Surely, there were various transitional states of writing and other
elements that MS Word could not
easily accommodate. The thesis
projects advanced through students
searching for an understanding of
the problems themselves. Since the
writing took place simultaneously
with the larger investigations of the
theses projects, the process could be
called exploration as well as writing.
The behavior that emerged in
the students’ writing process fol-
lowed a pattern:
• They created external signs as
parts of written units, manipulat-
ing those signs spatially and deal-
ing with them like objects.
• Through external objects they
mediated their own thought.
• Signs were used as a mnemonic device for a larger concept
or future discussion.
• Some students built 3-D models of concept relationships, using
marshmallows and toothpicks. The
models represented the multiple
relationships between the concept
and other ideas in the text. Th ey
served as 3-D concept maps that
the students rotated in space as
a way of thinking about how the
written narrative would be different if ordered by alternate points
of entry to the discussion.
• They viewed pictures of 3-D
models on the computer, rotating
them to see various perspectives.
For these students, raised and
active in a hypermedia environment, writing is spatial. Each unit
of information has many connections to the rest of the text, not
just to the paragraph immediately
before or after it.
Why did these students create
visual signs in addition to words
and use them in the writing process? And why did they need a
spatial arrangement of signs or
words and movement to resolve
their writing? Considering that
the artificial, spatial arrangement
of signs was a manifestation of
their thinking during the invention
process, either as a conscious or
unconscious activity, we can say
that the spatial arrangement of
signs was used as a cognitive tool.
This observation raises questions
about the relationship between
cognitive tools, thinking, external
representation, and the process of
constructing text.
Finally, only during a short
period of the entire writing process was MS Word used. MS Word
was used because of a required
format for sharing among readers,
its spelling and grammar function, and the ease of editing by
faculty, which shows a conflict
between personal choices about
how to work and write and the
institutional demands for editing
by a second person. And it speaks
to the degree to which certain
software programs have become
standards that may be shaping or
constraining the practice of thinking competencies.
Writing as Bodily, Spatial,
and Mediated Activity
The behaviors observed in the
students’ thesis projects suggest
interesting connections to Lev
S. Vygotsky’s study of aphasic
behavior (inability/difficulty in
processing language); comparing
aphasic patients with graduate
students enables us to see the
taken-for-granted characteristics
of language and thought clearly,
without focusing on normal or
abnormal behaviors. The biggest
difference between the behavior of
the students and the aphasics in
Vygotsky’s study seems to involve
the ability to create artificial
objects and manipulate them in
relation to one’s purpose and the
ability to control voluntary atten-
tion through such objects.
March + April 2013
