Underlining Principles of Writing As a Process

Victor Villanueva's "Cross-Talk" preface give interesting insight as to the how and why this book was created. In his second preface he pinpoints changes and states technology has reinvented the classroom and therefore things must change. He also points out that "writers of color" are being more accepted and hopes that this will lead to more meaningful discourses about racism. The preface to his first edition notes that the book is for graduate level work in composition and its facilitators. He humbles his accumulation essays that "the book is comprehensive, not complete" (xiv), leaving it open for readers to go further and incorporate more knowledge than this one source. Murray's take home point was that composition teachers need to teach process, not product and that it is hard to teach different than one has been taught. His ideal classroom environment is when the teacher "not the initiator or the motivator"...and needs to "be quiet, to listen, to respond" and only be "the reader, the recipient" (5). Janet Emig challenges the traditional language process (listening, talking, reading and writing 8) and focuses more on the process of how we formulate the language process and build on that process only through interaction.
I find it interesting that writing as a process is not what I thought it was. I thought originally that the "writing process" was as it has been taught to me all along: you have a subject and you write! It's how it's always been for me. So I found it very intriguing that creating that environment, that I know all too well, is the exact way to suffocate a student's writing because the product is focus verses the process. Being in art I draw a parallel to the dilemma and as an art educator I agree that teacher need to be weary of the pot whole they can create in their lesson plans if process is not the focus of a project. The consensus was also that product format in a class keeps the student's writing stagnant, nothing more than a "passive compliance, never...really engaging-- in written discourse" (CT xiii). Which I see as a problem because I know I grow the most when I am actively challenged/engaged.
Although "Cross-Talk" contains essays verses a written guide, I think that prefaces to both "Cross-Talk" and "They Say, I Say" are similar. They both want the same outcome, for writing to be taught as a process. "Cross-talk" gives to written material to get the verbal discourse going. "They Say, I Say" transforms the discourse by giving the tools for effective written discourse.