Pedestrian View

Part of my sabbatical plan was also to read Peter Elbow’s cookbook, which my brother Karl told me years ago was the best book about writing he ever read. Granted, it may have been the only book about writing he ever read, but he was an English major before he went to seminary, so maybe he read others. It is a good book. I’m thinking about having my students buy it.

Did I say cookbook? I did, and that’s Elbow’s own metaphor for what he’s written here. Sitting down to read it straight through is a little like sitting down to read…

a cookbook.

As much as the reading could be tedious, I really like Elbow’s advice to writers. I’ve tried out a few recipes. They’re practical, various, and never the last word. Like he says in the end, “The precondition for writing well is being able to write badly and to write when you’re not in the mood,” (373) (which is my mood right now, but look at me go). Just sit down and write, ya morons!

He says a lot more, so here’s a smattering:

on Power

• Power means the power to make a difference, to make a dent. (280)
• “you want the power of the Ancient Mariner to transfix readers and make them hear what they don’t want to hear and give them an experience they didn’t set out to have” (280)

on Meaning

• Meanings are in readers, not in words”You must walk up to readers and say, “�Let’s go for a ride. You pedal. I’ll steer.”? (315)

on Motivation

• We are often told to drive defensively; assume that there’s a driver you don’t notice who is careless or drunk and my kill you. Good advice for driving, but not for writing. (xix)
• How can I get myself to put in the daunting time and effort I need for more consistent good results? The answer, I think, is to cheat — to look for pleasure and shortcuts. (xxi)

on separating Creation from Criticism

• Writing calls on two skills that are so different that they usually conflict with each other: creating and criticizing. (7)
• I’m arguing that we can make a better plan if we plan for nonplanning; we can write better if we build in periods where we remove goals from our mind; we can meet the needs of readers better if we sometimes put readers of out mind — especially at early stages. (xii)

on freewriting (Creation)

• The goal of freewriting is in the process, not the product. (13)
• Write fast”.If you can’t say it the way you want to say it, say it the wrong way. (27)
• Who hasn’t had the dismal experience”of sitting there trying to transform one uninteresting thought into an architecture of Roman numerals, capital letters, Arabic numerals, and small letters. (40)
• …don’t be held back by lack of data. You are mind stretching, not trying to be sure. (80)

on revision (Criticism)

• You shouldn’t start revising till you have more good stuff than you can use. (10)
• Now you should read through this draft as a reader. The best way to do this is to read your draft out loud” (36)
• When it comes to words, ideas, feelings, and insights, there is plenty more where that came from. The more you use and throw away, the more you have available. (126)

on Grammar and Usage

• I hate following rules. Nevertheless, the important question is not “Should I follow rules?”? The important question is, “Do these rules help me write?”? (xxvi)

on Argument

• Try hard to find good arguments for your position, but then try even harder to find arguments to refute yours. (201)
• The best you can hope for — and it is hoping for a great deal — is to get your readers just to understand your point of view even while not changing theirs in the slightest. (203)

on Audience

• Teachers are not the real audience. You don’t write to teachers, you write for them. (220)

on Feedback

• When you get conflicting reactions, block your impulse to figure out which reactions are right. Eat like an owl; take in everything and trust your innards to digest what’s useful and discard what’s not. (264)

on Voice

• “the attainment of real voice is a matter of growth and development rather than mere learning. (302)

Perhaps he says it best in his final chapter about the intangible magic of the written word when he writes, “Use the truth whenever possible. Real events. Real names. In addition, however, practice lying whenever possible.” (370)

Any questions?

Sherman Alexie is probably most famous for writing the screenplay to Smoke Signals back in 1998. Since then, he’s been doing some other things, like competing in the World Heavyweight Poetry Bout and doing stand up comedy. But 2007 saw a novel burst. He published both Flight and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

What surprised me was this. I had heard that one of these two was billed as “a book for young adults, ” and when I picked up Flight I assumed this was it. I teach an Adolescent Literature course, so I was interested in possibility including it in the course.

