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Writing without Teachers
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. Elbow guides the reader through his metaphor of writing as "" his term for heating up the creative process where the subconscious bubbles up to the surface and the writing gets good.
1998 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Writing Without Teachers . In this edition, Elbow reexamines his program and the subsequent influence his techniques have had on writers, students, and teachers. This invaluable guide will benefit anyone, whether in the classroom, boardroom, or living room, who has ever had trouble writing.
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. Elbow guides the reader through his metaphor of writing as "" his term for heating up the creative process where the subconscious bubbles up to the surface and the writing gets good.
1998 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Writing Without Teachers . In this edition, Elbow reexamines his program and the subsequent influence his techniques have had on writers, students, and teachers. This invaluable guide will benefit anyone, whether in the classroom, boardroom, or living room, who has ever had trouble writing.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
About the author
Peter Elbow
33 books29 followersPeter Elbow is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is best known for his work in writing theory, practice, and pedagogy.
Elbow is the author of several books, including Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching (Oxford UP, 1986), Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process (Oxford UP, 1981), Writing Without Teachers (Oxford UP, 1973), and his most recent, Being A Writer (McGraw-Hill, 2002). He pioneered the practice of "freewriting" in these books, a practice now widely taught in English classes.
-Wikipedia
Elbow is the author of several books, including Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching (Oxford UP, 1986), Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process (Oxford UP, 1981), Writing Without Teachers (Oxford UP, 1973), and his most recent, Being A Writer (McGraw-Hill, 2002). He pioneered the practice of "freewriting" in these books, a practice now widely taught in English classes.
-Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
January 22, 2022
Writing without Teachers is now considered one of the early pep talk books about writing, years before Julia Cameron, Anne Lamott and others. But I would bet that, at the time, this book felt iconoclastic and ground-breaking since it advocates an unorthodox approach to reading and writing. In a way, it goes beyond (and isn’t) a mere pep talk for blocked writers.
The last section is an extended philosophical/epistemological essay, but the reader is invited to jump right to the practical considerations and forgo the theoretical part. Most of Elbow’s theory rests upon a fundamental cognitive dichotomy: the “doubting game” (critical thinking) vs the “believing game” (open-mindedness). Indeed, Elbow shows how this dichotomy makes sense on different levels when it comes to reading and writing:
1) The formal or school-type approach to writing is the “doubting game”, i.e., preparing one’s arguments in advance and putting them in order before actually writing. What Elbow proposes instead is to play the “believing game”, using a freewriting method: committing all the messy garbage inside one’s head onto paper and keeping at it—what he calls “growing”. And only then, when everything is laid out, trying to find “good bits wrapped in shit”, summarising, boiling it down, or what he calls “cooking”. Using lots of paper. Editing only at the very end.
2) Elbow applies the same method on the next level: reading and understanding. The “doubting game” instructs us to distance ourselves from a text, treat it rationally, see where it is relevant or consistent and where it is not, and form a firm opinion on it. The “believing game”, on the contrary, invites us to welcome our immediate response to the text (our “inner movie”) in all its complexity and confusion. Elbow also promotes this method for his writing workshops, which are set up to work a bit like group therapy sessions.
More generally, Elbow’s method can also be implemented in the classroom by teaching pupils how to read and write more boldly, freely and pleasurably, instead of drilling them upfront in paragraphing, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
All in all, a fascinating book, albeit aspects of it are a bit dated, some arguments aiming at structuralism and new criticism, which were in vogue at the time. After the wave of post-structuralism and post-modernism, we have now become more accustomed to playful and erratic types of writing and literature.
