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THE IMPORTANCE OF PROCESS AND ENCOURAGING IT IN UNPREPARED CLIENTS OF THE WRITING CENTER Donald Murray’s essay, “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product” argues correctly that the best way to create good writing is encourage the development of good writers, as opposed to simply fixing writing, which actually does the writer a disservice. I agree with Murray that writing is more about a process than the product, as the object of an instructor should be to make the writers themselves more capable, not just each paper. As Murray puts it, “repetitive autopsying doesn’t give birth to live writing” (Murray 3). From the writing center’s perspective, this is extremely important, as there are a limited number of consultants on a limited schedule, and if a consultant can help a client with their writing process, it may free a space for the next time that client needs to write. While thinking of writing as a process is certainly a better, more long-term solution to many writing problems, in the center, I have already been challenged with trying to help unprepared writers develop within the short 50 minutes allotted to us instead of just giving them ideas or doing the writing process for them. Just today, I had two clients who came in without any pre-written material or ideas, and who were looking for help figuring out what they should write on. Murray argues several of his 10 implications that are particularly important to the writing center and to the consultants at the center, specifically. These include such statements as, “The teacher supports but does not direct this expedition to the student’s own truth” (5), “the student uses his own language” (5), that the teacher teaches a student “to produce whatever product his subject and his audience and demand” (6), as opposed to teaching a specific product, that the “primary responsibility for seeing the choices [of where to take the paper] is the student. He is learning a process” (6), and that “the students are individuals who must explore the writing process in their own way…to find their own way to their own truth” (6). All of this emphasis on the student, or client’s, responsibility to their own writing and the teacher, or consultant’s, responsibility to foster the student’s discovery process instead of defining it seems quite the daunting task within the writing center’s 50 minute sessions, especially if a client comes in with literally nothing to begin with. How far a consultant can go in making suggestions and trying to get ideas flowing comes into question from both an ethical and professional standpoint, as well as generally caring about the client’s development as an articulate, independent writer. I try to get unprepared clients to come up with their own ideas through questioning them about the material and about the general concepts their assignments are based on, as well as getting them to brainstorm, outline, and list if it will help. One thing that this has taught me is that, writing being a personal process, clients must come into the center prepared to at least some degree or with some idea of what they think they might write on. The client I had today that did not even read half of the book they were writing on is not going to write a good paper unless they finish the book, no matter what ideas we were able to work out based on the half she did read. Likewise, the client writing a paper on Relativity will not be able to successfully organize her paper until she gets all of her ideas out, or at least brings them in to the writing center for me to help her organize. I, as a consultant, can give my clients favorable weather to fly in, but I can’t fly the plane for them.
WORKS CITED Murray, Donald M. “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product.” Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader. Ed. Victor Villanueva, Jr. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 1997. 3-6.