Peter Elbow the writer was a work in progress, and knowing his background is important to understanding how he came to be such a well-known name in composition theory. In the second edition intro to Writing Without Teachers, Elbow says that his interest in writing practices came from his own perceived inability to write. As a middle-class student growing up in New Jersey, Elbow felt that he was an average student who got good grades despite his lack of enthusiasm or involvement in his schoolwork. He performed well for praise and support. Elbow chose to attend Proctor Academy in New Hampshire for his final three years of high school. It was here that his English teacher, a first year teacher named Bob Fisher, inspired him to also want to be an English teacher .

At Williams College, where he attended from 1953-1957, Elbow decided he wanted to be an English professor, though he felt himself begin to struggle with the writing aspect of school. This was a trend that would last into his pursuit of his second degree, received in 1959, and beyond. With his mind made up to become a college professor, he began his Ph.D work at Harvard. He received unsatisfactory grades on his writing and, feeling inadequate, he dropped out in his second semester.

Elbow then began teaching, first at M.I.T from 1960-1963, and then as one of nine founding members of Franconia College from 1963-1965. It was at Franconia where Elbow discovered he could write more easily if he knew he was writing to colleagues or to students than to his own teachers .

In 1965 he returned to graduate school, this time at Brandeis University. Here he developed a self-analytical process of writing, mostly out of fear that he wouldn’t be able to write for teachers again. Elbow has said that the process of freewriting really came about during this time in his life. He would sit down with his typewriter and type out all his thoughts, making writing a sort of therapy. This helped him to get through the graduate level writing and when it came time for him to write his dissertation, he had many ideas, but ultimately settled on Chaucer. He would eventually make his dissertation book-length and publish it in 1975 under the title Oppositions in Chaucer .

After receiving his Ph.D, Elbow accepted a position at M.I.T in 1968, turning down an offer from Berkeley to remain in the Boston area for personal reasons. While sitting in his office one day in 1970, a representative from Oxford University Press came to show him some books that he might like to use in his classes. Then the representative asked Elbow if he was writing anything, Elbow replied that he’d thought about trying to write something to do with teacher-less writing groups, a concept he’d become interested in. Soon after, he had an advance to begin a book called Writing Without Tears, which would later become Writing Without Teachers. In the nearly 40 years since then, Elbow has penned more than 10 books, as well as numerous articles regarding writing technique and theory.

Freewriting is the technique that put Peter Elbow on the map. In it, Elbow suggests that writers time themselves, say for ten minutes. In these ten minutes (or whatever length of time is chosen), the writer writes as much as possible about his topic. When the writer gets stuck, Elbow says that he should keep writing: questions, observations, feelings, and so forth. If the writer goes off-topic, Elbow suggests he keeps writing until he finds his way back to the topic. Elbow also suggests that as a writer freewrites, he pays no mind to grammar, mechanics, or usage. These are not polished writings and the writer doesn’t need the added stress anxiety of trying to polish it in such a short amount of time. The purpose of a freewrite is that, in the end, a writer has hopefully been able to generate ideas. From these ideas, he may be able to pull a few lines to use, then, to start either another more focused freewrite or to use in his intended piece of writing.

Another of Elbow’s popular methods among English teachers is the Cut-and-Paste technique of revising. This is especially useful in organization. In this exercise, a writer takes a finished draft of a piece and uses scissors to cut it up. The cutting can be done at the paragraph, sentence, phrase, or word level, as well as some combination of all of these. After cutting up the writing, the writer then physically pastes or tapes the pieces back together, experimenting with different ways of organizing the paper so that it makes the most sense .

feedback techniques are also among Elbow’s practices. These techniques, presented in Writing With Power, are divided into two types: criterion-based and reader-based feedback. Criterion-based feedback judges the writing against standard criteria, such as content, usage, organization, and general effectiveness. This is the kind of feedback that most people are used to giving and receiving. What Elbow says is quite useful about criterion-based feedback is that it allows the writer to reflect on her or his own writing as he goes along. It also allows her or him to recognize common troubles he has in writing so that he can avoid them in the future. In Writing With Power, Elbow gives a catalogue of criterion-based questions. These questions all stem from the following essential questions:

While criterion-based feedback may seem obvious, it is the inclusion of reader-based feedback that makes this overall method fresh for teachers. Reader-based feedback lets the writer see how her or his writing makes her or his reader feel - a kind of feedback not generally provided by teachers. The list of detailed questions Elbow provides for reader-based feedback follow from the following essential questions:

This method of Elbow’s is useful in classrooms to get students to provide each other with helpful and meaningful feedback, but works just as well for an individual writer seeking feedback from a friend or colleague (Elbow Writing).