Review Essays 199. Writing with Peter. Amy S. Gerald

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1 Review Essays 199 Writing with Peter Amy S. Gerald Everyone Can Write and Writing With Elbow appear at the end of Peter Elbow's long career in the academy (although I suspect that while he has retired from the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, he is still busy teaching and learning). Everyone Can Write, the 2002 winner of the James N. Britton Award from the Conference on English Education, is a collection of many of Elbow' s essays since Embracing Contraries (1986). The introductory pieces are new, most essays have been revised, and the sections called "fragments" contain bits and pieces of writing on specific subjects. Everyone Can Write, then, seems like the expected publishing strategy for someone as productive as Elbow, as it contains many influential essays published in various academic journals that ought to be pulled together, for accessibility if nothing else. But it also seems to be Elbow's attempt to pull together his considerable thinking on writing in an effort to set the record straight, for his audience, fans and critics, but also for himself. His awareness of his reputation, his consistency and coherence of argument, and the structure ofthe book itself show this working out of issues and the need to address misconceptions about his philosophy of writing. Writing With Elbow, a diverse collection of new essays about Peter Elbow, reinforces Everyone Can Write by recognizing and deflating shortsighted misrepresentations of "Peter Elbow" in the field. Writing With Elbow is a tribute of sorts by Elbow's colleagues, friends, and former students, but it is not a sentimental lovefest-the essays are both a recognition of his influence and a wrestling with his theories. Ranging from theoretical critique to personal reflection, these essays inform and complicate our picture of Peter Elbow and our conception of his ideas. In Everyone Can Write Peter Elbow is acutely aware of his reputation in the field as the representative expressivist and individualist: "It's probably fair to say that by the late' 80' s, I was seen as a prime exemplar of a theory and philosophy of writing judged to be suspect or even wrongheaded by most of the dominant scholars in the important scholarly journals" (xvi). With this in mind, Elbow wrote the essays in this collection with knowledge of a hostile audience. As a result, he now notices in these essays "a kind of double rhetoric" with which he fights

2 200 jac for the neglected side of an issue in order to achieve balance, not to eliminate the opposition (xvii). This arguingforrather than against is the nonrefutational form of academic discourse that Elbow feels best suits the diverse and multidisciplinary field(s) of composition and rhetoric. He carries through the collection this approach to persuasion in order "to encourage a more welcoming conversation in the field of composition and rhetoric and a more inclusive community" (xxiii). Such a shift in the model of academic discourse seems needed in order to move beyond intellectual impasses toward productive inquiry. In the tradition of Embracing Contraries, Elbow continues to embrace dichotomies in composition all the while arguing for the little-used practices and theories of freewriting and other low-stakes writing, private writing, portfolios, and minimal holistic scoring. But more than that, he presents himself as someone who wants to clarify his philosophy at the end of his teaching career, to show that he does value the social nature of learning, for instance. He seems at pains to show that he does and has genuinely understood and incorporated collaboration in his teaching and his theory. He writes, "Indeed, it helps enormously to work with othersactually writing companionably together with them (with tea and cookie breaks), and sharing and responding to each others' writing in an atmosphere of trust and support. We can come to experience writing as a social, almost communal activity, rather than essentially lonely" (xv). Imagine readers who think they know Peter Elbow as romantic isolationistreading the above passage, which is presented in the introduction as an integral part of his vision. Consistently in many if not most of his essays, Elbow is sure to clarify that he is not arguing for the exclusion one idea over another, only for a balance of binaries: "Let me repeat, that I've made no negative arguments about teaching academic discourse, only positive arguments for teaching something else in addition. The case for teaching academic discourse is usually an argument from practicality, and I insist that it's just as practical to teach other kinds of discourse... " (238). This insistence on clarity distinguishes this collection, and as a result it is a considerable resource for understanding his main ideas and approaches to discussing these ideas. As he says in his introduction, "I have selected among essays and parts of essays, and done some rewriting of what I've chosen, in order to get them to work together more coherently in a single book. Most of all, everything here is driven by a single vision of writing that I've summed up bluntly in my title: everyone can write" (xiv). The introduction in particular lays out his philosophy and makes it accessible; the sections and essays then further emphasize his ideology and draw out

