Cognition, computers and creative writing

Compuf. Educ. Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 229-231,

1987

Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved

BOOK REVIEWS Cognition, Computers and Creative Writing: Science. Wiley. E16.50

MIKE

SHARPLES.

Ellis Horwood Series in Cognitive

Mike Sharples is not a new prophet on the scene of the teaching of English and, in spite of his assurance that “The book is more about children’s minds and writing than it is about computers”, it is to be expected that, since he is a lecturer in artificial intelligence at the University of Sussex, his book will attempt to show that the ubiquitous ‘home computer’ could be the salvation of the English teacher. His pre-conceptions are based on experience in computers rather than experience in the daily grind of teaching English. Nevertheless he has provided a competent survey of the problems of the teacher. He begins by examining, in general, the difficulty of thinking objectively about the thought-processes which precede the act of writing-the formulating of ideas, the selecting of suitable phrases and words and the stringing of these together in sentences and paragraphs. He then examines the various research experiments which have tried to discover how the growing child’s grasp of language develops, from Piaget onwards. The next task is to try to define the criteria of assessment of written language. What is the difference between good writing and bad writing, or mature and immature writing? Not surprisingly, the conclusion is reached that the “associative network” of clauses is the clearest feature of a mature writing skill or, as he puts it, “the arrangement of clauses in a text can indicate the ordering of ideas in the mind of a writer.” From that, we turn to an analysis of the shifting sands of theory about teaching “English”. Dixon in “Growth Through English” sets up three ‘models’: (a) initial literacy; (b) derivative writing based on a study of “the storehouse of culture and literature”; (c) the provision of “opportunities to express their own experience and values through writing as a means of self discovery and ‘personal growth’ “- in other words, what we have come to know as ‘Creative Writing’. Sharples’s survey culminates in an examination of the well-known book (or file) produced by Doughty, Pearce and Thornton entitled Language in Use which is a practical application of the research done by Halliday and Britton in bringing together the two strands of “an understanding of children’s writing process and the theoretical framework of descriptive linguistics”. We are then taken into the world of the computer to look at some of the programs developed over the last ten years which have been designed to serve the different needs of English teachers. There is, for instance, one which merely defines the rules applying to the use of the indefinite article (A/AN) to nouns and the use of the plural -S, ending. Another (called “Iliad”) manipulates language at the sentence level-how structural changes are made from question to statement, etc. Then there is a program entitled “POEM” which generates random strings of words, following a pre-arranged syntactic form. This (and other similar programs) employ the time-honoured grammatical concepts of noun, adjective, etc. rather than the modern linguistic equivalents of nominals and modifiers. Finally, there is mention of some of the numerous programs that have been devised as ancillaries to word-processing, in which the computer checks for spelling and punctuation errors. The author’s conclusion is that “Computer-based aids for writing and language exploration can fill a gap in the Language in Use approach to English teaching. . . ” but we have still not arrived at the practice of creative writing. All this “survey” work we discover is merely a preparation of the ground for the programs with which the author has been experimenting-namely “PAT”, a pattern generator, “WALTER”, a word alterer, and “NETTY”, a network type which was later developed into an adventure type game called “FANTASY”. He describes, in some detail, how the different programs operate and their function in helping the groping adolescent mind to come to grips with the complexities of language. These programs were then used as the basis of an experiment with six eleven-year-old children from an inner-city primary school. The children were required to write descriptive and 229

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Book Reviews

narrative essays before and after working on these programs and assessments of their essays were compared. There was, of course, also a control group that did the same written work, without the benefit of the computer programs. The results are interesting but not conclusive and, since the acquiring of the skill of writing is, such a complex business and not related to a large variety of unconscious promptings, this outcome is not surprising. This, we are sure, is not the end either of Mike Sharples’s interest in the teaching of English nor of the ingenuity of programmers in trying to assist in the teaching of language but, in his last chapter on “Future Developments”, Mike Sharples himself raises the question as to whether a teaching scheme, supported by the latest technology, will be any more successful than a sympathetic teacher equipped with pencil, imagination and common sense. Although computers still seem to be regarded as expensive pieces of equipment, judging by the shortage of them in the schools, they are considerably cheaper than teachers. So it would be a wonderful thing for our hard-pressed local authorities, if they could replace these troublesome teachers with passive and obedient terminals but, as Mike Sharples says, computers and teachers “are not in competition”. If there could be more teachers and smaller classes it is probable that there would be an answer to most of the problems that confront us in the world of education-and the standard of English would rise, with or without the computer. In the meantime, we welcome any attempt to make learning English more attractive and look forward to a sequel to this book by Mike Sharples. MIKE SADLER

~raves~~d Kent England

Interactive

Computer

Programs

~~TERBER~ER. Addison-Wesley,

for Education:

JAY NIEVERGELT,ANDREA VENTURA and HANS

Reading, Mass. 190 pp. f14.95

(paperback)

This book, while being written for the educator, assumes that readers already have a good knowledge of computing, and are intending to produce their own educational software. It is split into three sections, covering the philosophy of using computers in education, why and how, the techniques by which such a use may be achieved, and detailed examples of particular applications, as seen from the user’s point of view. An Appendix includes complete listings of the programs covered in most detail in the text, written in UCSD Pascal for an Apple II microcomputer. (The precise configuration used by the authors is described.) The test opens with a brief review of the history of the use of computers in education, highlighting the prevalent attitudes to education, and the roles assigned to the computer at different times. The computer screen is then considered as a two-way communications medium and the properties of the man-machine interface are discussed, including physiotogical as well as psychological aspects-from the acceptability of screen flicker to the comprehensibility of the text on the screen. The reader is encouraged to think very carefully about the topics for which the introduction of computer based teaching techniques is appropriate, about exactly what is to be taught and to whom (e.g. of what educational standard, and what can it be assumed that the student already knows?). The importance of screen layout and the use of diagrams is emphasised, as is the importance of computer response time. The necessity for good program design, both internal and from the user’s point of view, is highlighted with a detailed example of a small program which, though well structured, is very difficult to use. This program is then broken down into functional units and its structure, as seen by the user, is presented in the form of a ‘network’. Each functional unit is reworked to improve its presentation to the naive user. The authors do perhaps go ‘over the top’ in this exercise, creating a very simple user interface which would be extremely tedious to use repetitively. From this example the text proceeds to a detailed discourse on common design errors, to do with both the state of the system and the quality of the user interface, and how they may best be avoided. Having covered this theory, the book proceeds to propose a particular design methodology for use by the educator wishing to develop his or her own software. A program about cycloids is described in detail, including the way it is used in class to complement more traditional teaching