An Aerial View of the Playground: Writing in the Presence of an Other

I want to describe the way I have been teaching writing for many years. A student or a group of students write in my presence. It is that simple. I give a stimulus of some kind-this can be an exercise provoked by a statement made by the student or by some idea that I have in my own head about what might be useful to the particular student or group. The exercises are carefully structured, but that is the subject matter of another essay. Right now, think only of this, the simple description: the student begins to write and writes for however long he or she wishes to, in my presence.

It is not important that it is me; it is important that there is an observing figure, mostly silent, patient, uncommenting during this period except for the occasionally interjected, “Don't think,” or the occasional response to the cessation of activity on the part of the student: “Are you stuck?” If the student claims to be stuck I say, “Stop.” And if the answer is, “No,” I say, “Keep going for as long as you want.” The crucial point is this: if a person writes determinedly and frequently in the presence of another, the writing will get better and stronger and the student will come more deeply into his/her “own voice.” That “voice” is something that anyone who writes or reads or teaches writing can recognize but that is hard to describe, prescribe, or produce on demand. “Voice” is essential, yet ineffable. It is this mysterious quality of writing that causes some to say that writing cannot be taught. And in truth, writing cannot be taught. Craft can be taught; but craft does not make “writing.” Writing can be learned, but it cannot be taught.1

In the classroom, that largely silent, noninterfering, attentive other may be the teacher. In some other setting that other might be anyone who provides guidance and support, might even be an assumed or imagined reader that the writer has come to use as a functional other. That other is not reading the newspaper, not writing along with the students, n