WRITING WITHOUT TEACHERS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction to the Second Edition xi

1 FREEWRITING EXERCISES 3

How freewriting exercises help 4

Freewriting and garbage 7

Keep a freewriting diary 9

Using freewriting exercises for finding subjects to write about 9

Producing a finished piece of writing 10

2 THE PROCESS OF WRITING--GROWING

Autobiographical digression 16

It makes a difference in practice 18

Growing 22

Start writing and keep writing 25

Chaos and disorientation 30

Emerging center of gravity 35

Editing 38

Growing as a developmental process 42

3 THE PROCESS OF WRITING--COOKNG

Cooking as interaction between people 49

Cooking as interaction between ideas 50

Cooking as interaction between words and ideas, between immersion and perspective 51

Cooking as interaction between metaphors 53

Cooking as interaction between genres and modes 54

Cooking as interaction between you and symbols on paper 55

Noncooking 56

Desperation writing 60

The goal is cooking 64

Cooking and energy 67

Goodness and badness 69

Why the old, wrong model of writing persists 70

Conclusion 72

4 THE TEACHERLESS WRITING CLASS 76

Setting up the class 78

Giving movies of your mind 85

Further advice to readers 93

Advice to the writer on listening 101

The Class process 106

5 THOUGHTS ON THE TEACHERLESS WRITING CLASS 117

How I came to this approach 117

Huh? 121

Why the teacherless class helps make writing easier 124

Why the teacherless class helps make writing better 127

People learn from the truth, even though the truth is a mess 133

The process of learning writing 134

What about grammar? 136

The yogurt model 139

Subjective bullshit 140

Multiple-choice diary 141

Appendix Essay: THE DOUBTING GAME AND THE BELIEVING GAME -- AN ANALYSIS OF THE INTELLECTUAL ENTERPRISE 147

The monopoly of the doubting game 149

The truth about meaning and words 151

Short digression on the New Critics 158

Why the doubting game doesn't work with assertions of meaning 159

The believing muscle 162

Meaning-making as gestalt-making

The myth of the laboratory rat 168

Believing and doubting as dialectics 169

The two dialectics as games 174

The believing game in action: fighting the itch for closure 176

The two games as reinforcers of different character traits 178

Fears of the believing game 181

Speculation on the history of the believing game 187

Conclusion: the interdependence of the two games 190

Appendix: A COUPLE OF NOTES TO MYSELF 193

WORKS CITED 199

A FEW BOOKS TO HELP WITH CORRECT USAGE 201

REMINDERS TO KEEP IN VIEW DURING A TEACHERLESS WRITING CLASS 205