The last section is an extended philosophical/epistemological essay, but the reader is invited to jump right to the practical considerations and forgo the theoretical part. Most of Elbow’s theory rests upon a fundamental cognitive dichotomy: the “doubting game” (critical thinking) vs the “believing game” (open-mindedness). Indeed, Elbow shows how this dichotomy makes sense on different levels when it comes to reading and writing:
1) The formal or school-type approach to writing is the “doubting game”, i.e., preparing one’s arguments in advance and putting them in order before actually writing. What Elbow proposes instead is to play the “believing game”, using a freewriting method: committing all the messy garbage inside one’s head onto paper and keeping at it—what he calls “growing”. And only then, when everything is laid out, trying to find “good bits wrapped in shit”, summarising, boiling it down, or what he calls “cooking”. Using lots of paper. Editing only at the very end.
2) Elbow applies the same method on the next level: reading and understanding. The “doubting game” instructs us to distance ourselves from a text, treat it rationally, see where it is relevant or consistent and where it is not, and form a firm opinion on it. The “believing game”, on the contrary, invites us to welcome our immediate response to the text (our “inner movie”) in all its complexity and confusion. Elbow also promotes this method for his writing workshops, which are set up to work a bit like group therapy sessions.
More generally, Elbow’s method can also be implemented in the classroom by teaching pupils how to read and write more boldly, freely and pleasurably, instead of drilling them upfront in paragraphing, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
All in all, a fascinating book, albeit aspects of it are a bit dated, some arguments aiming at structuralism and new criticism, which were in vogue at the time. After the wave of post-structuralism and post-modernism, we have now become more accustomed to playful and erratic types of writing and literature.
September 7, 2020
3.5. I read this years ago when I was struggling with how to improve my high school students' writing, and I wanted to re-visit it now that I am teaching college writing. There are so many good ideas here, but the fact of the matter is still that teaching writing is difficult, really difficult, given the emphasis through a student's educational career on formulaic writing, on the need for standardization in order to be "acceptable" and "correct," on the overwhelming pressure of writing to score proficiently on standardized testing, and on the build-up of fear for writing that students have developed and learned over the years. I have always loved to write, largely because I adore discovery and because I enjoy finding, developing, and cultivating my own voice. There are some wonderful ideas here, some wonderful suggestions, some things I will definitely try out, but there are and continue to be the real-world limitations based on stringent curricula in the schools and state and federal "standards" and excessive testing.
March 11, 2010
This was essentially required reading for the workshopping group that I'm in. While a lot of the techniques in the book will be familiar to people who have been in workshop groups before (decentralized teaching methods, open discussions, circular seating and all that), the emphasis of things like open freewriting exercises, a bravery in one's drafts, and the vast importance in being willing to let yourself make big mistakes and try new things with one's writing can't be appreciated enough. Those first couple chapters really meant a great deal to me.
I do ultimately take issue with the softness of his approach (it's hard to imagine that fiction writers were a prime audience here; he intends a far wider grouping) and his naivety towards being able to express what a good writing teacher can do to speed along the processes. (Even Elbow's later-written introduction acknowledges a certain naivety.)
He's willing to acknowledge in the introduction that great writing teachers do exist, but never returns to that point. He wants writers to make mistakes and learn organically without a teacher appealing to theories and abstractions that will only confuse the student; but good teachers know how to follow that line of thought, to empathize with the limitations and the necessary steps to bridge certain misunderstandings and more quickly guide the student down those same paths. A tribute to what distinguishes those "few good writing teachers" or what have you would serve much in the way of offering advice to teachers who have no choice but to be teachers: people expected to serve some sort of educational use. (You know. Like him.) Some room for improvement.
I do ultimately take issue with the softness of his approach (it's hard to imagine that fiction writers were a prime audience here; he intends a far wider grouping) and his naivety towards being able to express what a good writing teacher can do to speed along the processes. (Even Elbow's later-written introduction acknowledges a certain naivety.)
He's willing to acknowledge in the introduction that great writing teachers do exist, but never returns to that point. He wants writers to make mistakes and learn organically without a teacher appealing to theories and abstractions that will only confuse the student; but good teachers know how to follow that line of thought, to empathize with the limitations and the necessary steps to bridge certain misunderstandings and more quickly guide the student down those same paths. A tribute to what distinguishes those "few good writing teachers" or what have you would serve much in the way of offering advice to teachers who have no choice but to be teachers: people expected to serve some sort of educational use. (You know. Like him.) Some room for improvement.
