ccc0202finding your voice murray

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findingYourOwn Voice:Yeaching ompositionn an Jge of Dissent

DONALD M. MURRAYSTUDENT POWER is no longer an issue, itis a fact. The war is being won-orlost-depending on your viewpoint, andone of the major weapons in the war isrhetoric that is crude, vigorous, usuallyuninformed, frequently obscene, andoften threatening.Most of us wonder what this educa-tional revolution means for the com-position teacher, who has often seenhimself the principal defender of goodtaste, an evangelist of tradition, an heroicvoice speaking up for order. Is our causelost in an Age of Mailer?No, but the implications of the studentrevolt for English Departments are clear.We are freed from an obligation to teachetiquette and forced to design a curric-ulum which trains students to accept theresponsibilities of free speech throughthe experience of writing-the most dis-ciplined form of thinking-and publica-tion-the most revealing act of the in-tellectual life.I do not speak from an isolated posi-tion. I teach in conference, close to mystudents. I am adviser to the collegenewspaper, and I suppose I am oneof the New Left's enemy liberals, forI've been confronted, polarized, per-haps even co-opted. I am not over thirty;I'm over forty, and I feel it. I do getdiscouraged, mostly because the stu-dents have had no freedom, and whenthey find their own voice it has notbeen tempered by experience.It is ironic that a nation built byteen-age pioneers, sea captains in theirtwenties, and statesmen in their earlythirties has created a teacher-centerededucational system which keeps most ofits students in a state of permanent

adolescence through, and sometimes be-yond, the awarding of the Ph.D. Toooften our students have not been allowedto speak, and when they have spoken noone has listened, and when we havelistened we have not allowed the free-dom of action which encourages responsi-bility.Our students need to discover, beforegraduation, that freedom is the greatesttyrant of all. Too often the composi-tion teacher not only denies his studentsfreedom, he even goes further and per-forms the key writing tasks for his stu-dents. He gives an assignment; he listssources; he dictates the form; and, byirresponsibly conscientious correcting,he actually revises his students' papers.Is it not surprising that the student doesnot learn to write when the teacher,with destructive virtue, has done mostof his student's writing?The times indeed are revolutionary,cleansingly so. And they uniquely offerthe composition teacher the opportunityto play a pioneer role in constructingan educational system which removesstudents' responsibilities from the teacherand places them firmly on the student.Democracy is forged out of a re-sponsible Babel, and the mature Englishteacher welcomes a diversity of contra-dictory voices, each student speaking ofhis own concerns in his own way. Thereis no single standard, no one way tothink or to write, and we must not giveour students the illusion there is. Wemust glory in contradiction and con-fusion, the human cacophony. GrahamGreene has asked, "Isn't disloyalty asmuch the writer's virtue as loyalty is thesoldier's?" Each writing teacher should

118Copyright 1969 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.


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FINDING YOUR OWN VOICEbe a revolutionary, doubting, question-ing, challenging, and, above all, en-couraging his students to be individuals.He creates a constructive chaos whichwill allow the students to achieve effec-tive communication.The Four Responsibilities of the StudentThe writing course is student-cen-tered, but this does not imply a lack ofstandards or a casual permissiveness.Just the opposite. It places the obli-gation to learn on the student. It giveshim four fundamental freedoms whichhe will discover are also responsibilities.THE STUDENT S FIRST RESPONSIBILITYThe teacher should show the studenthow writers find their subjects. But thestudent must find his own subject. Theteacher cannot see the student's worldwith the student's eyes and evaluate itwith the student's mind. Every time theteacher gives an assignment he cheatsthe student, since each step in the writ-ing process-form, style, tone, effective-ness-stems from what the student hasto say.The student may be shown how toperceive, but he has to do his own per-ceiving. The writing course is a toughcourse, perhaps the toughest the studentwill face, for he is made to look at hisworld and to react to it, honestly, crit-ically, specifically, personally. If the stu-dent writer has nothing to say, he is amute animal, uncritical, unspeaking, andhe must realize it. It is the student'sresponsibility to find his own subject.THE STUDENT'S SECOND RESPONSIBLITYThe student should also document hisown subject so that he will build, inLucile Vaughan Payne's words, "an in-formed opinion." The sturdy fact, therelevant detail, the esthetic insight, therevealing incident are the raw mate-rials which'he must collect to construct apiece of writing which supports his sub-ject and convinces his reader.

