Interesting Elbow

After our first Elbow reading, I have to say I was a bit skeptical about the free writing process. I think I have come to terms with Elbow now. I agree with him to a certain extent. Some of the things that stick out to me…

Desperation writing…I loved the section on desperation writing. I can see myself doing this. This would be such an amazing way to organize random thoughts. Elbow mentions that you can come up ideas for a poem and for a lab report all within the same session. “And the report will have some of the juice of the poem in it and vice versa” (64). The means by which I would normally write these two different styles of paper are completely different from one another. A report would be outlined, organized. A poem would be something that I would write randomly, without a definite direction. I could see how the kind of spirit of that writing session could come through in both pieces. I find this concept very interesting.

Cooking as interaction between metaphors…Ok, free writing is supposed to be your every thought put down on paper. Write as much as you can without stopping. Don’t think just write. I really don’t believe that I think in metaphors. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you are a literal-minded person who doesn’t make metaphors: such people don’t exist” (54). They do. I am one of them. At least I think…I kind of wish I could think in metaphors. If this were possible, my writing would be much better, more creative. Would this be something I could train myself to do? I feel like it would kind of defeat the free writing purpose, to not really “think.” I would physically have to stare at the screen and think of metaphors, analogies, or comparisons.

Why the old, wrong model of writing persists…I can’t really say that I think the “meaning into-words model” is wrong or incomplete. I was really thinking about this over this past week. I think that a lot of what Elbow tells us is correct. I do think that free writing should be continued right up through school in the form of journaling, creative writing, etc. Once again, I think I am kind of getting back to what type of free writing Elbow is discussing. I believe it is all types of writing. By practicing free wiring on a fairly regular basis we would become better writers. I think that free writing should be practiced but structured, outlined writing would be necessary for students who are writing a report in history, biology, etc. I’m not planning on being a teacher, but I know that a lot of times teachers (especially elementary school teachers) need to overlap their subject matter. Making a student write a report on Spain is a good way to make sure they are learning their geography and also can structure a sentence correctly…I am kind of rambling on here. J What I am trying to say is that, yes, I think we put too much emphasis on structure, outlining, etc. We should back off a little, but maybe not altogether. A superior English teacher would find a way to merge the two.