December 29, 2016
Peter Elbow's Writing Without Teachers, which I first encountered in 1974, changed the way I thought about writing and freed me from one of my chief impediments: the idea that I had to work out in my head, or in an outline, what I wanted to say before I wrote anything down. By introducing the concept of freewriting, Elbow made it possible to start anywhere, and trust that the process of writing without a teacher, and without editing, would be sufficient to get core ideas down, which later editing and revising could polish into something that might never have come to be, using the method drilled into me in high school and college.
May 9, 2016
This is an eye-opening book. It was filled with so many things I knew, but yet didn't truly believe either because I felt there was no evidence behind them or I didn't want to believe them for some reason or another. Elbow talks about writing in such a clear, natural way. He deals with many of the doubts and frustrations I have experienced with my own writing. Elbow's ideas on how to grow as a writer, and writing in general, have greatly contributed to my own writing life and enjoyment of writing. Every writer should read this book.
July 19, 2020
I feel like a revolutionary soldier when I read Peter Elbow and like he is the general, explaining why our revolution is so important.
That’s not a fair comparison, though. I don’t think Elbow is asking for battle with this book. But his ideas are revolutionary, even decades later.
As a teacher of writing and as someone who likes to write herself, this book is fascinating, eye-opening, and energizing. I highly recommend this to my fellow teachers and fellow writers. Elbow’s writing is as intelligent as it is accessible and entertaining.
That’s not a fair comparison, though. I don’t think Elbow is asking for battle with this book. But his ideas are revolutionary, even decades later.
As a teacher of writing and as someone who likes to write herself, this book is fascinating, eye-opening, and energizing. I highly recommend this to my fellow teachers and fellow writers. Elbow’s writing is as intelligent as it is accessible and entertaining.
November 11, 2019
I can't remember if I ever finished this - even when I came back to re-read it a number of years later I think I still only read the early part of it, and then got on with writing again. That for me was it's great boon: early in the piece he talks about just writing until you find what it is you're trying to say about a topic, or even trying to find a topic, or a focus. Every time I got to that point I'd go off and write, and the book would be abandoned for a number of years again.
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July 2, 2020I read part of this for a class on composition and then finished it for a separate class about games and gameful learning. This is a delightful, fascinating, helpful book. I need to take it more seriously in my own writing life, most of all by simply writing more.
July 25, 2017
An excellent little resource to empower writers to write and teachers to set up a teacherless writing class. Loved it.
March 9, 2013
Peter Elbow sets out in Writing Without Teachers “to show [writers both inside and outside schools] how to gain control over words,” though doing so “requires working hard and finding others to work with you” (vii). The major advice of Elbow’s first chapter is regular “freewriting exercises”: ten-minute periods of “nonedit[ed]” writing that he presents as a method of giving life to a writer’s voice and writing by cutting through “interruptions, changes, and hesitations” (3-6). His second and third chapters explore two extended metaphors for writing, organic growth and the interaction of ingredients in cooking, that he sees as ways of thinking about writing that can get writers past “where almost everyone starts: helpless before the process of writing because it obeys inscrutable laws. We are in its power. It is not in ours” (13). These metaphors are offered as alternatives to a conventional “two-step” understanding of writing: “First you figure out your meaning, then you put it into language” (14). Returning to his early emphasis on the importance of others, Elbow continues by offering a description of what he calls “the teacherless writing class” (76): a group of 7-12 writers who all submit a piece of writing and offer descriptive, qualitative feedback-- “facts,” not “theories”!