Murray: "Naturally we try to use our training. It's an investment and so we teach writting as a product, focusing our critical attentions on what our students have done, as if they has passed literature in to us. It isn't literature, of course, and we use our skills, with which we can dissect and sometimes almost destroy Shakespeare or Robert Lowell to prove it." (3)



Rios: Many parts of this statement are true. As readers we tend to try and use what we've learned any and every time we get a chance we can ruin it with our criticism. This is the same for teachers. We primarily focus on the negatives in a piece of writing, perhaps because our eyes are automatically trained to find the flaws and so they stand out more; instead, we should be able to search for the reasoning, meanings, purposes, and accept the writer for what they have created. Students can always improve, so we should first search for the worthiness in their writing before trying to fix the technicalities of it. Many inexperienced writers create straight forward, raw pieces that are perfectly fine stories, and should not be destroyed by overanalyzing. When we don't understand this, we tend to remove the writer from their own work. In order for a writer to continue down a successful path, they should feel a sense of ownership in what they create.



Murray: "The writing process itself can be divided into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. The amount of time the writer spends in each stage depends on his personality, his work habits, his maturity as a craftsman, and the challenge of what he is trying to say. It is not a rigid lock step process, but most writers most of the time pass through these three steps." (4)



Rios: These are three general, basic, but accurate steps; the process that all students should eventually grasp. Most of us do this naturally and don't even think of it as a three step process. If a piece of writing should always be treated as an unfinished piece, than where in this process does the student continue to edit a piece of writing? How can we get students to understand this process as a continuous circle without confusing them on where and how the editing process develops in this circle? I would assume that the answer would be slightly different for each student based on his/her needs, so we should guide students in identifying their needs and where in the process they should begin their editing. The editing process is one that seems to discourage students most. I'm interested in the editing process, because most students want to finish a piece of work and be done with it forever. Treating their work as unfinished gives them a better sense of ownership, makes them prouder to have accomplished more than they thought they would, and gives them the idea that writing is not solely for a grade.