Creativity is a tough business, and itall starts with a solid inventory of specif-ics. The student must either find theconcrete details which he can arrangeinto a pattern of significance, or he canperceive a generalization and then nail itdown with evidence. The poet is themost specific writer, the most accuratemarksman, catching meanings on thewing. The novelist, the lawyer, thedramatist, the executive, the scientist, alldepend on illuminating, revealing, rele-vant details as they write.We can show our students how tosearch, but they must mine the nuggetsof information themselves and refinethe images or the facts which communi-cate meaning with authority, the smellsand the sounds which give immediacy,the citations and statistics which per-suade.The search for information should notmerely be autobiographical in a limitedsense. The student does learn from thestreet corner, but he also learns frombooks. The coed who has worked as awaitress may be handed Orwell's Downand Out in Paris and London, or sentto an article on restaurant management.The intellectual process does not meanjust reading; it certainly does not meanjust feeling.Content always comes before form,and the student should begin to dis-cover that the vigor of writing doesn'tcome so much from the graceful strokeof his pen as from the incisive bite ofhis intellect.THE STUDENT'S THIRD RESPONSIBILITYThe act of writing is incomplete with-out a reader, but it is not the teacher'sjob to be a receptive audience of dullwriting or force others to listen whennothing is being said. It is the stu-dent's responsibility to earn an audience,winning respect for what he has on thepage.The teacher of writing will break theclass up so that individual students ex-

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COLLEGE COMPOSITIONAND COMMUNICATIONchange papers. He will have his classread each other's papers in small groups.He will 'be an audience himself in con-ference. He will have his students writefor the class, and perhaps write outsideof the class.No group is more peer-conscious thana covey of college professors. We shouldexpect no less of our students. We learnas our publications are evaluated by ourpeers, the equals we respect. Our stu-dents will teach each other and learnfrom the same process. Often a studentwill understand another student's prob-lem and its solution better than theinstructor, for the student is workingon the same level. It is the student'sjob to try to learn and to be a con-structively critical audience so his class-mates will learn.THE STUDENT'SFOURTH RESPONSIBILITYI teach a course called ExpositoryWriting, and students pre-register inMay to exposit in October, when theymay need to lyric, report, narrate and notexposit at all. The writer cannot predictthe form in which he will express him-self months in advance. When he sitsdown knowing his subject, knowing hisaudience, he may write narrative, poet-ry, argument, critical analysis, even ex-position. During any writing course thestudent should practice many forms, eachappropriate to what he has to say.Perhaps, at times, it is appropriatefor those who are interested in a par-ticular form to sit down together. Butthere is something corrupt in forcingthis, for the writer first has to havesomething to say to an audience beforehe can choose his form. He cannot choosethe form until he knows the audience,knows the quantity and the quality ofhis evidence, knows his subject. Youdon't buy a wedding dress and thenlook for a wife. And yet I, too, fallinto the pattern of asking my studentsto write description when they havenothing to describe, editorials when they

have no opinions, reportage when theyhave nothing to report.I am always tempted to return tothis teaching method, dictating the formand, therefore, the content, for it is neatand comforting to the teacher. I knowwhat I am doing, and the fact thatit may not be relevant seems a lesserburden than doubt. Ultimately, howev-er, I cheat the student, and somehow Imust make him see that there are manyforms which he is capable of choosing.Each artistic form is inherent, arisingout of the artistic situation. It is thirddown and four; you are behind 17 to14; the defensive team has over shiftedto the left-the writer processes as muchinformation as the quarterback, or more,and then chooses his form. It arises outof what he has to say and to whom hewishes to say it. And the choice of formbelongs to him.In this age of dissent the studentmust be given four freedoms-the free-dom to find his own subject, to find hisown evidence, to find his own audience,and to find his own form. These free-doms are his opportunity and his obliga-tion.The Four Responsibilities of the TeacherThe teacher who has the courage toplace the student's responsibilities on thestudent's shoulders finds himself in afrightening position. He can not takethe aggressive role of pouring informa-tion into the students' heads; he mustwait for them to write so that he canreact.Students are promoted and rewardedin our educational system for their abili-ty to follow directions; taking orders, nottaking the initiative, is the way to getinto college. When the teacher forces aresponsible role on his students they willat first resent and distrust the teacher-he is not doing his job-and they will befrightened-what does teacher want? Butthe professor should not compound thefelonies of the past. If he is patient,