--on all other group members’ writing each week. He advises the reader to read carefully and the writer to listen carefully, reminding each that “you are always right and always wrong” (106). Elbow reflects on the experiences that led him to pilot teacherless classes, claiming that a “teacher is usually too good a reader” and that teacherless classes allow students to “use the responses of others to help you fulfill your own goals” rather than an instructor’s (126-27). Elbow believes that “at the moment, writing is a black box,” “making marks on paper and then waiting to see what happens when other people come along and start at those marks” (133), and insists that the teacherless class is a “much more objective, impersonal, and rigorous” way to deal with the black box than “any conventional class” (140). His model “wouldn’t be hard to build … into a university or school” (140), and his final chapter is his theoretical attempt--“in temperate language and reasoned argument”--to argue against those who reject Elbow and his model as anti-intellectual “subjective bullshit” (141). He lays out the “doubting game”--i.e. “the self-extrication game, the logic game, or the dialectic of propositions”--and the “believing game”--i.e. “the involvement or self-insertion game, the metaphor game, or the dialectic of experience” (149). He presents the two as interdependent, but with the former, via Socrates and Descartes, having gained an unproductive monopoly among humanities scholars. Elbow positions the believing game as non-argumentative--a way of putting off “the itch for closure” and “the itch for argument” by attempting to occupy and believe another’s interpretation of a text’s meaning rather than doubting it (177); a game that “deals with particular, unique things” rather than “classes of things” (165), paradoxically ameliorating solipsism, groupthink, and credulity while giving “the little man much more power over the majority than the doubting game” (182).
November 17, 2019
This is a terrible book, a complete waste of time for me. I think the book must have been part of some academic hoax or farce back in the 1970s as it reads like a parody of a book to help people write well.
1) The book isn't even about writing well! It's actually a book about the writer, who seems to have such a massively huge desire to be noticed that he had to rely on subterfuge–publishing his personal story under the guise of a college writing text–to get us to look at him.
2) The writing is terrible: self-indulgent more than any other book I've read and stunningly redundant.
3) This is a handbook for writing teachers, of how to organize a class without them! But it was a required text purchase for me and dozens of editions of students around the English-speaking world for our freshman writing class.
4) All it has to offer to students is about a half-hour of actual, possibly useful material, something that could adequately be assembled into a magazine article.
I'm in a rather odd reading period myself right now: catching up on reading all the important books I skipped in school! "The Red Badge of Courage" I barely read in my junior high American it class. Read that two months ago! Glad I did.
Over the next year, I'm working on writing up some material for a book or two and because I only got through the first 30 pages of this book from UCSD Fourth College freshman writing class, I chose to read this one now and cross it off my list.
I expect to get to "Dune," Tolkein, and "Anna Karenina" in the not too distant future as well.
OK, so do you see how I've just spent half of this review writing about myself? That's what Peter Elbow does in "Writing About A Teacher"–er, I mean, "Writing without Teachers!" But his story is 95% of the book.
I'm REALLY glad I never attempted to read this book while tripping!
1) The book isn't even about writing well! It's actually a book about the writer, who seems to have such a massively huge desire to be noticed that he had to rely on subterfuge–publishing his personal story under the guise of a college writing text–to get us to look at him.
2) The writing is terrible: self-indulgent more than any other book I've read and stunningly redundant.
3) This is a handbook for writing teachers, of how to organize a class without them! But it was a required text purchase for me and dozens of editions of students around the English-speaking world for our freshman writing class.
4) All it has to offer to students is about a half-hour of actual, possibly useful material, something that could adequately be assembled into a magazine article.
I'm in a rather odd reading period myself right now: catching up on reading all the important books I skipped in school! "The Red Badge of Courage" I barely read in my junior high American it class. Read that two months ago! Glad I did.
Over the next year, I'm working on writing up some material for a book or two and because I only got through the first 30 pages of this book from UCSD Fourth College freshman writing class, I chose to read this one now and cross it off my list.
I expect to get to "Dune," Tolkein, and "Anna Karenina" in the not too distant future as well.
