Overall, I am in love with Peter Elbow's voice-- it seems like I can hear it while I read, and it's very soothing. It felt as if he was having a conversation with me.

I found that I could both relate to and learn from these first chapters.

When Elbow described the long excruciating writing process that he experienced throughout his academic career, I cringed. He described exactly what I went through last semester when a due date approached. I would put it off until the day it was due, and then stress and cry as the clock ticked the seconds away toward my next class-- and I had yet to write a good sentence.

By identifying my frustrations as a general common problem, Elbow helped me to feel like I had a better handle on the writing process. Thank God...since I want to be a writer by the end of the school year.

Peter Elbow also opened my eyes to a new way of approaching a writing assignment-- a cure for the problems he faced during his college days, and those which I am currently facing.

• first, I must free write before I even begin. I must free write and get all of the garbage out of my head for a short amount of time, and not stop until time is up.
• second, I mustn't come up with an idea before I write. I must write to come up with an idea.
• third, I must try that method of writing which Elbow shared with his four-hour example-- write as much as I can for 45 minutes, and dig for another 15 minutes. Then use what I found in those 15 minutes, and write about that for another 45 minutes.
• fourth and finally, I need to get over my aversion to throwing away writing. No matter what, I have always tried to salvage my words-- even if they were complete garbage.

Luckily (I guess), I have a writing assignment approaching for Dr. Wilson's American Novel class, and I will try Elbow's methods. He is a very convincing writer himself. I am very excited about Writing Without Teachers.

The Stream of Freewriting

A number of years ago, I attempted to encourage a friend of mine to spend his summer reading Finnegans Wake. I asked him also to develop an argument that the work was something more than mere masturbation. The previous year, I had become infatuated with Joyce’s other works such as Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and the short story collection Dubliners. But during a lecture illustrating stream of consciousness examples, Finnegans Wake became a case in point. It seemed like pure madness. It felt extremely under thought, or more than likely, the polar opposite. It seemed like too much work. I later read an article in which one of my heroes, Vladimir Nabokov, gave a scathing review of the work. I felt I could sleep better knowing I was not damning a work that many scholars felt was a literary masterpiece. In addition, my friend refused to follow along with my request after he glanced through the novel and was confronted with dialog such as, “countlessness of livestories have netherfallen by this plage, flick as flowflakes, litters from aloft, like a waast wizzard all of whirlworlds. Now are all tombed to the mound, isges to isges, erde from erde.”

This week, as I was reading through Peter Elbow’s Writing Without Teachers, I thought once again about my dear friend, Finnegan. Whether the novel was a gimmick of monumental stature or not, it seemed irrelevant. I’m sure there is brilliance hidden beneath the text somewhere. Joyce could not have penned his earlier works if he was not slightly more intelligence than the average human being. But I was able to connect with Elbow’s concept of free writing at a personal level: the madness must essentially be released beforehand.

When I was in high school I used to write everything on a typewriter. I refused to work on computers for anything. In fact, I did not even own a computer until I was in my early twenties. Computers were too distracting. When we were given time in class to work on an essay, Internet Explorer always taunted me to explore anything other than an essay on the Bard. In addition to this, it pointed out all my errors by underlining them in hideous red pixels. It felt too painful. A typewriter did not do this. Sure, I made plenty of mistakes, but I corrected them later during the editing process by hand. Unfortunately, I still felt like I spent entirely too much time crafting the final product in my head, long before I wrote an initial article at the beginning on my first sentence.

Elbow’s experiences seemed to run parallel with my high school and early college experiences. After our in-class writing experience late last week, I became more interested in Elbow’s idea that we are capable of developing good ideas as we write without considering them. Sure, the page was erupting with a visual cacophony of both green and red pixels, but there were indeed some noteworthy phrases and ideas that came off the cuff. Of course, these ideas never would have seen the light of day if I had not eradicated the madness that surround them. I would like to see how successful his technique is in writing a much larger paper. At the moment, I am skeptical of the process for a scholarly research paper, but am not certain why. I am going to take that risk. If it fails, I can always start smoking again.

