Peter Elbow
A Review of the Video On Writing
Failure and Learning from It
• Although he had been an diligent student in
college and had earned good grades, Peter
Elbow discovered in graduate school that he
really did not know how to write.
• Had to leave graduate school [“before they
kicked me out”] after a semester and a half.
• Began keeping notes on when he ran into
trouble writing and what he did to got him
self out of trouble. Stuffed those notes into a
folder
From that folder of notes came
• Writing Without
Teachers: Freewriting,
according to Elbow, is a
terrific way to get things
onto the page that you
never knew you had in
you:
• "Never stop ... to wonder
what word or thought to
use, or to think about
what you are doing."
First Misconception of Writing
• The belief that one had to get a clear idea
in one’s head before starting to write.
• Writing teachers often say to “start with an
outline.” But this may give students the
idea that they have to have their whole
written assignment laid out before they
put pen to paper.
• Instead step one should be “Make a
MESS”—plunge in
“Making A Mess”
• Two mental muscles are used to write
– The Creative-Generative Muscle which opens
the doors.
– The Clenching critical Muscle—the editor and
organizer
• Both are needed for handing in work to an
audience of authority.
• But before one can edit one must have
stuff to actually look at.
Free Writing
• Private—unfair to ask someone to read from a
free-writing experiment.
• “Voyage into the unknown.”
• Take fifteen minutes to write anything.
• Do not stop, do not edit, do not correct.
• Keep writing even beyond the point when you
have nothing to say, because it is at this point
that the good stuff finally begins to surface.
• No one falls in love with the experience of
writing until he or she has experienced a
moment of surprise!
Doonbury back in the sixties
when the gang was actually
still in college (Yale).
Thinking of Audience
Nothing is more important to a
writer than readers.
Types of Readers:
Who Reads Our Stuff?
• Authority Readers
– People who’s opinion of our work will affect our
status: teachers, editors of journals, clients.
Those with authority. Elbow says they “are here
to stay.”
• Peer Readers:
– Regular human beings. Someone on the same
level as the writer. “We need peers.”
• Ally Readers:
– Readers who are on the writer’s side. They know
that even if the writer puts out things that may
not make sense, the writer is bright and can make
sense.
The Range of Audiences
• Personal Writing—
– journal or diary writing: no audience.
• Shared Writing—
• No response Non evaluative; this is a gift. Just say “thank you.”
• Most writing done professionally works out this way although
modern technology is creating a greater potential for feedback.
• Writing for a Response but not evaluation—
• What do you hear me saying here?” (ally readers)
• “Do you understand what I was trying to say?”
• Writing for Evaluation—
• An audience who has authority over you: a teacher, a boss, an
administrator.
• Nothing wrong with this except when this is the only kind of
audience a writer experiences.
Moving from Safety
Into Risk
Unless you take risks, you will never enjoy
writing; and if you never enjoy writing, no
one will ever risk reading what you write.
REVISING
• A Different muscle than the creative one—
this is the “clinching” muscle.
• Fill up pages of stuff—BUT--Throw away
all but the best. After a lot of creation
there is the luxury to remove what is
unneeded.
• The revising leads to new thoughts so even
while clinching writers may also create.
The Struggle Against the Sense of
Helplessness
• For many new writers the feeling of
helplessness—the loss of power—is one of
the great sources which strangle the
process.
• Elbow claims that when he connects his
passion to his words, he uses language
bravely and this allows him to speak with
power.
• “Talking Turkey”
Creating a Voice
• This issue comes up not so much in informal
writing but in formal or academic writing.
• Specific fields (like history or literature)
require constraints—no contractions, no use of
the first person but instead the omnipotent
impartial speaker.
• Elbow faces the question of how does the
writer use his or her own voice even within the
parameters of academic writing?
• Do not, he says, try to take on the timeless
impersonal voice when first beginning to write.
• Instead write the essay exactly the way you
want to write it, that is informally with the
I’s and yous with contractions like can’t
and haven’t.
• Then go back and change the tone.
• The author may have to write the work
twice, but Elbow notes this is still “quicker
and easier.”
What is the effect of Spelling and
Grammar Problems for the
Reader?—Distractions
• Elbow notes that “People tune you
out.”
• Thus, correcting grammar and
spelling is important, but it is the last
thing you do—the final clinching
muscle.
• If it is not your strongest point, get
hellp.