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FINDING YOUR OWN VOICEat first a few, and then a majority, ofhis students will accept and even enjoytheir freedom and its attendant respon-sibility to learn by primarily teachingthemselves.THE TEACHER'S FIRST RESPONSIBILITYThe teacher's primary responsibility isto create a psychological and physicalenvironment in which the student canfulfill his responsibilities.At the University of New Hampshirewe have created a writing laboratorywith twenty-four typewriters around thewalls and a hollow square of movabletables which can be adapted to groupactivity. There is good lighting and goodsoundproofing, so that many people canwork and talk and criticize simultan-eously. There is a 40-foot-long wall ofcorkboard for articles on writing. Anoffice opens off the laboratory wherethere are four file cabinets full of mate-rials which can be given to the stu-dent during conference, a library on writ-ing, an unabridged dictionary, and com-fortable chairs where the student andthe teacher can sit side by side to ex-amine a paper. Most important, thereis a dittoed sheet on the door with atleast 44 fifteen-minute conference slotsa week.The psychological implications of thiswriting laboratory are more importantthan the physical setting, and they canbe duplicated in the ordinary classroom.The emphasis in the writing course is onconferences which are held at the stu-dent's initiative. Teaching is done indi-vidually or around a table. The writinglab dramatizes the intellectual act ofwriting. Everything is designed to helpthe individual student find his own wayto satisfy the essential discipline of thecourse.THE TEACHER'S SECONDARY RESPONSIBILITY

Once the teacher has created an en-vironment in which the student canwrite, then he must enforce the dead-

line. The student must write frequently,and probably to a minimum daily dead-line, an artificial necessity. A paper aday, or five pages a week, or ten pagesevery two weeks. I've not had muchsuccess with a class deadline much be-yond that. Formal outlines, carefullydone notes, sloppy first-drafts, total re-visions-all count toward the number ofpages.Once students understand the systemand are convinced of the need of thedeadline, they will experience the pro-cess of writing and welcome the dis-cipline of frequent papers. They willlearn to write by writing. Most studentswho come to me with critical writingproblems have never had an intensivewriting experience, while the studentswho enter the course writing well havepassed through a course where theywrote and wrote and wrote. The teachercannot shirk his responsibility to forcethe student to write. He must createartificial pressure which makes the stu-dent commit himself on paper again andagain and again.THE TEACHER'S THIRD RESPONSIBILITYThe writing teacher has to stop try-ing to create a world in which successfor the majority day by day is the norm.He has to cultivate a climate of failure.The writer fails all the time, but he failsto succeed. He learns to shape the failureof his drafts into the successes of hisfinal copy.Grades, of course, are ridiculous dur-ing the writing course. They are muchmore than irrelevant, they do positiveharm. An "A" deludes a student intothinking an early draft is final copy,while an "F" convinces another studentthat there is no hope. The teachers Iknow who have experimented with elim-inating grades on individual pieces ofwriting never return to conventionalgrading. The productivity and the qual-ity of student writing increases whengrades are left off each paper. Of course,

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COLLEGE COMPOSITIONAND COMMUNICATIONwhen the time comes for a final standard,it is easy enough to evaluate paperschosen by the students at the end of thecourse.THE TEACHER'S FOURTH RESPONSIBILITYThe teacher is a diagnostician. Ideal-ly, the teacher reads only those paperson which the student is having problems.He knows those papers because his stu-dents select them from their folder inconference. He does not write long, care-ful, but easily misinterpreted commentson papers most of the time. He listensto the student in conference, reads thepapers selected by the student, listensto the student's own diagnosis of hiswriting problems, confirms it or pro-poses an alternate diagnosis, listens tothe student as he proposes his ownsolutions, and possibly suggests alternatetreatments.The experienced composition teacherdoes not see all writing problems-spell-ing and structure, and lack of subjectmatter-of equal importance. He en-courages the student to see that on mostpieces of writing there is one fundamentalproblem which must be dealt with be-fore the next problem can be spotted,and then solved. For example, an inco-herent paper will be ungrammatical;once the logic of the writing is developed,grammatical problems tend to disappear.The effective teacher rarely correctsa paper. That's too easy for him. Some-times he will edit a paragraph or a page,particularly on a good paper, to showhow it may be shaped into a still betterpaper, but this must be done with dis-cretion. The teacher who corrects an en-tire paper is doing the student's job ofediting. He is cheating the student ofthe opportunity to learn, for ultimatelythe student must be able to diagnoseand treat his own problems when he hasescaped the protective custody of hiswriting teacher.