OK, so do you see how I've just spent half of this review writing about myself? That's what Peter Elbow does in "Writing About A Teacher"–er, I mean, "Writing without Teachers!" But his story is 95% of the book.
I'm REALLY glad I never attempted to read this book while tripping!
September 23, 2015
Some interesting ideas on the writing process, but written in far too scattered and unedited a form to be useful. Chapter Four on the teacherless writing class (a/k/a the writing workshop) is the most useful. Photocopy that from the library and you're set.
March 15, 2009
Influential, though a little dated now.
July 13, 2016
A great book for improving your writing outside of workshops and MFA programs.
February 10, 2020
A friend sent me this book and it turned out to be a wonderful find. What Elbow is describing in his "teacherless classes" is a critique group. His reasonings on how and why critique groups work to TEACH writing is sound (based on my own experience with them). His advice on how to deal with writers' block and the non-linear curve on improving and learning are spot on. This is a great book to pull out and read when one is feeling discouraged about their own writing. It's more of a series of extended essays than a "how to" book, which is a nice thing to have when you want to pull something off the shelf that will inspire, reassure, and get you thinking philosophically about writing.
February 29, 2020
Picked up this book while I am working at the university library. It provides some really general tips on writings and building up to the main idea of creating a Teacherless Writing Classes, basically kind of a workshop or a meet up between people who want to be a writer without having to have a formal teacher.
I was not hooked by any section of the book, they are a bit too general and long-winded, less actionable. It struck me how different a book that was written in the pre-internet (information overload) era. Writing styles has changed, reading time and need have also changed. Similar books written now would have been more aware that they have to compete for attention time.
I was not hooked by any section of the book, they are a bit too general and long-winded, less actionable. It struck me how different a book that was written in the pre-internet (information overload) era. Writing styles has changed, reading time and need have also changed. Similar books written now would have been more aware that they have to compete for attention time.
November 14, 2017
While I feel that Peter Elbow presents some interesting views on composition, specifically in regards to the metaphors of “growing” vs. “cooking writing,” I sense a bit of datedness in Elbow’s writing. Given that this book is from the 1970s, perhaps that is not too surprising. Yet dated as this book may be, Elbow’s presentation of the teacherless classroom that is oriented towards a writing workshop pedagogy is fascinating, and may be useful not just for students or teachers, but conference presenters and goers as well.
January 2, 2021
Saya memang bukan penulis, jika penulis dimaknai sebagai orang yang kerap menghasilkan tulisan dalam aneka bentuk. Urusan kepenulisan saya hanyalah membuat ulasan buku, resume, atau artikel jika diminta. Tapi, kadang saya juga mengalami apa yang dimaksud dengan kebuntuan ide, malas, jenuh, dan sejenisnya.
Kadang, saya juga merasa apa yang sudah buat kurang greget. Buku ini memberikan wawasan mengenai apa saua yang harus dilakukan jikq ingin konaiwten menulis. Berlqtih adalah kunci.
Kadang, saya juga merasa apa yang sudah buat kurang greget. Buku ini memberikan wawasan mengenai apa saua yang harus dilakukan jikq ingin konaiwten menulis. Berlqtih adalah kunci.
July 23, 2021
I liked Peter Elbow's idea of a "teacher-less" writing class. I think there are some specific tips that can be drawn from this book, for example his instructions for "showing" your reaction to works written by peers. His main overarching point within "Writing Without Teachers" was just WRITE and to write a lot, without inhibitions - advice that some of us (me specifically) need to be told frequently.
February 27, 2019
3.5 stars. This was a super interesting and helpful book. However, I gave it such a low rating because it's one I normally wouldn't read. I read it for my profession, and it was great, however there's a lot that I do not agree with. There are some questionable methods, but there are also some that have helped me develop as both a writer and an educator.
November 24, 2019
In order to form a good style, the primary rule and condition is, not to attempt to express ourselves in language before we thoroughly know our meaning; when a man perfectly understands himself, appropriate diction will generally be at his command either in writing or speaking.
