Peter Elbow Notes
Elbow turned his scattered notes into his first book: Writing Without Teachers.

Learning From Failure
Keep Notes/Journal about your writing process.
1. Abandon the old theory/planning process.
2. Don't begin with an outline.
3. Need to make a mess--begin with chaos.
4. "Go somewhere"--give yourself permission to just go foraging ahead/rambling on.
5. Free Write--though extra words, you will end up saving time.

Creating and Criticizing
2 Processes (to be completed one at a time)
1. Creative/Generative--Opening the doors by making a mess, invting maximum amount of thinking/input.
2. Clenching/Critical/Logical--Organizing mode

a. Start Writing
b. Keep Writing
c. Don't Stop Writing

Sowing Early Seeds
1. Jot down all ideas throughout the day.
2. Keep a notebook with you at all times.
3. Get short pieces of writing done early before drafting.
4. Free Write

A Voyage Into the Unknown

Free Writing
1. Invites surprise/the unexpected
2. Leads to experiences of discovery
3. Best parts come after 10 or 15 minutes. You run out of what's on your mind after 5 minutes, the rest of the time is discovery.

An Audience
1. Most important thing to consider
2. Precious to a writer--to have someone who will listen/understand will improve your writing.

3 Types of Audiences Needed (With all 3, your writing will improve.)
1. Authority Readers (Teachers/Editors who evaluate--Problem: We tend to only write to the teacher. That audience is too narrow.)
2. Peer Readers (Needed: Things are different when you write for peers.)
3. Ally Readers (Friends: Readers who care about you are supportive.)

4 Kinds of Audience Responses (From safety to risk. You don't learn well unless you take risks.)

1. Private writing
Journals/Diaries
Explore feelings/thinking
It's important to be able to pursue a topic even if no one else is interested in it.
It's a skill to learn to talk to yourself on paper.

2. Shared Writing but No Response
Work read out loud (as a gift to the audience)
Only response is a "Thank you"
No Evaluation or response of any kind.

This is the way most of the world functions (Books, Newspapers)
Words go out/readers read them/good bye
That's the way the world works.

3. Response but no Evaluation
Tell me, what's this essay/story about when you read it?
What do you see as my point?
What's important to you about my writing?
What else about this topic could I include?
Do you have any other thoughts?

4. Evaluative Feedback/Full Evaluation
Not a problem if you are writing for other reasons/audiences as well.
Of course, you eventually want to know how well you did--how you can improve.

Revising
1. Hardest part of the writing process
2. Takes more time than generating material/ideas.
3. Secret--you need a lot of good material at the beginning so that you can throw away everything but the best.
4. As you revise, new thoughts will arise.

Voice and Power
1. Struggle with writing--a feeling of a loss of power.
2. Many people feel helpless when they try to write.

Writing Across the Curriculum (Establishing your own voice)
Using your own voice/language/words
1. You feel more in control
2. It feels more like you.
3. Quality of language
4. Have the courage to use your own voice.
5. Even in formal papers/tight format.

Revising for Formality (It is a simple process.)
1. Forget about the constraints
2. Write the way you want about the topic.
3. Once ideas are down on paper, change structure/organization to fit the tighter format (even recasting).
4. Writing twice is still faster and better than once the old way. The result: Your voice is still present!

Grammar and Spelling
1. Most Important Skill
2. Learn how to get the help you need because mistakes will preoccupy a reader.
3. Mistakes will make the reader doubt the writer. As a result, the reader will tune out.

Least Important Skill
From a psychological standpoint during the writing process, crucial skill to learn to be able to
tune out grammar/spelling problems/questions at the chaos stage of the writing process.

Mediums of Writing
1. Computers lend themselves to premature editing.
2. Use whatever method helps you to get the words down fast and often.

Writing for Life (Welcomes perplexity)
1. Learn how to use writing as a way to help you solve life's problems/perplexities.
2. Use true writing to deal with perplexity.