I Confess, I am a "Pressure Writer"

So, I’ve read books and articles before about the process of writing, and, quite frankly, those experiences made me a little nervous to embark on Elbow. However, I really enjoy his style and he brings up a lot of points with which I can relate.

Freewriting – For the past few weeks I have been stressing about this Writing Portfolio that I need to complete by September 11th as a member of the Secondary Education English Teacher Certification program. Every time I’ve sat down to work on it, I’ve only succeeded in working myself into a ball of anxiety about how ‘perfect’ every sentence has to be. Until reading this section I’d forgotten all about freewriting. I decided to try it based on Elbow’s suggestions and it was helpful. I think that it enabled me to find new ideas and clear some of the clutter out of my brain.

Freewriting is definitely a method I plan to use with my students. As prompts, I might use current events (studies are showing that an alarming number of students in high school are very out of touch with significant political, social and cultural events that are taking place in the world and this may be a way to have them take an interest) or topics of upcoming paper or essay assignments so that they could get a good in-class and encouraging start to a project. I always feel a little more comfortable when a teacher allows me to work on a project in class, even if just for a short time. While I’m there, I’m still “in the moment” and can think of questions I might have. Plus, getting a start, any kind of start, on something makes me feel less anxious.

And getting started is something that gives me some trouble.

Growing – In this chapter, Elbow states, “Whether or not I succeeded in getting something written seemed related only to whether I screwed myself up into some state of frantic emotional intensity” (16). I know exactly what he means. Many other people I talk to do as well. I confess, I’ve been a “pressure writer” for as long as I can remember. I’ve also been fortunate enough to succeed at it, although I doubt it’s done any favors for my physical health.

I think a big reason as to why I’m like this has to do with the way that I was taught to write. Elbow seems to stress more freedom in the process than I can ever recall working with in school. For example, I wasn’t introduced to freewriting until my senior year of high school, and it was in conjunction with a poetry assignment. I was never told that it would be helpful when writing critical analysis papers.

We had a specific approach: You were given an assignment. On a designated date you would hand in a first rough draft that had to meet certain requirements. On another designated date a second draft would be handed in (you may or may not have received feedback from the first one). Then, the final product would be handed in on the due date. I can tell you that my first draft would get done the night or morning before it was due….and so on and so on because up until that point I was so nervous about completing what I had to have to fit the standards of the rough draft. Writing wasn’t fun. When I entered college and wasn’t required to turn in any drafts, I just waited to do the final assignment until the night before it was due.

I think it may be more encouraging for students if less emphasis and pressure is put on standards that need to be met for rough drafts. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to require a rough draft, especially for those who are just beginning to write more professional papers, but maybe the meaning of a rough draft should be expanded. Maybe for some students, a more successful rough draft would be a collection of journal entries from which they’re working to discern a thesis and/or discussion topics. For some students that are more visual, maybe artwork would accompany their thoughts. Maybe it could be incorporated into their paper as well. I think what’s important is to see that students have a clear direction in which they want to take the project, not that all the “t’s are crossed” in the early phases. One of the biggest benefits I received out of this reading is a reminder to emphasize that “meaning is not what you start out with but what you end up with” (15).
My questions to others: What do you think would be good assignments for getting students to relax about writing and enforce this concept of finding your meaning as opposed to beginning with it? Do you even agree with this statement, or do you feel that the opposite is true? If you encounter an administration that wants to focus strictly on a more standard curriculum, how could you go about explaining the importance of allowing flexibility and creativity into the writing process if they are not on the same page as you?