A Writer's Geography: One Writer At Work

And in taking you into the workshop of the professional writer--he does it for love and money--you may see implications for the classroom. In case you don't, I will suggest a few at the end of this experiment. (176)

Again, I am struck by the language of work and the connections to workplace writing and the notion of legitimate peripheral participation or apprenticeship or whatever these terms are to think through how writing is learned on the job...how Murray is borrowing this approach (novice, master) and bringing it to teaching and how much more SENSE this makes than the methods of teaching writing--direct instruction--en vogue at the time and perhaps even now.

A difference is that the writing is not in service of the work--or maybe it is. If it is the case that in the workplace, writing is in the service of accomplishing some task--of getting something done, in Murray's workplace, writing is in service of the accomplishing learning, discovery, realization--of figuring something out, working something through, thinking. It is a process by which you accomplish something else. Like here:

I am not writing what I have thought, but writing catches me in the act of thinking--if you are lucky. (184)

The alternative, as we know, is writing for evaluation and/or sorting. And Murray wouldn't have seen much value in this. But I'm struck by the way he imported his experience on the job, and teh way writing is learned on the job, into the writing classroom--and I don't think anyone has said this or written about this. The gift he gave us was his experience as a professional writer and the way writing is learned on the job...and can one argue that this is more effective? That this is a better way of teaching writing? I'm not sure I know of anyone who does argue this, but it seems like an argument one could make, especially given the ways in which writing was being learned or taught at the time that Murray came on the scene. I think that this needs to be one of the threads I take up in the piece...

There is no one right way--This may be another theme worth exploring...

You must understand there is no one way. This is the account of one expedition across the page; each expedition is different, full of surprises, and that is why I haul my creaky bones to the desk and begin. (177)

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To know where I need to go next I do not look to the rhetorical tradition, past experience, rule books, I look at the paragraph I have just written. What comes next? (180)

What to say about this? A trust of the self?

In closing I would like to go back over this expedition and point out some things I see that may have implications for the classroom. I expect you will see others--and not agree with all of mine. Good. My theology is based on difference. (193)

Wow. What an OPENING...Thanks Don.