Donald Murray

Donald Murray


“Finding Your Own Voice: Teaching Composition in the Age of Dissent,” by Donald Murray really held my interest the majority of all of the assigned readings for this week. I feel like everything that we discussed during our last class, Murray reinstated in his article. Murray writes, “I do get discouraged, mostly because the students have had no freedom, and when they find their voice, it has not been tempered by experience” (118). I believe that each and every student is an individual, thus, making each person’s writing styles different. The students’ voice is what makes each of his/her writing distinct from any others’. By not allowing academic freedom in compoistion, the students’ creativity has been smoldered…the fire has gone out. In my opinion, the only way you can develop your own voice is to live your life as fully as possible and spend a great deal of time listening to what is going on inside your own head. Everything you have seen and done and smelled and touched and listened to and experienced has gone into making you the person you are. And if your writing is to be original and authentic it is this person's voice that should come out on paper. Helping the reader see things through your eyes, your thoughts, your attitudes, is part of writing with your own voice. Though, the teacher more than often tells the student what to write about, what is expected, and how he/she should feel. “Too often the composition teacher not only denies his students freedom, he even goes further and performs the key writing tasks for his students. He gives an assignment; he lists sources; he dictates the form; and by irresponsibly conscientious correcting, he actually revises his students’ papers” (118). In the end, the student leaves the class not knowing how to write, or even wanting to express himslef through writing. The student has been cheated of an education, of attaining some kind of knowledge on creativity and expression. I believe in Murray’s four responsibilites of a teacher: to create a psychological and physical environment in which the student can fulfill his responsibiltes; enforce the deadline of when writing assignments are to be turned in; the teacher needs to stop trying to create a world in which success for the majority day by day is what is expected and normal; and lastly, the teacher is not the diagnostician…a good composition teacher does not see every little error on the paper, but merely listens to the students’ own diagnosis and how he/she would solve any problems. An experienced teacher would suggest alternatives and give positive feedback, waiting for the student to understand his own errors. I do believe guidance is very crucial in composition. As a last comment on writing with your own voice, I'd like to share with you the words of a woman named Margaret Fuller Ossoli, who wrote in the New York Tribune in 1846, “Truth is the nursing mother of genius. No man can be absolutely true to himself, eschewing cant, compromise, servile imitation and complaisance, without becoming original, for there is in every creature a fountain of life, which, if not choked back by stones and other dead rubbish, will create a fresh atmosphere and bring to life fresh beauty.” I thank my freshman comp.professor for sharing this quote with her class on the first day. She set the most mesmerizing mood that captivated each and every student’s creativity and has made my writing flourish with freedom!