Everyone Can Write Essays toward a Hopeful Theory of Writing and Teaching Writing

by Elbow, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780195104165
• ISBN10: 0195104161
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-01-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

With Writing without Teachers (OUP 1975) and Writing with Power (OUP 1995) Peter Elbow revolutionized the teaching of writing. His process method--and its now commonplace "free writing" techniques--liberated generations of students and teachers from the emphasis on formal principles of grammar that had dominated composition pedagogy. This new collection of essays brings together the best of Elbow's writing since the publication of Embracing Contraries in 1987. The volume includes sections on voice, the experience of writing, teaching, and evaluation. Implicit throughout is Elbow's commitment to humanizing the profession, and his continued emphasis on the importance of binary thinking and nonadversarial argument. The result is a compendium of a master teacher's thought on the relation between good pedagogy and good writing; it is sure to be of interest to all professional teachers of writing, and will be a valuable book for use in composition courses at all levels.

Author Biography

Peter Elbow is Professor of English and Director of the writing program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In 2001, he received the James R. Squire Award from the National Council of Teachers of English "for his transforming influence and lasting intellectual contribution to the English Profession."

Table of Contents

Introduction	xiii
Part I Premises and Foundations	1	(80)
Illiteracy at Oxford and Harvard: Reflections on the Inability to Write	5	(23)
A Map of Writing in Terms of Audience and Response	28	(20)
The Uses of Binary Thinking	48	(33)
Fragments
The Believing Game---A Challenge after Twenty-Five Years	76	(5)
Part II The Generative Dimension	81	(64)
Freewriting and the Problem of Wheat and Tares	85	(8)
Closing My Eyes as I Speak: An Argument for Ignoring Audience	93	(20)
Toward a Phenomenology of Freewriting	113	(32)
Fragments
Wrongness and Felt Sense	137	(4)
The Neglect and Rediscovery of Invention	141	(1)
Form and Content as Sources of Creation	142	(3)
Part III Speech, Writing, and Voice	145	(84)
The Shifting Relationships Between Speech and Writing	149	(19)
Voice in Literature	168	(5)
Silence: A Collage	173	(11)
What Is Voice in Writing?	184	(45)
Fragments
On the Concept of Voice	222	(1)
Audible Voice: How Much Do We Hear the Text?	223	(3)
Voice in Texts as It Relates to Teaching	226	(3)
Part IV Discourses	229	(90)
Reflections on Academic Discourse: How It Relates to Freshmen and Colleagues	235	(22)
In Defense of Private Writing: Consequences for Theory and Research	257	(24)
The War Between Reading and Writing---and How to End It	281	(19)
Your Cheatin' Art: A Collage	300	(19)
Fragments
Can Personal Expressive Writing Do the Work of Academic Writing?	315	(4)
Part V Teaching	319	(76)
Inviting the Mother Tongue: Beyond ``Mistakes,'' ``Bad English,'' and ``Wrong Language''	323	(28)
High Stakes and Low Stakes in Assigning and Responding to Writing	351	(9)
Breathing Life into the Text	360	(12)
Using the Collage for Collaborative Writing	372	(23)
Fragments
Being a Writer vs. Being an Academic: A Conflict in Goals	379	(7)
Separating Teaching from Certifying	386	(6)
What Kind of Leadership Is Best for Collaborative Learning?	392	(3)
Part VI Evaluation and Grading	395	(76)
Getting Along Without Grades---and Getting Along With Them Too	399	(23)
Starting the Portfolio Experiment at SUNY Stony Brook Pat Belanoff, co-author	422	(31)
Fragments
Problems with Grading	435	(3)
The Conflict Between Reliability and Validity	438	(3)
How Portfolios Shake Up the Assessment Process and Thereby Lead too Minimal Holistic Scoring and Multiple Trait Scoring	441	(2)
Multiple Trait Scoring as an Alternative to Holistic Scoring	443	(1)
Tracking Leads to a Narrow Definition of Intelligence	444	(3)
The Benefits and Feasibility of Liking	447	(6)
Writing Assessment in the Twenty-First Century: A Utopian View	453	(18)
Published Works	471
Peter Elbow