Donald Murray: Some Basic Assumptions about Writing and Teaching

1. Writing Is Thinking

Meaning is not thought up and then written down. The act of writing is an act of thought. [...] Writing is not superficial to the intellectual life but central to it; writing is one of the most disciplined ways of making meaning and one of the most effective methods we can use to monitor our own thinking.

2. Writing Is a Process

... Writing may appear magic, but it is our responsibility to take our students backstage to watch the pigeons being tucked up the magician's sleeve. The process of writing can be studied and understood. We can re-create most of what a student or professional writer does to produce effective writing.

3. Effective Teaching Is Responsive

We learn best – at least in the study of composition — when we are not told in the abstract what to do and then commanded to do it, but are encouraged to write and then have the opportunity to examine what we have done with an experienced writer, who can help us discover what worked and what needs work.

4. Writing Is an Interaction of the Global and the Particular

Traditional writing instruction usually works on the assumption that students need to learn the parts so they can eventually construct a meaningful whole. Traditionally, emphasis is first on vocabulary, spelling, usage, mechanics, and the conventions of manuscript presentation ... usually the subject is supplied by the instructor since the students do not know anything "substantial." [...] Non-traditional composition teaching usually reverses the process and emphasizes personal content and personal voice first, working backwards from global concerns to the particulars of language and manuscript presentation. Writing is a product of the interaction of the global and the particular .... [W]e work back and forth from whole to part and part to whole, each influencing the other, each strand helping the writer weave a pattern of meaning.

5. There Is No One Way

We do not teach writing effectively if we try to make all students and all writing the same. We must seek, nurture, develop and reward difference. The rich diversity of our students is to our advantage. There is no single kind of person to teach, no one reason to write, no one message to deliver, no one way to write, no single standard of good writing.

Neither is there one way of teaching.

-- from A Writer Teaches Writing