December 11, 2018
I guess it taught me a lot on how to write well.
July 10, 2019
One of the greats!! Still use it today!
November 10, 2019
Some very thought provoking ideas on writing and forming writing groups. It was quite theoretical and heavy going in places but certainly a different take on how to improve your writing.
May 24, 2020
One of my favorite books to help me on my writing journey.
July 9, 2021
At the sentence level, it's dated.
At every other level, it's the best.
At every other level, it's the best.
July 30, 2022
This is the book that best validates the way I like to write.
August 11, 2013
The title of Peter Elbow’s classic Writing Without Teachers suggests the book as a curious choice for review by this actual teacher of writing. But, as Elbow makes clear in his introduction, by implementing many of the principles he discusses in this book into his own classroom, he’s created more dynamic learning environments that have led him to conclude that “teachers learn to be more useful when it is clearer that they are not necessary” (x). At it’s heart, the premise of Writing Without Teachers is exactly this: that a teacher is only one reader, and a reader of a very particular sort. Writers require larger, more varied audiences in order to begin to understand writing as a way to communicate ideas. More centrally, writers need to listen to readers’ reactions in order to learn to approach their work from the perspective(s) of its audience rather than its author.
To provide writers with the most pragmatic advice about how such writing can be practically produced, Elbow divides his book into two parts. The first concerns the actual writing process. Here, the focus is on writing more in order to write better. In describing various free writing activities, Elbow is essentially advocating for writers to use fluid drafting as a process of working their way into a topic or argument. Yes, he admits, you will end up with a lot of prose that won’t appear in a final draft. But he insists that through such practices, the process or writing itself will not only become easier, but the products will also be of a higher quality. While I’m not 100% certain how this practice would work for larger research projects requiring synthesis of outside materials, I can imagine that adapting Elbow’s free writing as a means of writing your way into a topic would be useful regardless of the scope of a project. Moreover, my own experiences as a writer suggest that forcing myself to put words on paper not only helps me to clarify and understand what I know, but also reveals gaps in my understanding that might require future research.
In the second part of Elbow’s book, he describes how to set up and work within a teacherless writing group, ideally of 7-10 writers. He emphasizes the necessity of meeting with such a group weekly for 10 consecutive weeks and for every author to share writing at every meeting. Though such a mandate would obviously delimit the length of writing one might share as well as the amount of time devoted to any given piece, Elbow insists that the benefits of such regular sharing outweigh drawbacks. He also emphasizes what type of feedback group members should provide. Specifically, he insists that writers need to hear others reactions to rather than evaluations of their work. In other words, feedback shouldn’t judge the quality of a piece or the value of its contribution. Rather, it should narrate a reader’s response to it by focusing on the feelings, meanings, or understandings that reader took away. This sort of feedback, especially when it comes from a group of people whose reactions will likely be varied, helps writers to begin to see their writing from the perspective of an outside audience and demonstrates the subjectivity of others’ interpretations. Ultimately, then, the writer is forced to embrace a paradox; they must be the ultimate arbiter of their work, but they cannot question the veracity of others’ experiences of it. Or, as Elbow puts it, “You are always right and always wrong” (106).
Overall, there is a lot to admire in Writing Without Teachers, but I believe the distinction between reacting to writing and evaluating it to be the book’s greatest contribution, and I hope it will change how I interact with student writers and encourage them to interact with each other. I would also recommend the book to both teachers and writers who struggle to put words on paper, or who wish to set up their own version of a teacherless writing group, as Elbow includes many specific examples of writing and sharing exercises that can be used solo or in groups. It is certainly a book with as much value today as when it was published four decades ago.
