he Metaphor of Constructivism Remembering Bartlett Understanding as Construction Other Metaphors: Structuralism, Poststructuralism, and Deconstruction Composing as Construction Discourse Synthesis: Four Studies Textual Transformations in Written Discourse Authoring Identity Constructive Criticism References Name Index Subject Index

When composing, writers give shape to the meaning they construct, and they signal a possible configuration for meaning through the organizational patterns they supply for their readers. This study examined writers’ options in organizing comparisons–texts that are often considered to have a canonical pattern. Thirty college students wrote their comparisons through discourse synthesis, integrating content cued by two informative texts, each text dealing with one of the two topics to be compared. Analyses focused on the organizational patterns the writers generated and on the content they included. Of the two major ways of organizing comparisons–organization by aspect and organization by object–organizing by aspect was the format used by most writers in this study. However, there was much variability within this format in how writers combined material for the comparison. Writers could focus on specific aspects, could separate aspects into those that were similarities and those that were differences, or could generate macro-aspects to subsume several related aspects. In selecting source material the writers preferentially included content that was symmetrical, in that it related information that was available for both objects being compared. And almost half of their additions also contributed to symmetry by balancing their treatments of the two objects. Chunking of content in a systematic way, especially by generating macro-aspects for topical focus, was a strong predictor of holistic quality ratings, stronger than measures for the nature of the content that was included. These higher-rated papers providing readers with macro-aspects tended to be written by students with higher verbal ability and more extensive topic knowledge. The study points out the variability within comparison discourse and demonstrates the complexity of the choices writers must make in structuring comparison texts

This article considers the complex processes involved in readers' and writers' construction of textual meaning: how people construct meaning from texts through reading and for texts through writing. Building meaning through reading entails organizing, selecting, and connecting. Readers use previously acquired knowledge to operate on textual cues, organizing mental representations that include material they select from the text and connect with material they generate. This constructivist characterization of the reading process extends also to literate acts in which people are writers as well as readers, those acts in which they compose texts by drawing from textual sources. To meet their discourse goals, writers perform textual transformations associated with the operations of organizing, selecting, and connecting as they appropriate source material for uses in different communicative contexts. They dismantle source texts and reconfigure content they select from these sources, and they interweave the source material with content they generate from stored knowledge. The article describes the kinds of transformations that occur through reading and writing, and proposes a way to think about tasks that invite writers to transform extant texts. Theoretical issues are raised, and suggestions are made for further research.