"Anatomy of a High School Dropout" (Jeanne Jacoby Smith)

There is a lot of good stuff here and this is a nice narrative of Murray's life, told through the lens of "the dropout." She also seems to want to use Murray's life as evidence for a particular kind of learning style and a particular kind of student and so there is this psychological piece to the article that is...a bit weird. I wonder why Murray authorized this profile, who she is, why he was willing to have the story told by this woman in this way. It would be interesting to follow up with her on this.

Here are a few passages which stood out for me:

Once Murray entered college, among those of Atlean proportions was the late Mortimer Howell, his freshman English instructor and adviser to the school paper at UNH. Howell submitted one of Murray's editorials for professional publication. "I could get weepy talking about him," he concedes. Howell demanded quality work but respected his students' independence. Murray loved working for Howell; there were no true-false questions or fill-in- the-blanks. He asked for critical analysis to help him grow. Howell later experienced the rare and coveted honor of watching his student receive the Pulitzer Prize. (7)

Murray speaks from firsthand experience, for as part of his appointment at UNH back in 1963 he began frequenting the public schools to work with student teachers. To his dismay, he found them employing the same deplorable methods used in writing classes twenty-five years before. Determined to reverse the situation, he spent the next twenty years giving workshops in schools and at conferences, brushing shoulders with educators from the middle level through college. His voluminous collection of articles and books represent the standard in the field, and Murray has become a household name in writing programs countrywide. (7-8)