ENGL B2802
Basic Writing Theory & Pedagogy
A Response to: Making Meaning Clear: The Logic of Revision
Donald M. Murray begins his discussion of revision by first defining it: "Revision is not just clarifying meaning, it is discovering meaning and clarifying it while it is being discovered" (33). He puts the responsibility on the reader by suggesting that "the writer has to go back again and again and again to consider what the writing means and if the writer can accept, document, and communicate that meaning. In other words, writing is not what the writer does after the thinking is done; writing is thinking" (33). Writing is thinking. While simple in its meaning, when I think about it at length, the meaning is profound. I say it's profound because I've never thought of writing in those terms.
I'll admit that while I believed myself to be a good writer, I have become a better writer by revising and also surrendering to the belief that writing is thinking. In order to do well, I've had to (re)see the way I approach writing a paper. Now, I speak my thoughts into my voice recorder on my i-phone. I play it back and write down my ideas. Once I record my ideas, I try to reorganize and rethink my ideas. There is no logical order to my process; it just works for me.
Having read Murray's article, confirmed what I thought may have been an unorthodox approach to drafting my essay for there is no logical way to revise. I will share my process with students. I'll show them that I had to develop a process that works for me, just like they'll have to develop a process that works for them as they wrestle with making meaning clear. Developing a revision checklist, like the one Murray provides, may help students. I'll try it. He suggests to do the following:
- build on student's strength
- teach students how to cut what can be cut
- simplicity is best
Hi Rasheda,
ReplyDeleteThe tricky aspect of writing is that it is both a reflection of our thinking and a reflection of our ability to use language. When I was co-authoring a proposal to 4Cs a few days ago, a friend edited the final proposal written originally by six people. She word-smithed that text in a very subtle way so that it fit the word length requirement. She used her knowledge of grammatical construction to do that and she edited that text very well.
Likewise, writing is an expression of our thoughts combined with our rhetorical abilities. Writing also reflects our storytelling abilities. So discourse form knowledge or genre knowledge is absolutely essential for writers. So much is involved in writing that is can hardly be considered "one activity."