Freewrite

I am sitting here at my computer screen trying to come up with a starting point for this post, but I can’t come up with anything for my opener. So why not try his method? Freewrite. Why not try to just write something to get the juices flowing until I can reach something worth posting? I like what he has to say about freewriting, (though, personally, I think he takes it a bit far in the second chapter). I think freewriting is a great way to develop ideas because it gets you thinking about what you’re thinking. It’s a reflection of a reflection—that is to say that you’re writing what’s on your mind and then going back and reflecting on your thoughts. What was good? What was usable? What won’t work? Where can I take this? But while I admire his techniques in the second chapter to some extent, I can’t say I wholly agree with him. I think freewriting could be a big help if you can’t think of anything to say, but I don’t think I could do it for very many assignments. Structure is what I know. It’s what I’m used to. I’m comfortable with it. I would not benefit from writing four separate drafts of a paper only to trash the first three. That seems like a big waste of effort to me. Do it write do it once. Heh, “write,” right. Do it right, do it once. Now I’m distracted. Fantastic. I had it going there for a little while. I’m a bit leery about his proposed scenario where you have three hours to write three pages and you write the paper three times. I couldn’t handle that much pressure. I couldn’t force myself to write that fast. I’d be trying so hard to reach the aimed-for quantity that I would completely loose sight of anything substantial. I’m a slow writer. I always have been. I need that process of stopping, starting, analyzing, and editing as I go because once I get something I like I can use that small success to keep myself going. I can build off of what I’ve written up to that point, and I think it sounds better. It sounds more professional, and I’m more satisfied with what I write. I like his idea of freewriting to practice writing, to minimize the fear of writing, to build confidence, for therapy, to realize your true feelings on a subject, etc., but I don’t think it’s a cure-all. But then again, that’s just my personal feeling. I’ve found a way that I like. That doesn’t mean I’ll never use freewriting. That’s certainly not what I mean. Every writer is different and what works for me might not work for someone else. And in the same way, what works for Elbow might not work for me. That said, though, I think frequent freewriting could be a great thing to incorporate into a classroom. I think the students would enjoy it more, I think they’d get more out of it, and I think they’d feel more relaxed and less apprehensive about writing. Besides, the only way to get better at writing is to practice it, and freewriting is a much less intimidating method of practice. Break down barriers to build bridges.

Elbow- Freewriting and Growing

Freewriting is a term that I came to learn when I was in my Sophomore year in college. Up until then it has always been writing a paper the night before it was due. Some of Elbow's comments are certainly appealing such as "producing garbage is okay." It is so true that most of the time we are so obsessed with organized and error free writing that we end up spending so much time on editing. If we freewrote regularly, without stopping and going back to correct our grammar and punctuation every two seconds, we would be able to pour more focus and energy into that piece of writing. I know this helps because I had to freewrite for English 015 class and believe it or not it did more good than bad. I was writing a 20 page research piece for that class and the professor almost forced us to freewrite for ideas. And sure enough as I started writing "garbage" and focused less on being proper and correct, I generated a couple of extremely strong ideas int he span of 10 minutes, which I even used for my thesis statements for the final paper!

In chapter 2 Elbow talks about growing how we as living organisms grow but our words do not grow. As we grow our perceptions change, but the words barely change. That fascinated me a lot. Like Elbow, I believe that it is important for us to treat words as if they have the potential to "grow."And then he explains the four stages of growth. The one that was the most interesting was "Chaos and Disorientation."He says, "Growth in writing is not just producing masses of words and then throwing the rejects away." I believe this to be true. I think to come up with a good piece of writing we need to write a lot and then edit some parts of it, but not throwing chunks of writing just because it does not look right. We need to work with those chunks and derive better ideas from those pieces we reject. That is why it is so important to lose control and just write because in my experience , that leads to better quality. And that is why it is important to write several drafts before editing the final piece.

So overall, I would say I am inspired and encouraged by Elbow's ideas. The problem isthat we need to sacrifice a lot of our time to doing all that he said, and that is difficult for a college student and that is why we back off and lose interest. But after reading these chapters I definitely feel more strongly about freewriting and losing control in particular.

Elbow

I'd never even heard of freewriting until I came to Penn State in fall 2008. The concept of disregarding grammar, conventions, etc. seemed ludicrous! But I can't believe I went that long without ever trying it. I remember telling my older brother about how liberating it was to just write. How cool it was to see where my thoughts and have it down on paper. He surprised me by telling me that he freewrites all the time, especially when he's stuck. He's a DJ/producer, but he also plays around with writing lyrics, and when lyrics won't come to him, he freewrites. Or, even more surprising to me, he said if he's just feeling emotionally blocked and in a bad mood, freewriting gives him a release.

The Elbow reading and our discussions in class made me think of my brother in particular because he is not someone who likes to write or writes often. Like some students in school, my brother saw writing as a chore, a punishment, and never something you did just for fun. It was amazing to see someone like that take the concept of freewriting and really enjoy it and also find it therapeutic. I was also really glad that after his bad experiences in school, he was able to come back to writing with a good attitude. He's my proof that other students can be turned around to seeing writing as not-so-bad.

