Section 2: Composing as a Process

Introduction

Seth Graves and Lisa Blankenship

“Writing is a process, not a product,” wrote Pulitzer-winning writing professor Donald Murray in 1972. Writing is a lifelong activity, performed in lots of different spaces, not limited to class essays. And it’s really a process—a messy one at that—of exploring, planning, drafting, and revising. It’s recursive—that is, writers repeat drafting cycles. Yes, generally it results in a product—but writing refers to all of the work that went into getting there.

So, in order to write towards better products, we practice and develop our skills at writing itself. For the past fifty years, scholars in the academic discipline of Rhetoric and Composition have conducted research on the best ways of teaching writing and on how the various and beautifully complicated processes involved with writing actually work. They continue to find that writing not only places what we want to say on the page, but helps us discover and reach new ideas during the act of writing itself.

Viewing and practicing writing as process forms one of our five major course goals and is a major theme of this book beyond just this section. Pieces throughout this collection discuss the complex process of discovering what it is you have to say, especially within the genres of writing you’ll encounter in this course, and organizing how you say it (see “What’s the Point: Finding Your Thesis in Analysis Genres,” page xx; “Stasis Theory: Finding and Developing a Thesis in Research-Based Argument Genres,” page xx; “Using Toulmin to Organize Your Thinking,” page xx; and “Organizing an Argument” on page xx).

In this section, Lisa Blankenship reminds us in “On Writing as Style and Entering a Conversation” that our choices when we write are related to the circumstances—the rhetorical situation—of our writing. In “The Reading Process,” Maria Plochocki offers a process-based approach to reading in a digital, multitasking age. In “Suffer Less,” Kate Eickmeyer speaks to the emotional challenges of writing that students and professional writers alike can feel. Anne Lamott’s classic essay, “Shitty First Drafts,” on the necessarily messy nature of first drafts, challenges us to begin writing projects with lower expectations, but then use the writing process to steadily raise them. Revision and editing for clarity, concision, and beautiful prose are the focus of the final three pieces in this section: Donald Murray’s classic essay, “The Maker’s Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscript,” famous writing instructor William Zinsser’s piece, “Clutter,” and a piece our students have found useful for many years, Richard Straub’s “Responding—Really Responding—to Other Students’ Writing.”

Think of this class as an opportunity to become a better writer through the process of writing itself—a process that can help you discover what it is you think, express what may seem inexpressible, and engage more effectively with others in the world.

Work Cited

Murray, Donald. “Teach Writing As a Process Not a Product.” The Leaflet (Nov. 1972), 11–14. Rpt. in Learning by Teaching. Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook, 1982: 14–17.