The essay “The Interior View” by Donald M. Murray is very easy to read, because Murray breaks the essay down in a logical way that is easy to follow, and he repeats key words in each of his paragraphs.  He uses the word “writing” more than any other word in this essay because that is the topic of his work.  Since the whole essay is about two different types of writing, the interior view and the exterior view, it makes sense that “writing” is used more than other words.  He could have chosen to use synonyms to avoid using the same word so much, but he was trying to repeat it so that his readers would pay close attention to it.  He also repeats key words in each section that relate to the specific focus of those paragraphs so that it is clear what point he is getting across. 

The layout of this essay is very helpful to the reader because Murray lays it out so that each section is about the bolded line of the main stanza.  Before each section is the stanza, “A writer is an individual / who uses language / to discover meaning in experience / and communicate it.”  The readers know what the section they’re about to read is going to be about because the line of the stanza that is in bold is what the next section focuses on.  For example, the paragraph following, “A writer is an individual / who uses language / …” is going to explore and explain the importance of a writer’s aloneness and individuality.  Murray uses himself as an example, “I have always found that at the center of the process I am alone with the blank page, struggling to discover what I know so I can know what to say” (26).  Since this is in the section about individuality, he uses the words “I” and “alone” to prove the individual part of writing he experiences.  Murray also writes in this section that, “If the writer does not feel that through writing he will discover something which is uniquely his, he may soon concentrate on craft rather than content and speak with tricks rather than truth” (26).  This sentence also fits in the individuality paragraph because it says that a writer should feel that through his or her writing, he or she should discover something which is uniquely theirs.  If not, then that writer should focus on craft rather than content because if the content is not unique to the author, it is worthless.  After writing about what he thinks is important about individuality, he uses quotes about individuality from Jane Austen, Gide, and Stephen Spender.  He uses well known authors as examples so that the readers know just how important individuality is; it is not just him, a writer that is not as well known, who thinks this is so important, but also famous writers.  

The next section follows the stanza that bolds, “who uses language,” which tells the readers that this section is all about language.  Understandably, the most repeated word in this section is “language,” because it is the topic and the focus of these two paragraphs.  Murray states, “He knows language, no matter how much he delights in this tool, is never an end in itself. It is what the writer uses to lead him to understanding” (27).  This sentence explains that language is the tool writers use to find understanding in everything they experience.  Murray also includes different examples for readers who may not understand the example of writers as well as they can understand art by saying, “The painter doesn’t paint colors he has seen, he uses color on the canvas to see.  The composer uses the notes on the piano to hear.  The writer doesn’t write down words to photograph what is in his head…” (27).  This example shows that like the painter and composer, writers do not write down words to show what he already knows, but as an experiment to explore new ideas and new words put together.  The sections following the first stanza all have to do with the interior view, but he uses a new stanza when talking about the exterior view.

He uses the same layout for the last two lines of the four line stanza I quoted earlier and then there is a new four line stanza that is about the exterior view of writing that focuses on student writers.  This part of the essay is laid out the same exact way, but follows the stanza, “A student writer is an individual / who is learning to use language / to discover meaning in experience / and communicate it.”  The first section obviously focuses on a student writer as an individual, because that is the first line of the stanza.  To illustrate the individualness of a student, Murray writes, “The students do not start at the same place and they do not end at the same place.  They do not proceed at a similar pace and they do not follow the same path through the course” (29).  Murray included these two sentences to tell the readers that every student and every writer is different.  There are no two people that are the same and that have the same exact thoughts and ideas because everyone’s starting place is different based off their childhood and how they grew up.  Everyone has experienced different things, and even if they have gone through the same experience, it probably effected each person differently.  

The third section of the exterior view is clearly about discovering meaning in an experience, because that is what is now bolded in the stanza.  This section is where Murray writes about how a student searches for meaning in his or her experiences so that the student can decide what he or she is trying to write.  For the student to be able to search for what is significant in his experiment, Murray says that, “the teacher must realize that not all his students will have the same experiment or find the same meaning in the same experience” (31).  This section is important to Murray’s essay because it is about letting the students write for themselves and have the control to be as creative as they want.  This paragraph is saying that teachers cannot put too many guidelines for their students because they should be able to be their unique selves and not have to worry about writing what they think their teacher wants to hear.  This is very important because if the teachers are too overbearing and strict, the students will be too focused on the grade they receive than the actual lesson of writing for one’s self.  Murray believes that, “most of all there must be time in the writing course for the process of discovery to take place” (31).  If students are forced to write about a specific topic, and follow specific rules, they are not as able to discover new things.  Students learning how to write need to discover some things on their own so that they are able to find who they are.  

In conclusion, Murray uses the outline of his essay to distinguish the interior view from the exterior view.  He makes this essay easy to follow and understand by clearly stating what each section is going to focus on.   The many examples included in his work are helpful to understand the importance of the points he is trying to get across.  It is easier to understand his point after reading his examples of why language and individualness are so important to writing.  