Everyone Can Write: Essays toward a Hopeful Theory of Writing and Teaching Writing

by Peter Elbow

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.

Genres: Writing, Teaching, Education, Nonfiction

499 pages, Paperback

First published January 27, 1999

About the author

Peter Henry Elbow was an American academic who was a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he also directed the Writing Program from 1996 until 2000.
As a scholar whose published work raised both academic and popular awareness of scholarship within the field of Rhetoric and Composition, Elbow’s research includes theory, practice, and pedagogy. He is one of the pioneers of freewriting.

Reviews

[Christine]

There are some nice ideas in here for the English Comp teachers. I just have a big thing about portfolios because they tend to enable students who can't write to pass on to college level writing.

Still glad I read it.

[Rosemarie]

Great reference book.

[Jerry Balzano]

Everything by Peter Elbow is amazing, in my opinion - thinker, writer, teacher. Get a hold of his essay on "The Believing Game" in either his book *Writing Without Teachers* or *Embracing Contraries*, and read it!

[Mackenzie]

It's a decent book to help understand how to motivate others to write. Some of his ideas, I feel, were good ideas to work in a perfect classroom environment or with mature individuals. However, I was hoping for more helpful suggestions for high school students.

[Patricia]

Practical and applicable theory for the writing classroom. Elbow is excellent.

[Heather]

Amazing book about how to teach and look at writing.