Composition Forum 35 - Composing Focus: Shaping Temporal, Social, Media, Social Media, and Attentional Environments

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by jay

Writers must learn to manage the factors that shape the ability to focus, particularly within what is described as a culture of distraction. The article argues that composing teachers should use metacognition and flexible writing processes to help students study how temporal, social, media, social media, and attentional environments affect focus. It reviews research on writing, attention, and writer practices, reports survey findings, and proposes assignments that prompt reflection on environment–writer interactions to support focus and adaptable transfer.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Composition Forum 35, Spring 2017

Composing Focus: Shaping Temporal, Social, Media, Social Media, and Attentional Environments

Research and Pedagogy to Draw Attention to Attention

Survey Design and Participant Demographics

Current Issue From the Editors Weblog Editorial Board Editorial Policy Submissions Archives Accessibility Search Composition Forum 35, Spring 2017 Composing Focus: Shaping Temporal, Social, Media, Social Media, and Attentional Environments Jane Fife Abstract: Writers must learn to control factors that influence the ability to focus, especially in what some call a culture of distraction. In our efforts to promote metacognition and flexible writing processes, writing teachers need to engage students in study and discussion of factors in our temporal, social, media, social media, and attentional environments that influence focus while composing. This article examines these facets of our contemporary scenes of writing by reviewing recent research in composition studies and psychology about writing and attention, discussing the results of a survey of undergraduate writers’ composing practices, and sharing insights from assignments that help writers notice important elements of their environments. The article recommends assignments and questions to encourage reflection on writers’ interactions with these elements in order both to find focus and to promote process-related transfer and adaptability in our ever-changing scenes of writing. The Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing includes “developing flexible writing processes” as a key component and encourages “flexibility” and “metacognition” as two crucial habits of mind for success in writing. To encourage this development the Framework recommends we ask students to “reflect on how different writing tasks and elements of the writing process contribute to their development as a writer”(np) . Building awareness of the physical, cognitive, and emotional elements of composing can be challenging. The processes themselves are more involved than many writers realize. Charles Bazerman notes that even experienced writers do not usually pay attention to process unless the writing project poses new challenges (147) . Focusing in order to write well—cultivating what Bazerman calls a “writing state of mind”—is complex: The writer needs to build skills to return to the mental place of writing where a perception of the task and situation has formed an impulse to communicate and is crystallizing in a set of meanings and textual forms. Letting the mind refocus and reassemble its internal attention and resources toward written action is a form of meditation and mental composure. Beginning writers may only be able to visit such a writing state of mind in the presence of supportive mentors, and each writing session is a freshstart. [ ] Even at university level, facilitation by an instructor or tutor at crucial junctures helps students focus on a writing task and overcome difficulties that might lead to loss of direction and vitiation of attention. (150) Finding focus for composing can vary with location, time of day, and writing project, so diagnosing how we interact with our mental and physical environments in order to write is a crucial element of writing process transfer. Michelle Cleary’s study of the transfer of process knowledge in non-traditional age students led her to conclude that this transfer is so complex that writing teachers should be “more strategic in helping students [ ...] develop awareness of their process knowledge not only in writing but also in other ‘activities’” so they can consciously make analogies across contexts to aid in the transfer of behaviors (678) . Dana Lynn Driscoll and Jennifer Wells’ recent research about transfer of writing abilities emphasizes affective orientations or dispositions as a crucial part of this dynamic. A conversation about writing process transfer must make visible the often invisible affective dimension of composing along with cognitive choices and physical writing behaviors against a backdrop of perennial challenges to focus, including from digital connections. But for my students, who almost unanimously tell me

FAQs

What central challenge to writers does the article address?

The article addresses how writers can control factors that influence their ability to focus, especially in environments linked to distraction.

How should writing teachers support students according to the article?

Teachers should engage students in study and discussion of how temporal, social, media, social media, and attentional environments shape focus while composing.

What is the article’s proposed approach to building metacognition about writing practices?

It recommends assignments and guiding questions that help writers notice and reflect on how they structure their composing environments so they can achieve focus and improve transfer and adaptability.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by jay