Through the Models of Writing

During the 1998 SIG Writing meeting, Gert Rijlaarsdam, who was at that time an editor for the EARLI Writing Series, invited us to write Through the Models of Writing (Alamargot & Chanquoy, 2001). Our goal in writing this book was to synthesize the various definitions and theoretical ideas about writing processes. During the process of writing our book, we became more and more aware of the necessity to analyze the different writing models precisely and to compare them. Indeed, since the publication of Hayes and Flower’s (1980) model, many criticisms and revisions occurred and progress emerged, occasionally introducing some conceptual misunderstandings, which made it increasingly difficult to compare empirical results and theoretical ideas. From Hayes and Flower’s model, “new” models have been built but sometimes without any consideration to their validation or heuristic interest. After 20 years of “model building,” the writing community lacked a unifying theoretical background.