I can't say I've really practiced freewriting to the extent that I've seen my writing improve, like Elbow suggests, but I know that I always feel relieved of some...weight, I suppose after a good, long freewrite. I believe there's merit to what Elbow is suggesting. If we can practice getting our thoughts down in a chaotic, therapeutic way, I think there can be improvement in our formal writing.

Elbow Post #1

Reading Elbow's first chapter, I realized that my writing process, if I start a paper early enough, often mirrors his suggestions. There are tidbits scribbled from books here, random thoughts scrawled over there. It's so comforting to sit down with these knickknacks. Like I already have an attentive audience at my fingertips just waiting to applaud. Without my scribblings, I begin going into shock. I begin blaming everything, and while I am waiting for the god of writing to descend upon me, the paragraphs wait and wait and wait. I think and think and think, but because I am so anxious about the looming due date only meager utterances sputter forth. My first jumbles. Of course it feels awkward, as Elbow suggests, because I'm typing in previously uncharted territory and it's 6 am.

"How comes sometimes you write these papers that blow me away and other times you
hand me this?" several of my professors have confronted me. "I know you can do better."
"I don't know." (At the time, I mostly didn't.)

Five years since I have been in undergraduate school, I would like to hope that these anxiety ridden papers never ever happen again. Or, at least, I would like to limit their occurrence. So, I read the topic for a paper and jot things down before it is due. I will write something, anything before the due date. I plant myself in a seat at my desk and write words on notebook paper. Then, when it comes time to start typing, I set my notes up like flipping up faces in the game "Guess Who?" and there's my audience and here we go.

One of my yoga teacher's often says, "It's just a stupid yoga pose", meaning stop freaking out. And, seriously, it's just a writing assignment. So, as Elbows preaches, just write something.

The Beginning

Reading the first chapter of Writing Without Teachers by Peter Elbow reveals how important freewriting exercises are for putting thoughts on paper. Words must be written before they can be read, and not only does freewriting remove that fear of judgement, but it also gives more time to get thoughts down on paper where they won't be lost by a transition of thought. I've heard that thousands, or even millions, of thoughts cross through the mind every second. If this is true, then the more time spent finding the 'right' word means less time being able to process and be self-aware of each thought which translates into less information being communicated.

The supplemental example in class also showed that freewriting makes one feel as though writing is less of a chore and not just something that needs to get done. Sometimes properly saying what one means seems to conflict with the idea about whether the writing is understood. As long as the meaning has been communicated through writing, it doesn't matter how, correct? For the very purpose of writing to communicate, making writing a means to an end and not an end in itself.

Another idea implied and pressed into fragile minds is that writing must make sense and follow some particular orderly process. There is a reason Elbow named one section "Chaos and Disorientation" in the second chapter. Personally, I question this idea. The real world we live in may be a chaotic place or evenly an orderly place that is incomprehensible to finite minds. However, to assume that order can be made and then communicated in writing may be the big problem with conventional writing. Perhaps the differing assumption--that writing must be chaotic--gives the necessary insight into writing and can be applied by freewriting.

One's own inner voice can keep that inner voice from speaking. The Peter Elbow's quote speaks volumes,

. . . "If only I had education I could write." People with education say, "If only I had talent I could write." People with education and talent say, "If only I had self-discipline I could write." People with education, talent, and self-discipline--and there are plenty of them who can't write--say, "If only . . ." and don't know what to say next.

You already have opposition, so hearing and listening to those negative inner voices will not help writing or anything you do.

The last and probably most memorable word is cooking. If one cooks without burning some fish, learning to cook may take an exceedingly long time and feel like drudgery. While one might think they are taking the 'high-road,' they may fail to realize whether it is worthwhile. If it's not worthwhile, the tough and high road may not actually be the right road.

Freewriting is just one small tool helping people learn to write, yet it serves the purpose of writing, which serves the purpose of communication, which in turn serves your purpose of convincing, persuading, informing, or entertaining. Writing is not some gloomy end, but simply the beginning of a means to an end.

Elbow Wars

Elbow Wars

Rhetorical Theory and Practice makes me think of George Lucas's Star Wars. More specifically, Peter Elbow's Writing Without Teachers makes me think of the Jedi training scene in Empire Strikes Back where Yoda cautions Luke Skywalker that he must unlearn what he has learned. That seems to succinctly summarize the Elbow reading. Unlearn what we have learned. And I agree. And not just because Elbow's rhetoric is overly persuasive – which at times it can be – but more because as a writing consultant I have seen this method deployed with some degree of success on the entire gamut of writers.

