Response to Murray chapters 5 and 9

Based on the two chapters I read over the weekend, I really liked the idea of making a text public and the idea of a publication workshop. It got me thinking if that's what our class publications will be like because it would be interesting to perform one in class. When I am writing a paper, I am really bad about editing my own drafts, but I love the criticism of my peers because they are looking at my paper with fresh eyes, whereas my eyes are biased to what I am trying to say. I agree with Murray that the teacher should make their writing public first so that the students will understand how to go about the process of public editing before they display their writing for their peers. I am definitely a student who feels self-conscious about their writing because even though I know the details about my topic, I feel that I can not express myself and my ideas to the extent that I would like, which is why I like my peers to tell me what they think about my writing. Therefore, it can be a confidence boost for the students if they see their peers giving suggestions to the teacher. It's almost like the students are getting the chance to teach the teacher. How often do students get an opportunity like that? Also, it allows the teacher to model how to handle criticism from peers because it can be difficult not to take comments personally. Thus, the teacher should make it known to the students that criticism is constructive and by making a piece of writing public, the writer is allowing themselves to grow. A student can grow as a writer if they are open to suggestions and can understand that their peers comments are not meant to be mean, but helpful.

Moving onto the publication workshop. One thing that really resonated with me was when Murray said the first question he asks his students in the publication workshop is "how can I help you?" It can be easy to forget when we are editing, that the student has the knowledge and voice about the topic better than the reader does. Which is why asking the writer what they think they need help on can help navigate where the reader's attention and comments should go. Instead of ripping apart a writer's work, ask them how they feel about their piece and what they think the strong and weak points are, so that the reader is not editing the paper to his/her writing style. I think that not editing someones paper to the reader's writing style is a hard battle to fight because we can all be biased of ourselves and think that it would sound better in a similar style to their own, but then we would lose the creativity and voice of the original writer, and that's not what writing is about.

Overall, I think that teaching students constructive criticism and being aware of how they think their paper is, will allow students to grow and expand into wonderful writers and readers.