Part One:
Writer’s Block Summary
Figure 1.1
Mike Rose (born 1944)
Mike Rose’s (Figure 1.1) article, “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer's Block” and published by the National Council of Teachers of English, discusses the theory of writer’s block. The author defines writer’s Block as “…that frustrating, self-defeating inability to generate the next line, the right phrase, the sentence that will release the flow of words once again” (Rose 389). Within the article, Rose demonstrates and scrutinizes the theory of writer’s block by using “non-experimental…more clinical than scientific” observations on ten of his UCLA graduate students, who represents the “cross-section,” or various kind of people, of the UCLA student body, that he lectures regularly to them about writer’s block. From interviewing the ten graduates, he found that fifty percent or more suffers from writer’s block (389-399). While using the gradates as a reference, Rose analyzes writer’s block by applying other cognitivist and theorist’s research throughout his article to address various ideas on the subject (390-400). He illustrates many theories involving the nature of writer’s block; however, by examining and utilizing the “problem solving behavior theory”, he settled several debates about writer’s block. Rose thoroughly discuses the rules, plans, set, and belief principles within the problem solving behavior theory. The fifty percent of the students who suffer from writer’s block main issues were the “rigid rules and “inflexible plans” (400). Rose quotes Robert M. Gagné’s (Figure 1.2) definition of rules; “an inferred capability that enables the individuals to respond to a class of stimulus situation with a class of performances” (391). Inflexible plan, defined by Rose, “…any hierarchical process in the organism that can control the order in which a sequence of operation is to be performed” (392).
Figure 1.2
Robert M. Gagné’s (August 21, 1916 – April 28, 2002)
American educational psychologist.
American educational psychologist.