3 Review Essays 201 the particulars. Everyone Can Write helps us gain a more thorough understanding of Elbow's growth as a thinker and writer. It is also an excellent source for those composition teachers and graduate students who have only a superficial knowledge of Elbow, and have the mistaken notion that they "know" Elbow. Wendy Bishop says in "My Favorite Balancing Act," her contribution to Writing With Elbow, "[Peter Elbow] can worry an idea to death and just when you want to say, drop, or bury that bone, he'll have run to the far side of the yard and picked up another artifact of intense interest and take you (or at least me) along with him" (251). This effort to explain his thinking by turning an issue over and over, both for his readers and I think for himself, characterizes especially the structure of Everyone Can Write where sections of four or five essays are devoted to single issues in composition studies such as freewriting, voice, and assessment. As a result, repetition among the essays within each section is inevitable, but Elbow presents his stance in each essay to varying audiences or from a different entry point. As a result readers can see the consistency as well as the complexity of his thought. His introductions to those sections guide us through his thinking, always using the critic's voice (set apart in a contrasting font) to answer to, a rhetorical choice that underscores his desire to respond to false or generalized assumptions about his thinking. For instance, the introduction to his section on "The Generative Dimension" begins with a generic critic saying, "Peter, why are you so hung up with writing as mystery-as though the writer must emulate God and create ex nihilo, and singlehandedly?... Why won't you accept writing as a matter of skill, rationality, and craft, rather than as playing God or jumping into the unknown? Not everyone is a romantic you know." To which Peter directly answers, "I guess my preoccupation with writing as mystery comes from my formative experience with writing: I had skill, rationality, and craft, and yet I still found myself unable to do it." After answering his critic, he then explains the notion of mystery in writing and the label romantic, coming around to the point that he is "trying to bring conscious craft, planning, and control to bear on the mystery of writing. I think we can get better at learning to control our generative process" (82). He then writes about the process movement as an effort to understand how people learn as they compose and introduces three principles for generating words implicit in freewriting: inviting chaos, ignoring the audience, and consulting felt sense, maintaining that if we embrace these principles while freewriting, we generate more ideas, which can then become more focused and conscious. Essays such as "Freewriting and the

4 202 jac Problem of Wheat and Tares" and "Closing My Eyes as I Speak" follow to further explain and support the argument for freewriting. The other sections operate similarly, serving to sometimes even over clarify his thinking on audience, binary thinking, voice, academic and private discourse, teaching, evaluation, and grading. Readers will find awardwinning essays such as "The War Between Reading and Writing-and How to End It" and "The Shifting Relationships Between Speech and Writing," a new essay "A Map of Writing in Terms of Audience and Response" and experimental collages such as "Your Cheatin' Art." Despite some overlap and repetition, this collection is a good resource for understanding where Elbow stands at the turn ofthe century, after much publication and much consideration and answering of critiques. This is how Elbow's thought has evolved both under scrutiny from critics and with support from teachers and thinkers such as those who have contributed to Writing With Elbow. Everyone Can Write has made me vow to use more low-stakes writing in my composition courses and to consider minimal and multiple trait scoring. It has also clarified my formerly muddied understanding of the concept of voice. And perhaps most Elbow-like, it has bolstered my attitude toward teaching, particularly this passage: "As teachers we can empower our students. We can help them like to write. We can help them trust themselves, work with others, find voices, and be more forceful and articulate in using writing in their lives. We can help make their school experience liberating rather than deadening or oppressive. Indeed, we can help students be better people and help make a more just society" (xv). Summing up his title and his work as a whole, this passage represents a truly hopeful theory of writing and teaching of writing and one that! think all readers can find inspiring. While Elbow points out specific essays for general readers as well as "teachers resistant to exploration oftheory," he says that he is "speaking to teachers of writing and members of the academic field of composition or writing" (xiii). He is interested in laying out his theory and wants this audience to engage them. As Wendy Bishop points out in Writing With Elbow, he invites theoretical criticism: But now, in writing this introduction, I am looking for people in the field of composition and rhetoric to engage me at the theoretical level too. In twenty-five years, I don't know anyone who has ever really done so despite an incredible flowering of theory, much of it epistemological, and despite plenty of criticism of me... I don't know anyone in my field who