The narrator is a fifteen-year-old in-and-out-of-the-system orphan who calls himself Zits. Native Catcher in the Rye immediately came to mind and I read the whole thing never doubting that this was the “young adult” novel. Never mind that it’s full of excruciatingly graphic violence and more F-bombs than the Sopranos, I’d still call it an adolescent novel, so I’m interested to know what True Diary is like.

It’s a fast read – I read it in one day’s time – but ultimately not a great novel. It’s got good moments, like the joy of Zits finally meeting someone who cares enough to help him with skin care products, but ultimately it’s a “message” novel. Each scene is designed to teach a lesson about the human experience, and at the end, both we and Zits are better people. I’m all for saving the world one reader at a time, but great novels are never like this. They make us think and wrestle with issues that matter, but they never preach.

Ultimately, Alexie is preaching here. That’s a No to including it in my course.

Jane Maher’s biography of Shaughnessy is my second sabbatical read (one academic book of the month club), and I finished it right on schedule yesterday (thank heavens for leap day!). Back when I was planning my sabbatical over a year ago, I wanted to reconnect with the passion of my graduate school experience, and while I remember Shaughnessy as being one of the giants of Comp and Rhetoric, I didn’t remember much more than that. Now I know a lot more about her, and I don’t think I could have selected a better text for recharging my commitment to empowering open enrollment students to become writers. High minded drivel, yes, but I like it.

What I like best about Maher’s book is that, while it’s a biography, the “work” part of her title is more than apt. She concentrates as much on Shaughnessy’s work and ideas as she does Shaughnessy’s life. Both are powerful. Both renew my faith in the nobility of what writing instructors – particularly developmental writing instructors – are trying to do. After reading Paulo Friere, I don’t think I could have done better than Shaughnessy. I plan to read her 1977 classic Errors and Expectati0ns when I can squeeze it in, probably this summer.

The book is primarily the story of Shaughnessy’s leadership in CUNY’s Open Admissions program in the early 1970s. In 1970, CUNY granted tuition-free admission to any graduate of the New York City Public School system. The move was unprecedented and controversial, and was essentially abandoned after five years, though pieces of it remain everywhere, especially where I teach – in an open enrollment community college. A writing instructor, Shaughnessy fervently believed in the ability of under prepared students to be successful in academia when almost no one else would.

One of her battles was with the established English faculty, whose belief was that Open Admission dragged down the entire institution – the lofty Ivory Tower. In her 1975 address to the the MLA in San Francisco entitled “Diving In,” she focuses on the development of writing instructors as follows:

Developmental scale of Basic Writing teachers (pp. 162-63)

1. Guarding the Tower: protecting the academy from”�those who do not seem to belong in the community of learners.
2. Converting the Natives: learning is thought of”�as a steady flow of truth into a void. “�it does not occur to [the teacher] to consider the competing logics and values and habits that may be influencing students, often in ways that they themselves are unaware of.
3. Sounding the Depths: it finally occurs to the teacher that the things he or she is trying to teach the students”�only appear simple to those who already know them”�that sense and nonsense of written English must often collide with spoken English that has been serving students in their negotiations with the world for many years.
4. Diving In: the teacher”�must now make a decision that demands professional courage — the decision to remediate himself, to become a student of new disciplines and of his students themselves in order to perceive both their difficulties and their incipient excellence.

I like to think that at some point soon I’ll be diving in.

Shaughnessy grew up a Lutheran from western South Dakota, where I have similar roots, so it was also easy to connect with her spiritual struggles and family commitments, too. Tall, beautiful, and a self described “clothes horse,” Maher notes often how everyone around Shaughnessy was in love with her. I’m in love with her, too.

Do you think there’s something wrong with being in love with a dead woman at least half a century my senior? I’ll ask Sherry. She’ll know.