Blog…what kind of word is blog anyway?

1st Paper (final version)

Victoria Wilson

September 21, 2008

Allen

My creative writing teacher was an ex-criminal defense lawyer named Mark. When I walked into his classroom I expected a class based on the technical aspects of writing. Instead of stifling my creativity he helped rejuvenate my writing and to this day some of my best poems and novels came from that class. After reading Elbow and Bartholomae’s arguments on the teacher’s role in classrooms and the ownership of writing as well as the place of the reader I look back on Mark’s classroom and wonder why it worked so well for me and many of my peers.

Mark began class with something akin to a free write. He would give us a prompt, the word red or the subject of fear, and we would write something on that prompt. We didn’t have to write on the prompt it was just for people who needed a jumping off point. I personally found it helpful and was amazed at how different my writing on “fear” was from my classmates’. The writing could be the beginning of a story, an essay on..., or a poem. How it ended up was how it ended up. He did not follow the guidelines for Elbow’s free write but looking back I see the parallels. Elbow had strict rules for his free write. For one, if a free write was going to happen in Elbow's classroom he would express that no revision was to be made. Also, if you couldn’t think of anything to write you could just write "I can’t think of anything to write" over and over again to get the thought process going. In Mark's classroom we were given no such instructions. While he did explain Elbow's method we were not required to use it. Our times varied and I for one preferred to think carefully about my writing. The addition of "nonsense words" would be irritating to me, and a waste of time. The use of revision, I felt, only lead my writing to a higher quality. I found this practice to be extremely helpful. People are influenced by things that happen to them. If I had slept through my alarm and my hair was a mess that day then I wouldn’t be thinking about writing I’d be thinking about my hair, or how hungry I was, or tired. What I wouldn’t be thinking of was writing. Any writing that I produced would happen with an effort. Doing this at the beginning of class helped to focus my brain on writing. In the end, Mark's version of the free write and Elbow's reached the same end with slightly different methods.

After this we would read some writings from authors. We would read peer’s pieces but we would also read classic texts and modern authors of various genre’s. Students that were in bands would sometimes bring in music from that band or artists would bring in paintings and we would talk about them or write about them. This was a different type of prompt entirely. We weren’t writing about whatever popped in our heads first. We were able to, instead, write on something outside of ourselves. This helped us to place our own writings against those of established authors as well as the works of our peers. It also helped to expand our writing skills. There were some people in that class for an easy “A” but they left it with at least some appreciation for writing.

The class was very open to discussion and students were encouraged to share their pieces. In high school I had social anxiety and I could not bring myself to read my pieces out loud. When a student wished to submit a piece of writing for class discussion they would wait after class and speak to Mark. If you asked him to, he would read your piece, anonymously submitted, to the class and the class would talk about it. This in a sense took the author out of the equation. The writing almost then became the property of the classroom. In this setting I was able to listen to the compliments and critiques of my writing based solely on the quality of my writing, not influenced by my classmates’ perception of me. This brings up one of the things that Elbow and Bartholomae have been arguing about, ownership of the writing. In this case I, the author, took myself out of the equation and gave the writing over to my classmate's interpretation. While I don't claim to know who is right in this argument, I do know that this worked for me in a classroom setting.

What strikes me about Mark’s classroom is that it seems largely influenced by Elbow’s teachings, however Mark stayed the authority in the classroom the entire time. We students knew that he was the teacher and we were the students, that isn’t to say he never learned anything from us. A lot of the time he would do the assignments with us and read his own work aloud. He would lead the class discussions and while the class was very diplomatic, he was the authority. Even though it was a creative writing class there were guidelines and goals set by the teacher. Also, a certain amount of time was set aside for the specifics of writing, the grammar and mechanics of it. We also had several discussions on the use of voice in academic writing. He would tell us that just because we were writing for an academic audience, it did not mean that audience did not wish to be entertained. A belief that I have found helpful in many aspects of my college experience from “College Research Paper” to “Creative Writing: Poetry”. Even if a teacher is waxing “anti-voice” or “don’t add your opinion” I still find a way to make the writing entertaining, adding personality without opinion or the use of “I”. I also find this nets me a better grade.

In conclusion, I think that it is necessary for a teacher to be the authority in a classroom. Someone has to set the guidelines, be the motivation. Also, students are not like migratory birds with a route already engraved into their heads at birth. There needs to be a knowledgeable someone there to guide. As a student and future teacher I find it necessary to conclude that a teachers role in a classroom is to facilitate a classroom that is conducive to writing both academic and creative writing because students will encounter both in the academic world with or without an English major. This being said I still believe that a classroom should be an open area that allows students to write in the ways in which they wish to write. Mark’s loose writing prompt at the beginning of class allowed for this to come in to play. Exposing us to other writings and art forms enabled us to get a feel for the place our writing might have in the world, and his emphasis on voice as well as grammar and structure helped to prepare students like myself for writing in an academic community and for self. I guess this is an argument for balance in the classroom. Balance between the academic and the creative. After all, why cant we all just get along?