In this archival investigation, Michael J. Michaud examines the life and work of Donald M. Murray, an important disciplinary and educational reformer who has for too long been misunderstood, caricatured, and dismissed by many writing studies theorists and historians. Focusing on Murray’s work at the University of New Hampshire from the 1960s to the 1980s, Michaud offers a corrective intended to establish a new legacy for Murray. Grounded in an understanding of the significance of his personal backstory to his reform efforts and narrated through the lens of a close reading of the day-to-day details of his work during the heady years of the writing process movement, A Writer Reforms (the Teaching of) Writing recounts the numerous innovations Murray contributed to composition pedagogy and traces the impact of his work on the growth of the field during a critical period in its development.

Michael J. Michaud is Professor of English at Rhode Island College, where he teaches undergraduate courses ranging from composition to workplace writing to multimodal writing and graduate courses ranging from theories of rhetoric and composition to professional writing. His scholarly interests include adult learners in higher education and their writerly journeys to a college degree, curricular innovation in professional and digital writing classes, writing across the curriculum, and the work and life of Donald M. Murray. His work has appeared in Composition Forum, Technical Communication Quarterly, and Intermezzo, among other forums.