Thinking on Past Experiences

This was a nice welcome back to Elbow for me. I can relate to this entire chapter because last year I was involved in a writing group. There was actually a teacher present for this one, but he seemed to more or less fulfill the role of chairman that Elbow describes. "Teacher" was only his technical title. He read some of his own works and asked for our feedback as well because he said that even though he was leading our class, no writer ever outgrows the feedback of others.

I have to agree with his statement. When I first began reading my writing out loud in elementary school, I loved it. I had always been drawn to both performing and writing and it was a way for me to display two favorite hobbies of mine. When the concept of peer feedback was introduced in middle school, it became a bit more of an intimidating procedure. Sometimes when you write something that you are so in love with, it's hard to put it out there open to the criticism of others.

I felt this the most in college poetry workshops. Poetry, especially what I was writing at the time of the classes, is immensely personal. For me, it wasn't just about impacting others; it was using my own life experiences and feelings to make that impact. When my words failed to do so with a member of the class, my initial instinct was to become defensive, to think, "Well, they're not in my head so they just don’t understand where I'm coming from." But as Elbow says, it's our job as writers to "get things inside someone else's head" (76).

I started to really listen to the criticism and to not be so emotional or take anything as a personal attack. I realized that my classmates had a lot of good things to say. In some cases, their suggestions made me go back and reanalyze me writing. I often discovered by reading it out loud that what they were saying had merit, and that perhaps I could spend a little more time into clarifying certain sections of my work. In other cases, I played around with implementing their suggestions and realized that I still preferred the original. And so I left it. After all, as I said, writing, particularly poetry, can be very personal and it's important for the writer to be happy with it.

As Katelyn mentioned in her blog, everytime I read something like this it inspires me to want to be part of a writing group or to start one up. I never write as much as I should, and it's wasted talent. It's because I'm not good at disciplining myself, and because I am one of those people that "undermines my efforts at writing" (80). And along with taking in the critiques of other group members, I also get to experience those really positive moments when someone connects with your writing. It's a feeling that I'd like to experience more often.

Reading about the teacherless writing class made me think of my writers group. We don't meet every week. Instead, we meet every month. There is diversity in our group: we have people who write poetry, childrens books, fantasy, memoir, mystery, young adult, essay..... We have probably 20 members total, but only about 7-10 of us make it on a regular basis. Each member reads their piece aloud and the other members offer feedback including first reactions, confusing parts, strong images, etc... We try to be very positive, but we also try to strengthen the writing. At one point, we tried to get everyone to bring in copies, but it didn't work out. It was hard to know how many copies to bring plus it takes extra time, effort, and money to make multiple copies of your work. It didn't last very long (maybe 2 months). Even when we did bring the copies, we still read our work out loud. Every one could follow along on their copy and write reactions/ suggestions in the margins.
Reading aloud is extremely beneficial. I know some people say how they would still have problems with this because writing is so personal, but it really is worth it to push yourself. I am not not outgoing in the classroom as a student, and I never liked giving speeches or sharing my work. (which is ironic since I will be a teacher) When I first joined my writing club, I didn't want to read aloud. I had someone else read it for me. However, they didn't read it with the same emphasis or flow as I would have. He stumbled over some of the sentences and made me want to snatch it out of his hands and do it myself. After that first time, I started to read for myself and I also didn't have to worry about looking around the room at everyone's reaction since I was engaged in reading. Like Elbow, I feel more empowered reading aloud to my audience.

Teacherless class...

I think the idea of having a teacherless class is great, but it is nearly impossible to get a group of seven people together that wants to do this. I personally am extremely busy with school and three jobs. It would be very difficult for me to make time to meet with a group for ten weeks. I also don’t think I would be able to find six other people who would be interested in a writing group. I think the teacherless class could be beneficial, but I think it would be hard to put together.

Elbow makes some great points when he talks about a teacherless class. It should take off the pressure of trying to impress the teacher. He says that you can designate a leader for the group. It would probably be a good idea to have a leader if you are in a writing group. This person can keep track of time and make sure everyone gets to share their writings. It can work with or without a leader, but having a leader makes it more organized.