There is more of a connection to Star Wars than you might think. Consider the following quote from the reading: "…but this voice is the force that will make a reader listen to you, the energy that drive the meanings through his thick skull… it's the only voice you've got. It's your only source of power" (6-7). Force? Energy? Source of power? Jedi Master indeed. That is not to say Elbow is not without paradox.

On page four, elbow asks of us to not evaluate our freewriting and then devotes the following forty three pages explaining how to do just that. It is my belief that Elbow does this in order to cement the importance of the spirit of the exercise – otherwise we would merely get hung up in revising in our heads as we put our thoughts on paper.

What I like about grad-school, and I realize that this class is designated as an undergrad course, is that students are encouraged to contribute to academic knowledge. This is a slight shift from the lecture-absorption paradigm pervasive in undergrad. We are encouraged to break a mold that is seen all too often in undergrad – when idea X is presented as the accepted model, end of discussion. Here, with Elbow, we are given a taste of academic freedom to explore the possibility that the things we thought we knew about academic writing – or just writing in general – may not necessarily be the best way to approach writing. We may not agree with him. He may not even be right (something he continually recuses himself of). But his point is a poignant one: challenge yourself to think from more than one perspective. An idea that aids us in our quest to contribute knowledge. An idea worth paying attention to.

    

Elbow 1-47

Reading Elbow was refreshing for me. I am not one to feel comfortable doing outlines before I even begin writing. How can a person outline something that hasn’t gotten a chance to fully mature during writing processes? I am one to feel uncomfortable writing without editing. His method of writing is a sharp contrast to the majority of the texts and teachers who insist first upon order before writing can proceed. Order can stifle creativity. Writing blocks usually occur with the stress and anxiety writing brings. Beginning writers could benefit greatly using these methods. It is harder to undo habits once formed. My child’s teacher in middle school sent home a paper for parents to review and sign. Her writing methods were similar to Elbow’s. She called it the 5 step writing process. The student first writes without and attention to editing or revisions. The following steps asked for the students to revise the writing and the 5th step called for a polished work free of mistakes. This is an excellent way to introduce students to feel free to express themselves and be creative first and worry about mistakes and such later. I’m wish that I would have scanned the paper prior to sending it back so I could share it with the class and keep it for future reference. If other teachers would follow that lead I feel that individuals would have an opportunity to become better writers with less stress and inhibition. I found myself going back and correcting glaring errors even in this blog. I am making a conscious effort not to but the habit is engrained and will be difficult to break.

Taking Ownership of One’s Voice.

Voice. This word is more than a simple term. Instead, voice is a realization of the uniqueness of each individual’s ability to write. In this week’s readings, Peter Elbow talks about the writing process and his issues with the standard way in which writing is taught. After reading this week’s chapters, I felt that Elbow was challenging his readers to claim ownership of their distinctive inner (writer’s) voice and that we need to grow in our acceptance of this ownership. Otherwise, he fears that we will lose our voice, our identity and be continually uncomfortable with writing. In this blog, I will try to explore this point.

In the first chapter, Elbow talks about the importance of free writing and its positive effects on all writers. He worries that students and adults have been well trained to constantly stop themselves from writing because they are too worried about making errors. Elbow believes that this fear (or even anxiety) of writing exists
“because schooling makes us obsessed with the ‘mistakes’ we make in writing. Many people are constantly thinking about spelling and grammar as they try to write. I am always thinking about the awkwardness, wordiness, and general mushiness of my natural verbal product… We also edit unacceptable thoughts and feelings” (5).
This quote caught my attention because he is not merely focused on mechanical errors. Elbow is stating that the writer has also allowed someone or one school system’s writing curriculum to devalue his or her opinions, the writer’s voice. He worries that writers have for too long neglected their voice and he reminds his readers that “In your natural way of producing words there is a sound, a texture, a rhythm- a voice- which is the main source of power in your writing” (6). Elbow wants the writer to realize that if he or she is having problems with writing, it is not because they are a poor grammar student, writer or indifferent person but that the writer is denying or not claiming ownership of their voice. He also states that
“Maybe you don’t like your voice; maybe people have made fun of it. But it’s the only voice you’ve got. It’s your only source of power. You better get back into it, no matter what you think of it. If you keep writing in it, it may change into something you like better. But if you abandon it, you’ll likely never have a voice and never be heard” (7).
Elbow wants his readers to claim ownership of their voice and he feels that freewriting exercises will enable and empower their voice.

