‘Two workmen muttering’

In his book, Learning by Teaching, Donald Murray characterises the act of writing as a muttered conversation between two people at a workbench: 

The act of writing might be described as a conversation between two workmen muttering to each other at the workbench.  The self speaks, the other self listens and responds. The self proposes, the other self considers.  The self makes, the other self evaluates.  The two selves collaborate:  a problem is spotted, discussed, defined;  solutions are proposed, rejected, suggested, attempted, tested, discarded, accepted.

Donald Murray Learning by Teaching

The image of writing as a conversation is a useful one (and I love those two persons at the workbench, pottering and muttering). Writing is a dialectical process. In Donald Murray’s depiction, one voice is coming up with ideas and, perhaps, putting them on paper. That first voice casts about for thoughts, draws on memory and experience, maybe thinks about writers that they admire. The second voice belongs to the character who is thinking about meaning, they consider and evaluate: ‘Does this make sense? Can I think of a better way of saying it? How does it sound?’  We have to watch out. That second voice can be grumpy and mean; too quick to pour scorn and cast doubt. Voice one can become dispirited. We need both voices. And we need them both to be constructive and optimistic, not mooching about putting a damper on things. I think we might need a third voice, also, maybe the workshop technician who knows about spelling and can find a semi-colon when you need one. The technician needs to be calm and helpful. They need to know when to speak up and when just to keep out of the conversation. But I think that is another story.

Let’s just think about Voice 1 and Voice 2 for a moment. They depend on each other. They are critical friends. And the to and fro generates and refines. It allows the writer to move from chaos to order, to move closer and closer to their goal. The better informed those two voices are, the greater their experience – of writing and in general – the better the conversation, the better the writing. It is the teacher’s job to educate those two voices in the writing conversation, and to keep the technician up to scratch when she is needed. Teachers do this best, I believe, when they join in the conversation.