Article Review Of The Article 'Teach Writing As A Process Not Product'

The article “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product” by Donald M. Murray talks about how teaching writing as a product is ineffective, and that teachers should be teaching writing as a process. The article’s purpose is to persuade teachers to teach writing as a process instead of a product. The article “Reading and Writing with Purpose: In and Out of School” focuses on the emergence of informal learning, and what teachers can do to bring informal learning into the classroom. The article’s purpose is to persuade teachers to teach according to a student’s purpose and passion. The article “The Impact of Internet and Television Use on the Reading Habits and Practices of College Students” explores the relationship between a student’s internet and …show more content…
Murray’s article uses logos effectively in order to achieve his purpose. Murray’s article makes clear references from the start on how teaching writing as a product is ineffective. In the article, Murray states “Year after year the student shudders under a barrage of criticism, much of it brilliant, some of it stupid, and all of it irrelevant…they do not help the student since when we teach composition we are not teaching a product, we are teaching a process” (Murray 3). Murray make an effective appeal to the reader’s sense of logic in this sentence. When reading this, a teacher would likely consider their own composition program; if teaching writing as a product is ineffective, it would illogical and detrimental to continue to do so, leaving the reader open to the ideas presented by Murray. By including this, he is able to better achieve his purpose, as most teachers would not want to teach something meaningless to their …show more content…
Atkin’s article does make some use of ethos, but not to the extent of Murray. For example, in the fifth paragraph, Atkins writes “The idea of “audience” has been a bit of a conundrum for English teachers. It’s difficult to encourage authentic writing when students are asked to “pretend” to write essays to imaginary audiences…only in school are they likely to encounter-or be required to address-hypothetical audiences” (Atkins 12). This sentence does appeal to a reader’s sense of logic, as the reader is likely to question the use of writing to a hypothetical audience when a student would not be required to do so outside of school. This does some to further her purpose, as the reader will question the current methods used to teach English, but not to the extent that Murray is able to. On the other hand, the article by Mokhtari et al. being a research paper, is primarily written to disseminate information. Because of this, the article does make clear appeals to logic. Throughout the article, the authors use statistics and evidence to achieve their purpose. For example, in the article the authors write “the percentage of adults age 25 and