In the second chapter, he builds upon his belief that every writer has a “natural way” of writing and argues that a writer must relinquish a foreign writing plan if she or he wishes to release their inner voice (6). Elbow writes that writers should “Think of writing then as a way to transmit a message but as a way to grow and cook a message… Writing is, in fact, a transaction with words whereby you free yourself from what you presently think, feel, and perceive” (15). In this statement, he is declaring that we must allow writing to just occur naturally and not allow our outer perceptions, fears or anxieties to interfere with our inner voice. Thus, we write so that we can allow ourselves to seek out all the dimensions of our voice. Elbow states that people believe one is “grown” after “he has a new idea, feeling, or perception he didn’t have before” (46). However, this thought is flawed because Elbow deems that “the new element was already in waiting” just waiting for the writer to acknowledge and claim that part of his or her voice (46). He also writes that “I can now see that a lot of my stuck situations in writing come from trying to write something that I won’t be able to write for another ten years: trying to avoid the voice and self I now have” (47). Elbow believes that if a writer wants to become the exact writer that he or she has always desired to be, the writer must fully embrace his or her voice.

I look forward to discussing this text with you all on Thursday. I really am enjoying reading the first two chapters of this book and feel that there are many golden nuggets of information in both chapters. There are several other quotes and points that I would like to discuss but I will wait to converse about these items till Thursday’s class.

Elbow, Chapter 1, "Freewriting Exercises"

When Dr. Kearney first directed us to freewrite on Thursday, I was unsure of what to expect from myself. For as long as I can remember, nearly all that I've written has been for a purpose other than my own pleasure. Granted, I have gotten pleasure from the simple act of writing itself, but did not write for pleasure alone. During the freewriting exercise, I felt lots of strange emotions- chaos, loss of control, even some emotional outpouring. It was unlike anything I had experienced in all my years of writing.

As a future educator, I believe to be effective, one must experience everything they expect of their students, firsthand. To use freewriting in a secondary classroom setting could be quite useful, but I cannot stop thinking of all the "baggage" that could potentially come with it. Unfortunately our society has spun out of control with political correctness and that very climate has overtaken many teacher's classrooms and pedagogies. We discussed in class if we were to receive a student's freewriting that contained harmful or inappropriate information and then being obligated to act. This may sound a bit crass, but personally, I don't want to know about my student's sex lives. Of course I will care for them, but their sex lives are the area of their lives that I'm least interested in. If you multiply an assignment by 100 students, the odds are in favor of getting at least one paper with something of a sexual or just generally awkward nature.

I appreciate Elbow's stance that if a student wants to share, they may, but that the general rule is that no one is required to share. I believe this truly allows the freewriting to be just that - free. If I know someone is going to be reading what I'm writing, I polish it up and make sure that it has all the makings of something I wouldn't be ashamed of claiming was from my own hand. With freewriting, I felt as though I could put anything on the screen and at the end, all I had to do was select "Do not save" and all would be well with the world.

One of my philosophies of teaching is to involve students with whatever means necessary. If that means that they need some warm-up freewriting time, then so be it. If we need to take a walk around the block and have them spread out on the lawn to get their creative juices flowing, let's do it. For a teacher to be effective, they must employ a variety of techniques to reach all levels and styles of learner and I believe freewriting will someday be used in my classroom.

The joint at the bend of the arm , chapter 1

I enjoyed reading Elbow's first chapter. It made me realize that all of those random journals I used in my English classes while in middle and high school actually had a point. They were not merely a scheme by the teacher used to torture those students who hated to write. On the flip side, in middle/high school, the journals were not necessarily"free". Often times, topics were used to help with the writing, but our writing was graded. This could explain why many students have an editing complex. We knew it was going to be read by someone and graded so, as not to appear incompetent, we tried to make it look error free. Overall, I agree with Elbow on his belief that free writing is a useful tool for discovering good bits of information within the babble...I can use it now (and in my future classroom) and appreciate the technique, but I wish, as a younger student, we had more of these incidences.

Express it!

Mr. Elbow likes to think outside of the box and I appreciate that. So often we tend to get into ruts which stifle human progression and show limits. But Elbow, like so many innovators takes a firm stand at questioning convention; that's what leads to progress.
I like the whole, "writing is alive" way of approaching composition. Elbow stresses to write and write. Allow writing to Synthesize. Something, in a not-so-understood part of language creates a synthesis of ideas, arguments, words and points-of-view. I really believe that we can't identify these operations; they are deep inside--very complex.
Mechanics definitely get in the way of flow; and flow is what it takes to effectively express. It is the same in music and speaking or writing. Language operates on a set of rules (grammar, inflextion, word choice, etc.). Too much thought put into the rules part and he writer chokes. Stope editing yourself! Let it out, Man! Let it out! That's expression and taht' the way we should have learned it a long time ago.