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 "cooking:" 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.

In this new edition of his popular book, well-known advocate of innovative teaching methods Peter Elbow outlines a practical program for learning how to write.

Reflects on the idea that if there were no teachers, no one would educate and engage children and all knowledge would be lost.

A writing guide for the twenty-first century, Vernacular Eloquence explores how the variety of ways the spoken word can enhance the written word, drawing on examples from blogs, email, and other recent trends.

Writing & Rhetoric Book 1: Fable Teacher's Edition includes the comlete studetn text, as well as answer keys, teacher's notes, and explanations. For every writing assignment, this edition also supplies descriptions and examples of waht excellentstudent writing should look like, providing the teacher with meaningful and concrete guidance."

A classic handbook for anyone who needs to write, Writing With Power speaks to everyone who has wrestled with words while seeking to gain power with them. Here, Peter Elbow emphasizes that the essential activities underlying good writing and the essential exercises promoting it are really not difficult at all. Employing a cookbook approach, Elbow provides the reader (and writer) with various recipes: for getting words down on paper, for revising, for dealing with an audience, for getting feedback on a piece of writing, and still other recipes for approaching the mystery of power in writing. In a new introduction, he offers his reflections on the original edition, discusses the responses from people who have followed his techniques, how his methods may differ from other processes, and how his original topics are still pertinent to today's writer. By taking risks and embracing mistakes, Elbow hopes the writer may somehow find a hold on the creative process and be able to heighten two mentalities--the production of writing and the revision of it. From students and teachers to novelists and poets, Writing with Power reminds us that we can celebrate the uses of mystery, chaos, nonplanning, and magic, while achieving analysis, conscious control, explicitness, and care in whatever it is we set down on paper.

The new edition of this popular collection of essays on the teaching of college composition remains the most up-to-date and inclusive book in its field. In this edition, two-thirds of the essays are new and the book has been reorganized into ten sections, each on a topic typically covered in courses. Bibliographies at the end of every section and a revised list of books on writing and the teaching of writing offer suggestions for important related reading. Gathering some of the most intellectually exciting and pedagogically sound articles currently published, this book is an indispensable reference for beginning and experienced teachers alike.

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.