V's Pick #25: Everyone Can Write by Peter Elbow

I love me some Elbow. Of scholars, he's considered one of the more outside-the-box thinkers - creative and free, he proclaims freewriting and holistic grading, defends teachers who are writers first and instructors second and mostly, tells those who disagree with him to get off their thrones.

He's asking us in this book, the teach writing in a way that is meaningful for personal exploration. Not that he thinks that's ALL Comp should do, but he's asking us to not drown students in some much technicality that we forget to instill in them that writing is FUN. He also suggests that if we no longer believe that, we need to do some work.

He rejects binary thinking and urges us to join him on the other side of the desk; to see what we're doing and do it better - for us and for our students.

I was criticized (nicely) for doing "too much" freewriting with my students. So I asked them if they would like to do less. I want to say this was around week 5 or so of classes. Almost unanimously, the hands said NO! I was shocked. These were students whose first-day profiles were riddled with "I hate writing" "Writing makes me feel so stupid" "I will never like writing" statements...and now, given the option, they wanted to keep...writing? I felt pretty proud of myself, and while I did in the coming weeks have to cut back a little to make room for skill-based exercises, I've kept that with me. I also told them in the beginning of the semester that we'd go outside to write one day - not for a grade, just to have fun. I anticipated groans and rolling eyes. As luck would have it, on open days, the weather was always crap and on days where we HAD to get through things, beautiful. So, we've made it almost 16 weeks without going outside...and on Wednesday, a handful of students mentioned it. They remembered that promise all those weeks ago and have asked me if we can do it during our final. I will admit, I got a little gooey inside...that was more than I'd EVER thought would happen this semester. So, on finals day, when they're dressed in their business-casual finest to present with their conference panels, we will caravan outside (weather permitting, please Florida, let me do this) and we will write. About nature. About school. About wearing heels in the grass. About whatever it is they want...for 15 minutes. I'm comforting myself that even if they weather is crap again, the fact that they've reminded *me* of this exercise speaks volumes to what Elbow is saying we can do with just a little extra thought.