For Murray, writing is active and dynamic. "The writer listens to what is on the page . . . slashes sections out, moves others around, adds new ones . . . and instead of looking back to the previous draft . . . is actually looking head to the new draft." Such a view differs sharply from the inaccurate platitudes . . . that many teachers learned some years ago in their college composition courses.

—Phi Delta Kappan

Murray is one of the pioneers of a process approach to teaching writing, and this book brings together twenty-nine of the articles, some previously unpublished, he has written in the past fifteen years. His pieces are theoretically stimulating, but they are also practical and humane as he looks at writing and teaching from the perspective of a working writer and teacher.