Hello everyone, I am back from the dead (whatever illness has been plaguing New Jersey right now). Excuse my lateness on this post; I was out sick for a total of six days. Or should I say, I was stuck inside. Today is the first day I see the light of day, and I am very grateful to be back.

With that said, I wanted to add to the discussion I didn’t get to be a part of in the last class before moving on and posting this week’s blog discussion: 

Teach Writing as a Process Not a Product by Donald M. Murray has made me reflect on how I was taught to write, the insecurities that came up because of it, and how I’d like to talk about writing to people who’d consider themselves ‘non-writers’. 

Murray describes the traditional, scapegoat way of writing as literary analysis. Literature is not necessarily the problem. Reading and analyzing literature whilst growing up, academically, shaped the way I perceived others. I distinctly remember having to read books like The Outsiders, The Giver, The Great Gatsby, and The Catcher in the Rye, all of which made me more curious about the human mind, community, and how we should interact with the world. The problem is using renowned literature to teach kids who still don’t know how to use their own voice:

“Most of us are trained as English teachers by studying a product: writing. Our critical skills are honed by examining literature, which is finished writing; language as it has been used by authors. And then, fully trained in the autopsy, we go out and are assigned to teach our students to write, to make language live.” (p. 3)

Published literature, at the end of the day, is finished. It’s like trying to encourage an aspiring architect in school to try to build his own version of the Empire State Building. When does our writing, or even better, when did our writing become merely mimesis rather than our own products brewed from the process that authentic writing is supposed to be?

Bring back authentic work.

We’re performing “autopsies.” But what about living writing? The writing that is still breathing. I do not want to only read and then compare myself to writing that has gone through hundreds of revisions and different editors. I do not have an editor; I only have myself. I think that’s why it is so important for us to share our “shitty first drafts,” the scribbles on the page, the thoughts at 2 am in our notes app.

Maybe that’s why published journals, like Slyvias Plath’s Unabridged Journals, are so personable. They’re still alive. Imperfectly human. Even poetry can be shared this way: Tupac Shakur’s “A Rose That Grew from Concrete.”

Instead of this structured way of teaching writing, Murray suggests writing as an experience of three parts: prewriting, writing, and rewriting, all with an emphasis on learning, finding voice, and creative autonomy. I think I’ll think of his theory in every writing practice I do, whether teaching or participating. Writing should not be intimidating. It should be accessible to all.