Audience and Purpose

Look to see how Murray is characterized in socializing books for comp/rhet: Cross Talk, Norton...

I think that it might make my life easier to focus on Paul Bender and his comment about expressivism. Maybe I should ask him about it. But, to think: I am speaking to a younger generation of comp people--my generation. What we will know of Don's work is likely that which is in Cross Talk: Teach Writing as a Process Not a Product and then the characterization by Berlin. And that may be it. It's interesting to think of this, too. The way cross talk and perhaps the Norton (is Murray in it?)...how are younger scholars being socialized to think about Murray and his work and his contribution. I think the way we are socialized is what lead Paul to make that statement that he made. I want to shake that up.

An Open Letter to Donald Murray's Scholarly Grandchildren

Something like this could work as a title...here's what they didn't tell you. Here's what you learn if you look closer. Tom's quote from the new book helps me as a framing device:

We hope that this collection will allow a new generation of writing teachers and aspiring writers to appreciate both the utility and depth of Don's work. We also believe that a healthy rereading of his work will establish his significance at a time when he has been marginalized by the field of composition that he helped create, an exclusion that he felt keenly in the last decade of his life. (x)

And if this is what I am planning to do, what are the claims or positions I'll be offering, what am I writing against?

• Murray as Critical Pedagogue
• Murray as Rhetorician
• Murray as social/epistemic theorist

Another thing I might do, in addition to try to write against the way of thinking about Don's work that the "new generation" are likely to encounter, is show them what about Don they need and perhaps also the extent to which he is the source for much of what they do.

The things that they need to teach that often aren't talked about so much but which Don does talk about:

Being In process (Don was always modeling the fact that he was a lifelong learner)

Writing to Learn (that writing can and should be used as a way of thinking)

Craft--butt in chair, writer's write, that sort of thing...how to actually get the work done