Review Essays 203 has actually engaged the substance of the argument about the epistemological strengths of the doubting and believing games. (250).

5 Review Essays 203 has actually engaged the substance of the argument about the epistemological strengths of the doubting and believing games. (250). Writing With Elbow certainly answers this call, with two full essays and parts of others devoted to critiquing his doubting and believing theory. In addition, several essays critique, respond to, or build from other contraries such as writing with and without teachers, academic and personal writing, and testing and teaching. Writing With Elbow complements Everyone Can Write to the extent that its contributors understand that this figure "Peter Elbow" is often labeled and pigeonholed "as the arch incarnation of expressivism when that is a title he would not claim for himself' (Bishop 243). Several contributors attribute this reputation to "a cursory reading of some of his work" (papoulis 161) or "a presumed knowledge about his work [rather than] actual study of the work itself' (Ronald and Roskelly 211). Each essay provides a picture of each contributor's "Elbow" in widely diverse ways, quite often arguing against or complicating notions of Elbow as expressivist and romantic. For instance, Keith Hjortshoj in "Dissolving Contraries" notes that when James Berlin labeled Elbow expressivist in "Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class," it was after the publication of Writing Without Teachers and Writing With Power, neither of which contain much language about writing as self-expression or personal growth. Further defending Elbow, Hjortshoj says, "In Writing Without Teachers there is very little sense of the writer as a unique individual,... "leaving us to wonder how the label stuck (151). In effect, some contributors to this collection take on the same goal that seems to drive Everyone Can Write, to clarify Elbow. There are standard academic essays by Richard Boyd ("Writing Without Teachers, Writing Against the Past?") and Elizabeth Flynn ("Elbow's Radical and Postmodem Politics") that directly confront charges of Elbow as apolitical and conservative, historicizing Elbow's contribution and revaluing especially his work as politically radical. Other contributors present their own picture of "Peter Elbow," admiringly, but always questioning intelligently and interestingly complicating our notion of who he is, how his ideas are understood in the field, and how his work has informed our teaching and thinking. Not all essays are entirely complimentary, such as C.H. Knoblauch and Lil Brannon's "Pedagogy For the Bamboozled," which is critical of Elbow's stance against U.S. writing teachers' uses or misuses of Freire, maintaining that Freire intended his principles to be adapted to different

204 jac contexts and that if u.s. teachers' use of Freire's principles result in students who develop the habit of questioning the structures around them, then the seeds for productive change are planted.

