pink elephant

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Writing in the Classroom: Authority vs. Creative Writing

Peter Elbow has taught students who wish to become stronger writers, to simply open your mind and write whatever comes to mind; thoughts, dreams, concerns, rants, etc., this often being referred to as freewrite or freewriting. Elbow stresses his concern about the academic discourse arguing from his past of how he struggled with writing for teachers. He strongly believes having a classroom without a teacher authority will “help you actually generate words better – more freely, lucidly, and powerfully” and “help you improve your ability to make your own judgment about which parts of your writing to keep and which parts to throw away” (vii – viii). David Bartholomae favors writing for the academy, following specific structure and form. Writing like the reader, Bartholomae believes in using “academic writing as a key term in the study of writing and the practice of instruction” (“Writing with Teachers,” 63).

Both sides of the argument agree that the two are completely different, that writers who follow the free writing exercise tend to write outside the boundary of any conventional rules and that academic writers are influenced by authorial concepts. Each idea with a different criteria, beliefs and authority in the classroom. Obviously there are two different ways of teaching and whether you write with or without a teacher influence the idea of the teacher doing the teaching influences the student.

Students who walk into a classroom, walk into the politics of the teacher and depending on whether or not that teacher follows creative writing or writing for the academy, that student follows and writes under that specific environment. Writing classes from grade school to high school differ in the use of writing techniques, one class may favor the teachings of Elbow or the authority of Bartholomae.

A writing teacher in mid-school always taught that writing a good introduction and a good conclusion, meant the rest of the paper didn’t really matter. She always claimed that her college professors never read the entire paper. As long as you wrote an excellent, attention grabber introduction then there was no real need to “write your heart out” for the rest of the paper. As I got to high school I followed a certain formatted structure. We were given worksheets that left spaces for a thesis, conclusion and transition sentences. This was suppose to be the basis of the paper, I would spend days trying to come up with a good thesis and transition sentences. When the final paper was written the transitions never worked and the thesis was always changed.

Another writing teacher stressed grammar. Each day students were given paragraphs to edit and the majority of the class was spent talking out each sentence written in the paragraph. When it came time to actual writing papers, as long as you used correct grammar, the over all structure of the paper made no real difference. As a student reaches college they are expected to already know how to follow and write a formal paper. College Composition stresses following only the MLA format and how the use of citation is used correctly, working on strengthening your writing is not always taught, the class is spent practicing analytical, comparative, and research papers.

The debate of whether teaching creative writing or academic writing all depends on who teaches in the classroom. The students become exposed to both sides and learn to become writers of both sides. In the end the student may decide which writing approach fits them best and whether or not that particular writing style helps the student become a better and stronger writer.