Creative Thoughts

Paper #1 -Final Draft

Creatively Academic

Manuel Puig once said, “What's better, a poetic intuition or an intellectual work? I think they complement each other.”

Learn the rules; follow the rules; break the rules.  This seems to be the format in which all individuals are taught to write.  As the student’s writing matures, some writers continue the David Bartholomae route of their writing life on the structured paper; a thesis, 1^st paragraph, explanation, 2^nd paragraph, explanation, and so on and so on.  This is exactly how my academic writing started.  When I was in about 3^rd grade, my teacher gave me a sheet that had a compete outline of how to write a “good” paper.  At the top of the paper was a text box for the thesis statement.  Next text box down was for the introduction paragraph.  From the introduction it moved into the 1^st meaningful paragraph, followed by an explanatory text box.  Time those boxes by 3.  The very last text box was for my conclusion.  Up until my junior year in high school, the “structured, good paper” was how I wrote. 

            In my junior year of high school, I took a creative writing class.  I loved the idea of poems and this so called “freewriting”, but not once in my earlier Language Arts classes did I do such a thing.  On my first day of class my teacher, Mrs. Goldberg, told us that we were going to write the Elbow way. She put on music and said, “Write.” I had NO idea what she meant by that!  Who was Elbow?  What was his style?  Was I supposed to write the 8-paragraph structure that I had become accustomed to, or was I supposed to write anything that popped into my brain?  That was the first time I became acquainted with Peter Elbow and his technique of freewriting. 

            Just like the inner conflict that I had between my academic writing and my freewriting, there is an outward conflict that stands.  This is the conflict between the writer and the academic.  Can you be a writer and an academic at the same time?  What does it take to get there?  Is the reader going to understand the work of the writer?  Peter Elbow explains in Being a Writer vs. being an Academic that the conflict happens in the classroom.  “Sometimes I’ve felt a conflict about what we should read in the first year writing course.  It would seem as though in order to help the students seeing themselves as academics I should get them to read “key texts”: good published writing, important works of cultural or literary significance; strong and important works.  However if I want them to see themselves as writers, we should primarily publish and read their own writing” (Writer/Academic, 73).  Most writers believe that there is a thick line between the work of a “great” and the work of a college age student, but I believe there is a thin line; different kinds of writing work together.  I think that by reading the work of the so-called “greats”, you get a voice of your own.  This voice shows in any type of writing you do, whether it be academic or creative.  No matter if you write a biography on Jane Austen or what happened in your life yesterday, the piece is still your thoughts, your words.  Bartholomae states, “As I think about how to write, I know that my work will always begin with other people.  I work with other people’s words, even as I do my own work; other writers make my work possible…” (Against Grain, 19).   There would be no such thing as academic writing or creative writing if the two weren’t mixed together.

            The problem that I find with all of this is the way Elbow and Bartholomae agree to disagree.  They agree on the fact that when someone writes, their words are a mixture of everyone’s writing made into their own and that there is a difference between a pure academic writer and a semi-narcissistic creative writer.  They disagree on which form is better for the classroom.  Elbow believes that the “teacherless” freewriting creative classroom is the way an English class should run, and Bartholomae believes that the academic must have structure in writing in order for the reader to comprehend the work.  I agree with bits and pieces of both of them.  I agree with Elbow that the “teacherless” classroom will enhance the writing of the student, whether it is creative writing or academia.  When a teacher puts their writing out on the line for their students to critique and maybe criticize, it helps the student know that teachers are also struggling to find their own “nitch”.  I also agree with Bartholomae in his reasoning about when an audience is presented with written work, the structure of the paper helps the reader get through it easier.  My question to both of them is why can’t you have structured creative writing?  Yes, freewriting is a good way to get the mind flowing, but freewriting doesn’t follow a certain format, and thus is when you’ve lost the audience.  With structured writing slipped into creative writing, there is voice with a direction and purpose. 

            Learn the rules; follow the rules; break the rules.  A student must start with Bartholomae’s structured academia before they can write creatively, just like a bird has to grow in the nest a bit before it can learn to fly.   It is when the writing matures that flight occurs, and then the Elbows of the world throw in their form of academic discourse.  When the bird is finally on its own, it can then take both the Bartholomae structure and the Elbow freedom to write in way that I call good writing.  

            I feel a bit of nostalgia when I think about that creative writing class and what it did for my writing career.  It made me take my structured Bartholomae style of writing and USE it to think creatively while freewriting.  I believe that being an academic and a creative writer go hand in hand.  Find your voice and follow a direction, and you’ll never go wrong.