategies involved in one student\u27s inquiry and composing processes: how a student initiates an inquiry task and selects, gathers, organizes, and makes meaning as he composes from source materials. The goal of this study is to take an unusually comprehensive look at the ways a freshman interprets and negotiates a research paper assignment in the library while trying to integrate information from sources with ideas of his own under the guidance of a syllabus whose purpose is to encourage cognitive and creative growth. The study investigates the thinking processes of one student from a number of perspectives, drawing on think-aloud protocols during inquiry and composing, in interviews, in the student\u27s self-analysis of his own processes, and in his Research Journal. The study explores the processes in an effort to identify features that influence a student\u27s decisions in creating a text. Inquiry and composing processes were analyzed along several dimensions via the protocol transcripts and significant relationships between the processes were revealed. In order to get a more balanced picture of cognition in this academic context, this study focuses on the context of the university library. Research paper assignments, despite the controversy as to their effectiveness or success, continue to be a time-honored tradition in the university; yet, we know little about how students negotiate inquiry and then re-negotiate inquiry with their composing tasks. The interaction of these two processes is difficult to teach and to learn. This study offers a case study of one university freshman writing student\u27s approach to the two processes. What this study revealed were some differences in the mental processes of an individual student, differences which teachers might think about as they assign research papers. The unarticulated processes--those which do not appear in a final product go unnoticed by the teacher, yet are fruitful for the development of the student\u27s text. The findings of this study provide a model for examining the relationship between inquiry and composing. Its theoretical underpinnings lie in cognitive theory, an appealing theoretical approach for undertaking an exploration of the two processes. (Abstract shortened by UMI.