To provide writers with the most pragmatic advice about how such writing can be practically produced, Elbow divides his book into two parts. The first concerns the actual writing process. Here, the focus is on writing more in order to write better. In describing various free writing activities, Elbow is essentially advocating for writers to use fluid drafting as a process of working their way into a topic or argument. Yes, he admits, you will end up with a lot of prose that won’t appear in a final draft. But he insists that through such practices, the process or writing itself will not only become easier, but the products will also be of a higher quality. While I’m not 100% certain how this practice would work for larger research projects requiring synthesis of outside materials, I can imagine that adapting Elbow’s free writing as a means of writing your way into a topic would be useful regardless of the scope of a project. Moreover, my own experiences as a writer suggest that forcing myself to put words on paper not only helps me to clarify and understand what I know, but also reveals gaps in my understanding that might require future research.
In the second part of Elbow’s book, he describes how to set up and work within a teacherless writing group, ideally of 7-10 writers. He emphasizes the necessity of meeting with such a group weekly for 10 consecutive weeks and for every author to share writing at every meeting. Though such a mandate would obviously delimit the length of writing one might share as well as the amount of time devoted to any given piece, Elbow insists that the benefits of such regular sharing outweigh drawbacks. He also emphasizes what type of feedback group members should provide. Specifically, he insists that writers need to hear others reactions to rather than evaluations of their work. In other words, feedback shouldn’t judge the quality of a piece or the value of its contribution. Rather, it should narrate a reader’s response to it by focusing on the feelings, meanings, or understandings that reader took away. This sort of feedback, especially when it comes from a group of people whose reactions will likely be varied, helps writers to begin to see their writing from the perspective of an outside audience and demonstrates the subjectivity of others’ interpretations. Ultimately, then, the writer is forced to embrace a paradox; they must be the ultimate arbiter of their work, but they cannot question the veracity of others’ experiences of it. Or, as Elbow puts it, “You are always right and always wrong” (106).
Overall, there is a lot to admire in Writing Without Teachers, but I believe the distinction between reacting to writing and evaluating it to be the book’s greatest contribution, and I hope it will change how I interact with student writers and encourage them to interact with each other. I would also recommend the book to both teachers and writers who struggle to put words on paper, or who wish to set up their own version of a teacherless writing group, as Elbow includes many specific examples of writing and sharing exercises that can be used solo or in groups. It is certainly a book with as much value today as when it was published four decades ago.
July 7, 2015
This is a classic and it is easy to see why. I have been familiar with Elbow's ideas (e.g. "the doubting and believing game") for quite sometime, but had received much of the information secondhand. For their time, the ideas in the book were revolutionary. In today's culture of "flipped classrooms" and the like, I hope that he finds more sympathetic reception for his ideas. A "teacherless writing group" isn't necessarily realistic within most college curricula, but I think every teacher who grades papers needs to read this book. The book could also be called "Reading for Teachers"--although admittedly some of this information is subtextual. It is rather dreadfully unfair when you consider what happens in most undergraduate classrooms with "term papers"---and indeed most written assignments. Students have very little chance to muck out their ideas and the motivation for doing so is almost always external (going for the grade). Elbow advocates personal freewriting as an inroad for students to find an investment in their own writing. But he also--and this was my takeaway--admonishes the overly critical, doubting attitude that has swallowed up academia and intellectual culture. It is possible to uphold critical thinking as a value, but that can include the "practice [of] getting the mind to see or think what is new, different, alien" (173). By *believing* in other perceptions and experiences, we widen the scope of our ability to "make a gestalt" as Elbow says. While I'm still inclined to grade papers because I think assessment is too systemic to chuck it out the window at this point, I think I can integrate a lot of the ideas of the teacherless writing group into my classes--more so than I already have--and even more importantly, into my reading and grading.
The slightly ironic aspect of the book is Elbow's defiant use of repetition and metaphor to address his detractors. He writes on the defensive at times, and the new edition makes clear why this is, but it can feel a bit tiresome when one is playing the believing game with his book. At the same time, it is "meta" in some respects, because Elbow is clearly playing the doubting and believing game in his own prose. So his "invisible" detractors are sometimes advocates and sometimes naysayers. The most fascinating part are the windows into his own process--particularly the second appendix of the twenty-fifth anniversary edition where he shares some of his messy freewriting that eventually found voice in the book.
