Professor Petrosky's review of Problem-Solving Strategies for Writing raises one crucial question I think a review of a writing text should raise: what theoretical assumptions about the psychology of writing underlie this book? However, he uses the occasion to attack an out-moded, logical positivist version of communication theory that treats thought as an object to be transferred and that ignores the constructive nature of both reading and writing. I am perplexed that he reads my book as an example of this position-a position which neither of us holds. communication model, with its senders and receivers, which he attributes to me is, in the book, in fact attributed to its real source (electrical engineers-the work of Shannon and Weaver in the 1940's). I present the model as a familiar but inadequate metaphor the reader will want to go beyond (We often talk about communication as if it were a physical process One problem with this model is that it turns the writer into a delivery boy. .. . This model, however, has a limitation ..). In context, the main function of the two-page passage he cites so extensively was to challenge that very model and to introduce a ten-page section entitled The Creative Reader, which draws on current research describing the constructive nature of reading. Just as writers work with metaphor, intuition, and images, as well as logic, in order to compose, readers likewise build rich and sometimes surprisingly original internal structures in their effort to comprehend. Although Professor Petrosky and I clearly differ on how to write a textbook-on what ideas to value, on how explicit one should try to be about thinking processes-I do not believe that my position or the book itself fits into the unattractive pigeonhole he has in mind. As a teacher, I see no contradiction at all between fostering the experience of discovery, of listening to readers, of reseeing one's own ideas-things we all value and teach towardand asking students to bring a more self-conscious, problem-solving approach to their writing. I have difficulty imagining any serious teacher who would. premise which underlies my commitment to teaching heuristics is that writing is not a rule-governed act; nor is it so essentially mysterious that little can be said about it or taught. My goal is to offer students a repertoire of alternative strategies for dealing with this complex process. Trying to be articulate about the thinking processes you would teach may be risky, but I think it is necessary. In taking a strategic approach to writing, one offers writers some of the power that comes from an awareness of one's own thinking processes and a sense of options. Our discipline is growing in the depth and diversity of its theories. If we

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