The Responsibility Shared byTeacher and StudentThe central act of the writing courseis publication. This is the crucible wherethe student is tested, tried and taught.And the teacher, as well as the student,must publish and share criticism fromcareful readers.The teacher, by writing with his stu-dents and by failing with them, will notlose but earn their respect. He will havethe enviable opportunity to share theexperience of learning with his students.Together they can establish an environ-ment of exploration and discovery.Publication within the classroom maybe performed with ditto, xerox, carbonpaper, overhead projector, wall display,or merely student folders open to allmembers of the class. The means arenot important; the ends are. The writermust face his audience. He must hearthe contradictory counsel of his readers,so that he learns when to ignore histeacher and his peers, listening to him-self after evaluating what has been saidabout his writing and considering whathe can do to make it work.

Slowly, painfully, the student will dis-cover he can achieve an audience. Ifhe has something to say, if he says ithonestly, if his opinions are informed, ifhe brings order to chaos, if he enter-tains, if he is able to give the reader in-formation or an esthetic experience, hewill be read.The free speech movement may startwith dirty words, but a cliche is a cliche,and if the audience is not shocked orfrightened by short transitive verbs, thenthe student can go on to say what he hasto say. He will reveal, as we all do, ourlack of information, our naivete, ourclumsiness, our dishonesties. He will ex-perience criticism, failure, and enoughsuccess-those nice small moments ofcompletion-to give him courage, in theright environment, to face the agonies

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FINDING YOUR OWN VOICEof exposure on the printed page and tolearn from it.The teacher of composition shouldwelcome an age of dissent. He shouldglory in diversity, and he should dis-cover that by giving his students free-dom they will accept responsibility. Per-haps in this age when students are using

their voices to attack and transform theeducational establishment, the teacherof composition may return to his im-portant educational role when rhetoric-the art of effective and responsibleargument-was the foundation of a clas-sical education.

Universityof New Hampshire

RADCLIFFE PUBLISHING PROCEDURES COURSEEdward E. Booher, Chairman, McGraw-Hill Book Com-

pany and President, American Book Publishers Council, Pa-tricia Carbine, Executive Editor, Look magazine, FrancisKeppel, former Assistant Secretary of Education and Presidentof General Learning Corporation, and Samuel N. Antupit, ArtDirector, are among more than forty book and magazine exec-utives who will lead seminars and workshops in RadcliffeCollege's Publishing Procedures Course opening June 18.The six-week summer program for recent college graduatesis planned to offer students intensive practical training inediting, design, and production of publications. Learning fromprofessionals is a basic concept of the program.Established in 1947, with the encouragement of editors likeBruce and Beatrice Gould of Ladies' Home Journal, the Pub-lishing Procedures Course has trained more than a thousandmen and women from hundreds of colleges for book andmagazine careers. Of last year's sixty-six students, fifty-fiveare now employed in publishing and related fields such asadvertising and graphic design.Students' practical experience includes daily assignments inreading manuscripts, writing, copy editing and proofreadingand a week-long workshop in book design and production.In a magazine workshop, groups of students will create orig-inal magazines, determining their format, potential audienceand financial support. Assuming the professional roles of amagazine staff, each group will produce manuscripts, designand layout for a pilot issue. An introduction to the businessside of publishifig will be included, followed by a study ofadvertising sales, promotion, and specialized markets. Bostonarea presses will host field trips.The deadline for application to this year's course was April15.

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ccc0202finding your voice murray

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