Blog #3 Thinking About Feeling as a Tool with "Sharing and Responding"

I felt a warm comfort reading Peter Elbow and Pat Belanoff's Sharing and Responding; in many ways their words brought me back to the Cameron piece and her emphasis "to just start where you are." Cameron wrote about the ways in which writing is innate– perhaps not the process of writing a polished piece but rather the ability to have thoughts or observations and to let those flow through you into a written form– and I believe that Elbow and Belanoff present strategies for sharing and responding to writing that align closely with Cameron's opinion. I want to quote a piece of their booklet that struck me:
"what is the right spirit? In sharing, the goal is for writers to give and for listeners to receive. Writing is gift giving. When you give someone a gift, you don't want her to criticize; you want her to use it and enjoy it. If you happen to give someone a gift he doesn't like, do you want him to complain? No, you want him to thank you all the same" (17).
I find this particular quote to really get at the idea of this booklet (as I perceive it): writing, and responding to writing, can be exercises in feeling rather than being heavily reliant on a strict sets of rules and guidelines that comes from a place of 'correct writing'. Isn't the ability to feel and perceive and connect through language a gift? And, if you agree, should it not be equally weighted? That said, I do see the need for students to understand the benefits of paragraph structure, different forms of writing, and standard conventions; however, I also think students could greatly benefit form a practice of recognizing the knowledge/ authority that comes with simply being a person with thoughts and feelings.

I found the eleven kinds of responses to be really diverse and exiting! I can see how they would evoke genuine feedback opposed to a simple 'I liked your paper' or 'I think it was good overall.' Which, I can personally testify to the awkwardness that arises when a teacher says something along the lines of 'get in groups and talk about each others papers.' I don't think I ever received honest feedback from a situation like this nor was I ever genuinely prepared for honest feedback.

In the spirit of honesty– I wish I had been given more opportunities to engage in genuine writing/ reading feedback. I would be particularly interested in exploring "movies of the reader's mind." This kind of responding asks the reader to think beyond language and I think that can beneficial when it comes to reading others work and writing your own. I also love the idea of having students translate "it-statments" into "I-statemnets" (9). I feel that this is a subtle exercise in owning and exploring emotions that bubble up while writing or reading. I believe that Elbow and Belanoff include this as a form of response because there is a lot of truth within the act of feeling. This invitation to experience a piece of writing feels quite rooted in reality and brings the act of writing in conversation with the act of being, and perhaps then it is no longer solely an academic act.

Recently, I was speaking with an English professor who told me about a recent writing of hers that addressed the different treatment of those who read and write about Shakespeare for enjoyment and those who approach it from a serious and critical place. She introduced me to a piece by Eileen Joy, where Joy writes,

"I want to note here as well that a concern for play, for pleasure, and also for enjoyment, can be an importantly ethical matter, especially in academic disciplines (literary studies, historical studies, philosophy, etc.) that are often suspicious of pleasure and enjoyment, privileging instead what some term “strong,” “skeptical,” “sober,” “serious,” and “rational” critique" (Joy).

 I would argue that Elbow and Belanoff's Sharing and Responding is also concerned with the incorporation of human reaction/ enjoyment within the writing process. To say, responding that takes on a more playful role, opposed to one that is solely knowledge based, is extremely beneficial for both reader and writer. 

Airing on the side of caution– citation of Joy: 

Joy, Eileen. “A Welcoming Pavilion of Thought: Weird Reading.” In The Middle, 13 Apr. 2013.