6 204 jac contexts and that if u.s. teachers' use of Freire's principles result in students who develop the habit of questioning the structures around them, then the seeds for productive change are planted. Also Elizabeth Sargent's "Believing is not a Game: Elbow's Uneasy Debt to Michael Polanyi" investigates Elbow's misreading ofpolanyi and parting from Polanyi's views of doubting and believing. There are personal reflections on how Elbow has affected contributors' teaching, writing, and learning, and this collection echoes his collection in the inclusion of more experimental academic forms, such as the collage. Essays sometimes speak to each other and contradict each other; for instance, Kathleen Blake Yancey's collage views him as an assessment expert, whereas Edward White says, "His arguments are not taken seriously by the assessment community" but are lauded by the teachers doing the assessing (188, 52). In most cases, these pieces address Elbow's theories, engaging specific articles in order to question or explain, which provides professors and students of composition theory the opportunity to pair such pieces from Writing With Elbow with Elbow's original articles. Such comparisons reinforce, complicate, broaden, and deepen our understanding of Elbow' s thought, methods, and character. My own reading of Elbow both for this review and for other proj ects shows that his writings are blatantly absent of acknowledgment of gender differences in learning, but his practices, particularly as described in this collection, are curiously in sync with some feminist composition pedagogies. As a feminist compositionist, I am interested in Irene Papoulis' linking of Elbow, s work and feminism with regard to his use of and attitude toward the personal. In "Pleasure, Politics, Fear, and the Field of Composition" she writes, "Implied in Peter's work is the old feminist dictum that 'the personal is political, ' and, to me, his methods too are feminist in nature, in that they honor some of the traits and values traditionally associated with women, like listening, nurturing, and attending to feelings" (170). In addition, Elizabeth Flynn's "Elbow's Radical and Postmodem Politics" situates Elbow's work at different points in his career in relation to both feminist expressivism and postmodem feminism, both of which embrace the use of the personal in writing. Dedicated to publishing a collection inclusive of personal discourses, the editors are to be applauded for withdrawing the manuscript from a publisher who wanted to cut everything but the formally academic essays, "especially the pieces that concerned classroom practice." They continue, "How, we asked, can a collection of responses to Peter Elbow's work not include writing by teachers about classroom practice?" (xii).

Review Essays 205 Described in this book as plate-spinner, gadfly, superhero, radical, colleague, teacher, friend, opponent, visionary, icon, and "demi-god," Peter Elbow is said by the editors to

7 Review Essays 205 Described in this book as plate-spinner, gadfly, superhero, radical, colleague, teacher, friend, opponent, visionary, icon, and "demi-god," Peter Elbow is said by the editors to possibly be "the only composition theorist we know with what amounts to a core of academic groupies, all wanting to meet him, all wanting to know him" (xi). Writing With Elbow, lovingly done, makes the point that those who do know him, and by implication those who read this collection, have been and continue to be guided and challenged by his thinking. If Elbow has been out offashion in composition studies since the 1980s as he supposes, how do we explain his staying power-his steady influence throughout the 1980s and 1990s on the students and colleagues he has touched personally as well as on the field as a whole? Whether or not we always agree with his philosophy, the field has changed at least in part due to Elbow's writing, teaching, and practice. Writing With Elbow corroborates that his methods work, that his thought is complex, and that his character is sincere. It is fun to read-a pleasure to hear the different voices and discourses, the different applications of Elbow's theories to practice, and the ways contributors have been influenced by Elbow and have built their pedagogies from aspects of his teaching. Its structure echoes Elbow's recognition in Everyone Can Write of the field of composition as multi-disciplined and many-voiced. Reading either or both collections will deepen and broaden our understanding of Peter Elbow, revealing his ideas to be more relevant to teaching writing today than I think anyone supposes. Far from sentimentalizing an icon, Writing With Teachers values and engages Elbow's theory and practice, answering his call from Everyone Can Write. We can see his arguments for what they are-for valuing the ignored aspects of writing and for not excluding the long valued aspects-helping writing teachers form a more balanced, fruitful composition pedagogy. University of North Carolina Greensboro, North Carolina Works Cited Belanoff, Pat, et ai., eds. Writing With Elbow. Logan: Utah State UP, Elbow, Peter. Everyone Can Write: Essays Toward a Hopeful Theory of Writing and Teaching Writing. New York: Oxford UP, 2000.

Writing with Elbow, edited by Pat Belanoff, Marcia Dickson, Sheryl I. Fontaine, and Charles Moran. Logan, UT: Utah State UP, 2002.

Book Reviews Writing with Elbow, edited by Pat Belanoff, Marcia Dickson, Sheryl I. Fontaine, and Charles Moran. Logan, UT: Utah State UP, 2002. Reviewed by Ruth Mirtz, Ferris State University One reason