Being involved in a writing group outside of the classroom allows you to share you writing and get some type of feedback. This feedback will hopefully improve your writing. Reading aloud to the group allows you to hear what you wrote. Does it make sense? Does is flow? These are things you and the rest of the group will be able to point out. You will know whether or not your listeners understand what you wrote. It might make sense as you are writing, but it might not make sense to your audience when you are reading. This is something that can be very beneficial to you as a writer.

On the other hand, some groups prefer not to read their writings out loud. They might pass their writings around the room and silently read them. This is a great way to make corrections to the paper. I personally want to look at the paper to make corrections. I also want to hear the paper being read so I can tell the person whether or not it flows. This is very time consuming, so it might not be a great idea when you are with a group of seven.

I think we can take Elbow’s advice by sharing your writings with a few people rather than seven. I doubt there are many people who are able to meet at the same time every week for ten weeks. It would be hard to actually find people who would want to. I love getting feedback from other people. It helps with my writing skills. It gives you the opportunity to find out what people are looking for. I enjoy having the writing workshops in class. It is basically having a teacherless class.

A Teacherless, Studentless Classroom?

Elbow’s teacherless classroom seems to be a thing of complexity, a strange amount of forces thrown together which seem to converge into perfection. The thing is, I feel such a grouping of writers would fail more often than not. For one, writing is extremely personal- I still seize up at the very thought of sharing it. For the majority of people, “getting things into someone else’s head” is an alarming concept (76). I would rather, as Elbow suggests, play the coward and protect my own feelings. Still, adults with chaotic schedules often intend for the best, but we all know how well our grandiose plans fare. As Elbow phrases it, “all too often it is only the thought of the teacher that gets use to come to class” (113). The teacherless classroom requires a certain sort of student chemistry, as well as staunch motivation to improvement and learning- a combination surely akin to the Fountain of Youth.

However, Elbow’s insights into the idiosyncrasies of writers was primarily spot on. I am ever so apologetic when it comes to sharing my writing. It has something to do, I’m certain, with self-preservation. If I apologize in advance, announcing my work to be flawed due to whatever excuse, I am met with an understanding audience if they find it to be so. On the other spectrum, if the reader underestimates my piece, and then finds my work to be stellar, they are pleasantly surprised and may even consider me to be a genius.

The reactions of others to my writings, or toward general literature, does, unfortunately, cause me to label them from the off. Elbow finds that “if you oversimplify and pigeon-hole everybody- saying to yourself, “this is the grammar nut, this is the sentimental one, this is the overly logical one”- this too is a way of not really listening to them” (104). For this, I am guilty. The human mind loves to categorize, after all, that is what caused the invention of the constellations. Although, as Elbow imparts, variety is essential; in this instance I feel it shouldn’t be sought after by expecting certain reactions from others consistently.

Possibly the best section of Elbow’s approach, for me, was the bit about showing. The type of descriptive reaction that Elbow presents seems absolutely unique, revealing and fun. Sharing one’s response through comparing writing to the weather, clothing , or an animal seems an entirely fresh idea, and one that I feel would be at home in any classroom. Students are so locked into typical forms of expression, and so, showing would be definite means to broadening comprehension.

Before this week’s reading, I had never heard of the “teacherless writing class.” I think it sounds like a great idea if you have the time to experience once. Elbow mentions that it will take a commitment of about 10 weeks.

I would love to try one of these teacherless writing classes, but I’ll admit the concept is completely out of my comfort zone. I’m not used to sharing my writing with other people, nor am I used to giving critiques of other people’s work. Although the writing I did for my high school newspaper was shared with the entire school, it was never very personal writing; it was usually fact-based news writing. I don’t feel as vulnerable sharing writing like that. I never experienced a lot of “peer review” activities in high school or college. Usually papers were just handed in to the instructor to grade. I do remember one professor who made you read your first draft aloud to just him in a conference and he would provide instant feedback. I found that process nerve-wracking at first, but eventually very helpful.

