"Our Mornings with Murray" Writing on the Edge 19.1 (2008) -- Bruce Ballenger

MM: In this piece, Ballenger digs back through the weekly writings Murray produced while he (Ballenger) was in a seminar with him in 1985 and he works through Murray's various pieces and reflects on them in the context of Murray's larger work and contributions.

There is much I might say--much that has been said--about Donald Murray's contributions to how we think about composing, but I think this idea, that language, like the violin, takes on a life of its own from a single note, is central to his work as a writer and teacher. In a sense, Don argued that words have a singular agency, one that behaves much like an unruly character in the first draft of a novel or short story, bossing the writer around, surprising her, and most of all, defying her intentions. (42)

One of those experiences, of course, is pleasure. Don believed that if his students experience these pleasures their relationship to writing will be changed forever. (44)

Critique of Murray

There are problems with Don's methodology. One is the understandable suspicion that he attempted to generalize from the peculiarities of his writing experiences and offered prescriptive insights that should apply to everyone. (44-45)

(p. 45)