Portland Public Library

Writing without teachers, Peter Elbow

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-203)

no index present

non fiction

Writing without teachers

programmed textsbibliography

37862750

Peter Elbow

Oxford paperbacks

In Writing Without Teachers, well-known advocate of innovative teaching methods Peter Elbow outlines a practical program for learning how to write. His approach is especially helpful to people who get stuck or blocked in their writing, and is equally useful for writing fiction, poetry, and essays, as well as reports, lectures, and memos. The core of Elbow's thinking is a challenge against traditional writing methods. Instead of editing and outlining material in the initial steps of the writing process, Elbow celebrates non-stop or free uncensored writing, without editorial checkpoints first, followed much later by the editorial process. This approach turns the focus towards encouraging ways of developing confidence and inspiration through free writing, multiple drafts, diaries, and notes. -- Back cover

1. Freewriting Exercises -- How freewriting exercises help -- Freewriting and garbage -- Keep a freewriting diary -- Using freewriting exercises for finding subjects to write about -- Producing a finished piece of writing -- 2. The Process of Writing-Growing -- Autobiographical digression -- It makes a difference in practice -- Growing -- Start writing and keep writing -- Chaos and disorientation -- Emerging center of gravity -- Editing -- Growing as a developmental process -- 3. The Process of Writing-Cooking -- Cooking as interaction between people -- Cooking as interaction between ideas -- Cooking as interaction between words and ideas, between immersion and perspective -- Cooking as interaction between metaphors -- Cooking as interaction between genres and modes -- Cooking as interaction between you and symbols on paper -- Noncooking -- Desperation writing -- The goal is cooking -- Cooking and energy -- Goodness and badness -- Why the old, wrong model of writing persists -- Conclusion -- 4. The Teacherless Writing Class -- Setting up the class -- Giving movies of your mind -- Further advice to readers -- Advice to the writer on listening -- The class process -- 5. Thoughts on the Teacherless Writing Class -- How I came to this approach -- Huh? -- Why the teacherless class helps make writing easier -- Why the teacherless class helps make writing better -- People learn from the truth, even though the truth is a mess -- The process of learning writing -- What about grammar? -- The yogurt model -- Subjective bullshit -- Multiple-choice diary -- Appendix Essay: The Doubting Game and the Believing Game-An Analysis of the Intellectual Enterprise -- The monopoly of the doubting game -- The truth about meaning and words -- Short digression on the New Critics -- Why the doubting game doesn't work with assertions of meaning -- The believing muscle -- Meaning-making as gestalt-making -- The myth of the laboratory rat -- Believing and doubting as dialetics -- The two dialectics as games -- The believing game in action: fighting the itch for closure -- The two games as reinforcers of different character traits -- Fears of the believing game -- Speculations on the history of the believing game -- Conclusion: the interdependence of the two games -- Appendix: A Couple of Notes to Myself -- Works Cited -- A Few Books to Help with Correct Usage -- Reminders to Keep in View -- During a Teacherless Writing Class