GONZAGA ENG 3U1
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Elements of Cognitive Design
Cognitive design is defined as the crafted impact a piece of writing has on its audience.
Central to this design are the subject and theme of the work. The subject is what the work
is about. The theme is the attitude the author has taken toward the subject or the
perspective on that subject. This attitude or perspective controls the way the writer develops
his or her work.
Design elements are the ways of underlining or emphasizing the subject and theme. They
include structure, character, location, tropology, rhetoric, and perspective. Design
elements are not entities in themselves. They work together, often overlapping, to help
develop the theme. When writers write, they do think of the impact they want to have on
readers and thus use these tools to help create that impact. Yes, sometimes there are
happy accidents, things of which a writer may not be conscious; however, for the most part,
a writer works extremely hard to use the tools of writing to make a central impression on the
reader.
Structure
Jack Hodgins compares writers to real estate agents taking perspective buyers through a
house. Agents decide the order in which their clients see the house, emphasizing some
aspects and not others. Writers can take audiences into their writing through the front door,
the back door, the basement entrance or even through the garage, depending on the initial
impact they want their “house” to have. How they lead their readers from “room” to “room” is
a conscious decision. They want their readers to see, hear and experience their works in a
specific way. That’s structure – how the writer leads his or her reader through a work –
visually, aurally, and developmentally.
Visual structure: the way a work looks on the page
 indentation of specific lines
 specific types of poetry (concrete; sonnets – Petrarchan and Shakespearean;
limericks)
 stanza breaks and length
 use of specific typefaces: italics, bold CAPS; any change in typeface
 line length
 line placement
 length of paragraphs (short paragraphs tend to make the work choppy; long
paragraphs tend to make the work feel “dignified” or “academic”)
 sections within chapters (denoted by white space, * * * * *, or other visual divider)
 chapter breaks
 “books’ within books
 acts and scenes
Questions to ask:
Why did the writer choose to lay out/divide the work as s/he did?
What impact does the visual structure have on the reader?
How does this visual structure complement the impact of work (subject/theme)?
Aural Structure: the way in which the work strikes the ear (especially in poetry)
 rhythm
o the repeated pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables
Coelho (Sept. 2005)
GONZAGA ENG 3U1
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the ‘foot’ is the basic metre of poetry; types of feet include: iambic; trochaic;
dactylic; anapestic; spondaic and pyrrhic
generally, the more feet per line, the more grave or somber the line becomes
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rhyme
o acts as a mnemonic, a way for readers to remember the poem (eg. nursery
rhymes are simple examples of this)
o a break in rhyme can signify some importance
o creates direction for the poem
o sets up an expectation
o creates an impression that the poem is an artistic construct
Questions to ask:
How do the choice and placement of words act as a way of emphasizing key concerns
(theme) in the work?
How does the regularity irregularity of rhyme and rhythm control the reader’s perception of
the theme?
Developmental Structure: the way in which the writer takes the reader through the work
 order (chronological; argumentative; fragmented; starting somewhere other than the
beginning and using techniques such as flashbacks to tell the narrative)
 use of sub-plots
Questions to ask:
How has the writer used the developmental structure to stress the theme at the core of the
work?
What makes the structure hang together – what connects the different parts of the plot?
Character
The ways in which a writer has combined people and actions to represent subject and
theme.
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how the character acts in a specific situation
reasons behind a character’s actions
the ‘morality’ connected to a character’s actions
how the character is developed (speed; depth; through stereotypes, caricatures, or a
particular physical attribute; round or flat)
what the character tells us about her/himself in actions, words and thoughts
how characters interact with others
how characters react to the setting
purpose of a character (a means of moving along the plot; a foil for the main
character)
number of characters
Questions to ask:
How does the interaction of characters with others, with their setting and with the central
issue aid the presentation of theme?
How are the characters embodiments or personifications of the theme?
What is the relationship of the characters to other design elements and ultimately to the
cognitive design to the whole piece?
Who has power in the story?
Whose story is left out?
Coelho (Sept. 2005)
GONZAGA ENG 3U1
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Location
The arrangement and presentation of physical and time elements in a work.
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features of the physical setting
relationship of that setting to the actual world
time of year, day, life
era, century, decade
duration of the narrative
relationship between time and place
movement from place to place
details of the passage of time
sequencing of time
use of time in the narrative (flashbacks, flash forwards, etc.)
creations of new societies (futuristic, fantastical)
the physical height of the action and the relationship of other objects around it
the angle from which the action is viewed
urban versus rural settings
presence of the elements (weather)
Questions to ask:
Why has the writer chosen this particular time and place for the work?
How does this choice influence the theme of the work?
How does location (time and place) work with the other design elements to create an overall
impression?
Tropology
The use of image, simile, metaphor, symbol and archetype in a work to twist or turn
the literal meaning of what is said or substitute one meaning for another.
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denotation and connotation of figurative language
image – triggers to the reader to recall visual, olfactory, tactile, auditory and gustatory
memories s/he has of the physical object being described
simile – explicit comparison between two things using “like” or “as”
metaphor – implicit analogy between two things; it depends more on the reader’s
imagination; it is more abstract
a symbol, like an image, should bring to the reader’s mind a picture of the object;
however a symbol goes much farther in that it should also summon up abstract
associations with that object (eg. in Christian symbolism, a cross: two intersecting
pieces of wood [the object]; the death of Christ, atonement, sacrifice, mercy, love [the
abstractions]
a symbol can be private to the author only; but with repetition through a work or a
series of works, this symbol comes to carry the abstractions as well as the specific
reference to an object and becomes obvious to the reader
symbols are often culturally-based
archetype – symbol or groups of symbols that exist beneath the human
consciousness; they are said to be experiences common to the human race (eg. the
journey; the hero). We often speak of “universals” – universal themes, universal
characters; however, in our understanding of the post-colonial world, many would
argue that archetypes do not exist except within cultural contexts
Coelho (Sept. 2005)
GONZAGA ENG 3U1
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Questions to ask after identifying images, similes, metaphors, symbols and archetypes:
What patterns are created by the repetition of tropes?
What is the function of the pattern in the overall design of the piece?
How does my understanding of trope contribute to an understanding of the author’s theme?
How do the tropes work with each other?
How does the tropes work with other design elements?
Rhetoric
The manipulation of the way words are used.
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word order
o manipulation of common word order to create an effect
word choice
o figurative language (oxymoron, onomatopoeia, assonance, alliteration,
hyperbole, understatement, irony, allusion, litotes, pun)
o jargon, slang, dialect, colloquial, concrete
o word complexity and abstraction
sentence structure
o sentence type (simple, compound, complex, compound-complex)
o sentence design (loose, periodic, balanced, allowable fragments)
o use of semi-colons, colons, dashes, appositives
o order (natural, split, inverted)
o type (assertive, interrogatory, imperative, exclamatory)
Questions to ask:
How does the author draw attention to her/his theme using the various rhetorical devices?
How does the use of rhetorical devices complement the other design elements used by the
author?
Perspective (Narrative Voice)
How the reader’s attention is directed and controlled by the voice that is telling the
story.
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first-person – participant, observer, reporter
second person – placing the reader in the main character’s position
third person – omniscient, limited omniscient, reporter
Questions to ask
How reliable is this narrator?
How long ago did the events occur in relation to telling them?
Has the narrator changed over the course of the story?
How distanced does the reader feel from the narrator and the action?
Does the voice change over the course of the story?
How does the narrative voice affect the other design elements?
What impact does the narrative voice have o the author’s central idea?
What tone is created by the narrator?
Coelho (Sept. 2005)