Feedback From CE

Ritter (editor)

1. Both reviewer #1 (Dr. Harris) and Reviewer #2 desire a quicker announcement of your essay's purpose. Reviewer #1 suggests a trimming of the actual narrated writings of Donald Murray

Reviewer #2 suggests a stronger framing of Murray's work, with the assumption that not all readers of CE will be familiar with Murray's importance or his relationship with Expressivism. I think that you can make space for this framing--which I agree is critical, but mostly absent here--by cutting down some of the narration of Murray's archival writings.

In general, making this historical and theoretical context clearer and sharper would allow readers to see what you *are* trying to argue, and for what aspects of the field (pedagogical, historical, theoretical, etc.).

 2. And here, in terms of framing, is where my own desires come into play, as I'd like to know--is this an essay *about* recovering Murray's work through Poe Alexander's paradigm, or is this an essay about doing this *kind* of recovery work for important figures in our field whose legacy has been misconstrued, under-appreciated, or inappropriately rehabilitated (whatever the opposite of rehabilitated would be)? I think it would be helpful, if it does not violate too much your original purposes, for the intent of this essay to be at least somewhat the latter of the two options I suggest.

If you were to frame this as not just or not only a recovery mission for Murray, but a larger attempt to re-read archival writings through Poe Alexander's frameworks and in doing so, revitalize the field's personal/scholar-figure histories, that might bring more of our CE readers to the table.

3. If you are interested in doing that larger framing that I suggest, I think more mention here of how archival work gets done would be important. Again, showing my cards, I'm interested in archival work myself, as a scholar. But you *are* using Murray's archives to make this argument, and these *are* works that don't get written about in the cohesive manner you offer. So, as an archival scholar, I am a little puzzled that some nod toward methodology doesn't come up here.

How might you speak briefly in the article about the ways in which archives do or do not represent their owners?

This goes to points in Reviewer #2's comments regarding when you let the archives speak for themselves, and when you endeavor to speak for them. This also goes to Reviewer #1's questioning of this project as a "narrative" one.

Tied to this possible methodological discussion, for me, would be an even larger consideration. That is, how would Murray feel about having his literacy narrative constructed *for* him? I think here of ethical representation of archival materials. I do not mean to say that what you are doing here is *unethical*--not at all. But I did question throughout, would Murray want this? What does it do for us as a field to rewrite, in a sense, the histories of our major figures once they are gone? How does it change the value of the narrative if it's written by someone other than the person him or herself, esp. in a field that so values the literacy narrative as an exercise, assignment, genre?

These questions I'm raising might be ones to consider in your conclusion...

Reviewer #1:

My worry is that this good stuff tends to get lost in the rather meandering structure of your piece. For instance,

a. it takes you until p. 4 before you announce your project in writing (to draft Murray's literacy narrative).
b. But then it takes you another four pages before you discuss your "framework" for reading Murray's narrative,
c. which takes you another two pages,
d. at which point you turn to Murray's early childhood and the tales of his Dickensian parents (which are terrific, but don't seem related to your main argument),
e. before finally getting to Murray's experiences with writing on about p. 13.

It all seems a very long wind-up to the pitch. On top of this, or perhaps because of it, you tend to repeat certain insights and phrasings, so that it begins to feel like you're circling around your topic more than moving through it.

My basic advice, then, is

a. to get to the good stuff quicker, to share what you've learned about Murray's experiences in school and with writing,
b. and then to use that new information to intervene in what I agree has been a tired and tendentious series of arguments over his legacy.

While this essay is not particularly long, I think it would be much stronger if it ran closer to 20 pages than the current 30.

Additionally,

1. you seem determined to reclaim Murray as a Freirian radical. I think your desire to counter Berlin's dismissive reading of Murray lies behind this move, and that doing so is a mistake, a red herring. I was much more struck by how you show his determination to use writing to rise into the middle-class. In that sense, his story seems to me much more like that of an American liberal than a radical Marxist. You don't have to turn Murray into Ira Shor to argue that he is a proponent of a progressive pedagogy.

2. Second, I'm puzzled by your framing of your piece as a "drafting" of a "narrative." This led me to expect a very different sort of writing, of genre, than you in fact have to offer. You've written a wonderful analytic piece in which you re-cover, or un-cover, neglected aspects of Murray's story. I think you want a title, and a frame, that emphasizes your actual project?which is critical rather than narrative.

Reviewer 2:

1. In terms of revisions to consider, the introduction of this article makes some assumptions about the knowledge base of College English's readership. Certainly, readers will have heard of Murray in their own study of composition's history, but as the author notes, there is a need to revive and consider Murray's place in composition, and in this case, I think the introduction needs to offer more context/background of who Murray is in the field of composition, situating his work a bit more fully before moving into an argument about why studying his literacy narrative, among the other literacy narratives of composition's key figures, is important.

2. ...offering a few additional specific critiques beyond Berlin's or a brief summary of key critiques leveled at Murray's work over the years would help readers to understand the author's defense of Murray early in the article before moving to the literacy narrative, which is the article's focus.

In sum: Adding the context about Murray's legacy and expressivism would provide a stronger lead-in for the points that the author makes about Yagelski's assessment of Murray's work.

3. Throughout the literacy narrative itself, I think it is important that the author allows Murray to speak for himself in key moments, since the author is reconstructing a literacy narrative that Murray did not put together himself. And yet, there are some moments when the author's words could serve the necessary purpose, especially in the "Murray's Autobiography" section. As a side note--as a reader, I often wonder why authors take up particular lines of inquiry, and through certain cues in the essay, it seems that the author has been studying Murray's work for a long time. I wonder about the author's context as well, and, if the author and editor find it relevant to share that context in the final version of this essay, I would think it would be of interest to other CE readers as well.

4. And finally, I will note again, as I did briefly above, that the Coda at the end of the article seems very much more like a conclusion than a "coda." This section draws together the threads that both the author and the author's selections of Murray's words weave in creating an argument to rethink Murray's place (and role) in the field of composition, in light of this literacy narrative, and in terms of a voice for reform such as Rose or Friere, as the author says so well at the end of the article, important conclusions that shouldn't be missed.