I’m sure it doesn’t sound like it from that last paragraph, but the idea of being the reader in the teacherless writing class scares me more than being the writer. I feel like I have a hard time being completely honest while critiquing someone else’s writing. I want to be helpful, but I also don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, so sometimes I’ll end up saying I think something is wonderful, rather than being truthful. I do like that Elbow gives some different ways to respond to a writer’s work, particularly the section on showing. Some of the ideas in the showing section seem a little wacky to me, like number 20, “Make the sound the writing inspires.” I’m not so sure what to do with that one! But some of the other ideas are great, like using weather terms like foggy or crisp. I also like the idea of describing the writing as a lump of clay and telling the writer what you would do with the clay.

I’d be interested to see how you could implement the ideas of a teacherless writing class into an actual classroom. You obviously can’t dedicate all the time it requires, but I think incorporating some of the ideas into class would be helpful. It would be good for students to hear honest, unique feedback from their peers. Usually students just hear what a teacher had to say about their writing, and sometimes that may not be enough to help them improve their writing.

Yay! Elbow's Back!

I can’t even begin to describe the joy I felt when I realized we were back to Elbow this week!

I agree with Amber in that it would be difficult to find six or seven people dedicated to improving their writing and willing to make such a commitment, but as I read this chapter, I found myself wondering about the ways that the teacherless writing class could be adapted for use in the middle or high school classroom. I think I liked this chapter so much because of the experience we recently had when we peer edited each other Literacy Narratives. Reading my own writing out loud for two of my classmates gave me the opportunity to hear what my words actually were saying. Elbow says, “When you read your writing out loud, you often see things in it that you don’t see any other way. Hearing your own words out loud gives you the vicarious experience of being someone else.” (82) I could immediately tell what worked and what didn’t in my narrative when I read it out loud; things that I would have never seen otherwise.

I also loved the page and a half of writing ideas he gives us. There is nothing so hard as trying to write when you can’t think of a topic AND you’re uninspired to boot. His ideas (pgs 80-81) are creative and thought provoking. Topics such as describing a favorite place as if you are blind or deaf and can only know it through your other senses. I know I’m going to use that idea!

Finally I like that Elbow gives us advice on reacting to another’s writing, but more importantly, he advises us on how to hear what others say about our own writing. Nothing makes me crazier than, when someone is about to read something they’ve written, they begin to make excuses or they tell me they’re not happy with it. If that is the case, then why have me read it? By making excuses for our writing we are telling the reader how to feel instead of letting them determine that for themselves. It is highly personal and often hard to hear honest responses to our writing, but as Elbow says, we really can’t improve our writing any other way.

Brain Relief

This week we went back to reading Elbow and I felt like my brain got a little relief...

Teacherless writing seems like a great idea if you can find the time to do it. I can't really imagine finding a group of seven people who are all genuinely interested in improving their writing and also have the dedication to stick with the commitment. Regardless, I think that the advice that Elbow gives us on how to critique others' papers can be extremely useful in the classroom.

One of the sections that really stuck out to me was on page 83. It is here that Elbow talks about the nervousness we all feel when we share with our audience. "Even if you don't feel it (nervousness) as you write, that only means you've separated your experience of audience from your experience of writing." He says that reading out loud brings the sense of audience back to us. That is so true, isn't it? I've never thought about it this way before, but fear of audience is one of the major reasons that I came to mental roadblocks when actually writing papers.

Elbow makes a point to tell us that we should tell the writer how we were feeling as we were reading over the piece. This is a great way to really get insight into how your writing is making other people feel. So many times writing workshops consist of our peers picking out missing commas and spelling errors. I can find them myself. What would be far more helpful to me is to know how my paper is affecting the reader. I think it would be somewhat disheartening to pour your heart into something only to have your peers give you a negative reaction. I do, however, think that by doing this we would find a way to reach the audience on a deeper level, and therefore be better writers. In a more technical sense, it could help to point out areas of the paper that may be confusing to the reader.

I absolutely loved the metaphorical exercises (90). As I said in the past, I generally don't think in metaphors. It could just be the dork in me coming out, but I really do think I would have a lot of fun using these drills. I think it would be helpful to the people doing the critiquing because they would be forced to think outside of the box. Maybe if I practiced with his list of metaphors, I would have a much easier time of coming up with metaphors of my own.

Finally, I think that one of the most import statements that Elbow makes (at least to me), is that it is the writer's job to make his/her own decisions. I think it is important to listen to what others have to say, but ultimately your piece of writing is in your own hands.