The slightly ironic aspect of the book is Elbow's defiant use of repetition and metaphor to address his detractors. He writes on the defensive at times, and the new edition makes clear why this is, but it can feel a bit tiresome when one is playing the believing game with his book. At the same time, it is "meta" in some respects, because Elbow is clearly playing the doubting and believing game in his own prose. So his "invisible" detractors are sometimes advocates and sometimes naysayers. The most fascinating part are the windows into his own process--particularly the second appendix of the twenty-fifth anniversary edition where he shares some of his messy freewriting that eventually found voice in the book.
February 2, 2021
I first read this book in 2001 as a newly minted graduate student (ETA: I had forgotten that I first read it in junior high at a university-sponsored writing camp). It's hard to overstate Peter Elbow's influence on the academy; if you teach writing, you probably use at least some of the strategies he talks about in this book (whether that's writing with your students, freewriting, metacognition about the writing process, peer review, etc). What made this re-read especially fun is my almost twenty year old marginalia; on this re-read, I'm picking up some things that I missed as a newbie scholar, but on the whole, I have to say that my feelings about this book haven't changed much since I initially read it, and for the parts I am most resistant to, that resistance feels even stronger now than when I could barely call myself an academic.
Most of what Elbow has to say I am completely on board with. But he's extremely skeptical and hostile toward teachers (in general but of writing in particular); over and over again, he accuses teachers of conflating themselves with God and of teaching in certain ways because they are easiest (as if teachers are inherently lazy) and of being disingenuous. I think some of this antipathy is probably coming out the political/social climate at the time, but I think his valuations of what teachers of writing are doing in general are unnecessarily harsh and unfair, especially since the kind of teaching he's advocating for is extremely time-consuming and not quantifiable in the way that SACS and other accrediting boards would like for the work of college students to be; criticizing teaching without acknowledging the parameters within which teachers have to work is irritating to me as a reader.
I was also shocked once again when I got to his appendix essay. He spends some time talking about the academy as more tolerant of male voices and male scholarly styles while suggesting that female voices and scholarly approaches are valuable; Elbow follows that up with using a rape metaphor and a woman of loose morals metaphor a few pages later. 21 year old me circled that hot mess and wrote, "so this is the non-sexist language the believing game will use." 39 year old me would have led off with WTF, but I do not believe that term was in common parlance at the time.
So, if you teach writing, I highly recommend this book. Lots of useful stuff here to mine, but the occasional WTF moment rears its head throughout.
Most of what Elbow has to say I am completely on board with. But he's extremely skeptical and hostile toward teachers (in general but of writing in particular); over and over again, he accuses teachers of conflating themselves with God and of teaching in certain ways because they are easiest (as if teachers are inherently lazy) and of being disingenuous. I think some of this antipathy is probably coming out the political/social climate at the time, but I think his valuations of what teachers of writing are doing in general are unnecessarily harsh and unfair, especially since the kind of teaching he's advocating for is extremely time-consuming and not quantifiable in the way that SACS and other accrediting boards would like for the work of college students to be; criticizing teaching without acknowledging the parameters within which teachers have to work is irritating to me as a reader.
I was also shocked once again when I got to his appendix essay. He spends some time talking about the academy as more tolerant of male voices and male scholarly styles while suggesting that female voices and scholarly approaches are valuable; Elbow follows that up with using a rape metaphor and a woman of loose morals metaphor a few pages later. 21 year old me circled that hot mess and wrote, "so this is the non-sexist language the believing game will use." 39 year old me would have led off with WTF, but I do not believe that term was in common parlance at the time.
So, if you teach writing, I highly recommend this book. Lots of useful stuff here to mine, but the occasional WTF moment rears its head throughout.
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