Process Not Product, Amen!

I really love Donald Murray. If someone is a Pulizer-Prize winning journalist why isn't the educational community listening to what he has to say. Let me correct myself. Some people in education are listening, the message just needs to get to those who make the laws and the state assessments. Everything that Donald Murray has to say legitimizes that the PSSA is not a valid indicator of how a student does the other 177 days of the school year. It does not show student growth. It does not validate students successes throughout the school year. It does not leave room for rewriting. One day and the piece of work turned in must be perfect? I know the outcome the first day I put pen to paper is not one that is ready to be published. Is that the message we want to send our students, our future? I think Donald Murray said it best.
"Instead of teaching finished writing, we should teach unfinished writing, and glory in its unfinishedness. We work with lngauage in action. We share with our students the continual excitement of choosing one word instead of another, of searching for the one true word." (4)

Donald Murray also explains, "Our students knew it wasn't literature when they passed it in, and our attack usually does little more than confirm their lack of self-respect for their work and for themselves; we are as frustrated as our students, for conscientious, doggedly responsible, repetitve autopsying doesn't give birth to live writing." (3) I would like to show all the red pen junkies this quote. I am sure everyone can remeber receiving a paper that looks like someone had bled all over it. How did you feel when you got it back? I think some of my colleagues forget that feeling of worthlessness that comes with the almighty red pen. I believe teaching through modeling is the first step in the process. When a student sees the process their teacher goes through to create a piece of writing, though this they realize that writing is not perfect the first time around. I enjoy sharing my writing with my students and showing them the hard work I did on multiple drafts. Some teachers will question and even disagree with this because they feel the students then copy their own writing, but I would argue isn't imitation usually the first step in the process when learning to do something.