Donald Murray and Janet Emig's Articles

Donald Murray discuses, in his four page article, about how a major trend in teaching writing in today's classroom is dependent on students' writing product and not on process. Murray preaches about teachers should be rewarding the writing process by applauding works-in-progress or in other words work that students will continue to develop long after the due date has passed. He goes on to say that "we work with language in action" meaning that language is dynamic and it should continuously developed. Murray states that the writing process is developed into three sections: prewriting, writing, and rewritting. Prewriting is the process of learning about the subject or person you are going to write about whether it be through research or interviewing. The writing section includes developing a rough draft and getting your ideas down on paper. The rewriting stage is about reresearching and revising your subject and rethinking your paper. Murray believes the best way to achieve this process is by letting the student go and develop the paper on his own instead of giving him an assignment to write and therefore directing where you want the student to go.



Janet Emig believes that "writing is originating and creating a unique verbal construct that is graphically recorded." She refers to part of Murray's article when she says that talking is considered part of the prewritting process. Emig believes that writing is a unique language process that is valuable with in the process of writing and the product of writing. Throughout Emig's article I felt like she was making a case for writing to be continuously included in the process of learning. She gave lots of examples on how writing uniquely impacts the modes of learning, which I feel should go as unsaid. Writing will never not be taught or developed in future classrooms to come; it is just not realistic. Writing may change in style and format with new technologies being used to help facilitate and develop the writing process, but the core of developing ideas and researching topics of paper, the process, will never go away.

James Berlin's "A Short History of Writing Instruction" 1960-1975

In James Berlin's "A Short History of Writing Instruction" he seg ways into the section covering 1960-1975 by describing the launch of the Russian Sputnik in 1957. Berlin comments suggested, in response to the launch, that U.S. leaders felt their established technological superiority, that was displayed in World War II, was fading. Their response was to cultivate socially and economically charged students to help maintain technological superiority and national defense. In public schools course emphasis on math and science was becoming more apparent. Furthermore, the government gave selective service deferment to students that were enrolled in college or graduate school to concentrate the nation's "talent pool." Conservatives challenged the new agenda in education stating that too much focus was being given to the student rather than the subject matter.
The 1960's started a trend in America's youth that is still apparent in today's youth and that is the concept of the individual. More focus is being sought on the individual person rather than the group. This was never more prevalent than what was being taught in English and composition. Instead of dwelling on composition form from intellectual established writers, there was more focus on Bruner's "process" of writing and how an individual came to learning a concept through their own work. This idea of "hands on" experience spread to other subjects and disciplines. "The student was to engage in the act of doing physics or math or literary criticism, and was not simply to rely on the reports of experts. Bruner believed that students learned the structure of a discipline through engaging in research as a practitioner of the discipline." (Berlin 208)
As a student I whole heartily agree with Bruner's philosophy. My best work in any subject is not by studying text of an expert and spitting it back in test form, but by actively engaging in the subject matter and learning from my experience.

Exercise #2 "They Say, I Say"

In the Introduction to "They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing,Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein provide templates designed to help generate a thought process that helps organize the author's thoughts into coherent work. Specifically, Graff and Birkenstein argue that the type of writing templates they offer focus on the structure of the paper. As the authors themselves put it, "templates, focus writers attention not just on what is being said, but on the forms that structure what is being said." Although some people believe that modifying your writing style through trial and error is best, Graff and Birkenstein insist that following a template helps the writer generate ideas. In sum, then, their view is that following templates in your writing process can drastically help develop a successful writing style.
I agree for the most part with Graff and Birkenstein's ideas especially when dealing with younger students. For the most part, I was taught a basic template in writing a paper or essay that always included a introduction, body, and conclusion. The detailed templates the authors discuss would have made a lot of my papers from high school and early college more coherent. However, I feel as a student becomes more adept to a set writing style that works, he/she should consider developing their own individual style of writing.