Something I can wrap my head around...

After the weeks of Williams, I am surprised to say that I welcomed reading Elbow again. At least he doesn’t make my brain hurt too much afterwards.

This chapter was interesting as he detailed the different roles one would play in the teacherless writing class. While I can see the benefits to this method of teaching, I couldn’t help wondering if he meant for this to be used in middle or high schools, or at the university level and beyond. I think that there would be major trust issues in middle and high school if this was used regularly. I don’t think that I would have felt comfortable at ages 13-18 having to share my writing with others, and then having to listen to them respond.

One point Elbow makes about the procedure of these groups is about reading your writing out loud. I have learned, recently, how effective this can be. Usually I read over something I’ve written silently in my head. But, I have started to read my work out loud, and it has shown me, more than once, where I had technical difficulties, or meanings that really weren’t as clear as I thought they were. I even have my 9-year old do this for her language arts homework. She often gets mad at me when I tell her that something she has written doesn’t make sense, or is confusing, or doesn’t sound right. Now, I have her read it out loud, and she is starting to pick up on mistakes or awkwardness in her writing.

Some of what Elbow said did make me wonder. On p. 77, he talks about how writers don’t need advice on what changes to make. I beg to disagree. Sometimes, the writer can be too close, too intimately involved in a piece of writing that he can’t tell when a part doesn’t make sense, or when an area doesn’t work with the rest of the piece. I feel this kind of feedback from others can be just as useful as telling how a piece of writing made you feel.

I also wondered how, as a reader, you can be completely honest with your reactions to a piece. I may not realize that I dislike a piece of writing because I am simply overtired. I think that readers always bring extra baggage with them when they are reading. I am tired, I am cold, I have to do this tomorrow, Why did my boss say that to me? I find it hard, a lot of times, to completely shut put all that is going on around and within me, to be able to concentrate on reading. Elbow addresses this a little bit, but I don’t think he addresses how to turn this all off.

Finally, I was a bit confused by Elbow’s statements to the listener. Elbow tell us not to try to understand what people tell you, but understand how they tell you. But throughout the entire chapter up to that point, it was about telling a writer what happened to you when reading the writing. If I am supposed to focus on what my experience was, do I then need to focus also on how I express what I experienced? Should the listener/writer focus on hearing my message or my delivery? What's more important--the message or the means by which it is delivered?

As I said before, I think that this concept is a good idea, but I am not sure that I could or would use it in the highly volatile atmosphere of middle or high school. There are too many ways for things to be misinterpreted by writers who are still unsure of themselves and others.