Some Thoughts about Feelings: The Affective Domain and the Writing Process

I am watching a roomful of college freshmen take an essay exam; I can nearly see the tension in the air. Several young men and women stare into space, pencils poised, brows furrowed, sweating slightly. A number of others gnaw their lower lips. Others chew their pens, their pencils, their fingernails. One examinee tears a page out of his bluebook, crumples it tightly, and fires it at a nearby wastebasket. When I announce there are five minutes left there is a rustle of sighs and low groans, a burst of final activity. Students leave, their faces smiling or frowning; few faces are totally impassive. One does not have to watch freshmen at work to know that writing is an emotional as well as a cognitive activity-we feel as well as think when we write. This is true of most human behavior, as Piaget pointed out some time ago: At no level, at no state, even in the adult, can we find a behavior or a state which is purely cognitive without affect nor a purely affective state without a cognitive element involved (quoted in Derry and Murphy 29). But we have tended to ignore the affective domain in our research on and speculation about the writing process. This is partly due to our deep Western suspicion of the irrational, the related scientific suspicion of anything which cannot be observed and quantified (exemplified by B. F. Skinner), and the simple fact that we lack a complete theoretical perspective and common vocabulary with which to carry on a cogent academic discussion of affect. I do not intend to argue for the inclusion of the affective domain in our research and discussion; that has already been done eloquently by Donald Norman in the field of psychology, and by Mary Farmer and Alice Brand in the field of writing. What I should like to do here is sketch in a few areas where research on affect should be fruitful, and then propose a theory of the emotions which might help us organize and understand this research. For the