Lisa Couch
College of DuPage – [email protected]
Waubonsee Community College – [email protected]
Learning is a messy process,
requiring a climate of risktaking on the part of both the
students and the instructor.
Unfortunately, many students
come to us paralyzed by an
internal critic and a sense that
writing is merely a set of
rules—not tools they can use
to find their own voices.
Chaos
Order
 riots
 laws
 war
 military
 anarchy
 rules
 tornadoes
 logic
 floods
 lists
 mess
 organization
 emotion
 reason
 freedom
 control
 risk
 safety
 creativity,
 established
originality
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong,
you will never come up with anything
original.”
-Sir Ken Robinson,
TED Talk: Do Schools Kill Creativity?
Right Brain
Left Brain
 Holistic
 Linear
 Random
 Sequential
 Concrete
 Symbolic
 Intuitive
 Logical
 Nonverbal
 Verbal
 Fantasy
 Reality
RED
GREEN
BLUE
“All writing grows out of two main mental activities:
creating or generating words or ideas, and criticizing
or distrusting what you have created. Though these
mental activities interfere with each other if you try
to do them at the same time (thus the characteristic
frustration in writing), they can flourish if engaged in
separately.”
--Peter Elbow,
Writing With Power
“I say write about what you don’t
know. Write about what you
haven’t figured out. Write about
what makes you curious. Write
about what confuses you. Learn to
seek out confusion, draw it close
like an injured bird, and…write
your way to understanding.”
--Bruce Ballenger
• Teach what we don’t know
• Put ourselves on the same side
of the table as students:
Let’s figure this out
together
• Embrace chaos, let go of
control
• Take risks, be willing to be
wrong
Appealing to right-brain functions
 Two sets of slips in different colors:
 One color: Abstract concept (i.e., “Love,” “Childhood,”
“Heaven”)
 Other color: Concrete noun (i.e., “polyester,” “bowling ball,”
“watermelon”)
 Students paired randomly with someone who has the
opposite color
 Goal is to come up with three or four sentences
explaining/extending the metaphor (i.e., explaining how
love is like polyester)
Appeals to random, intuitive right brain
 Encourages playfulness, experimentation
 Exercises brain to get past clichéd thinking and find
something more provocative
Appeals to nonverbal right brain
 Draw, pair, share – what/who do you imagine your
“Watcher” to be like?
 Crumple and toss in recycle bin to symbolically get rid
of Watcher in preparation for freewriting, etc.
“Regular careful writing requires you to take the CHAOS
inside your head and turn it into coherence on
paper…Freewriting provides a helpful middle step: getting
the CHAOS in your head on paper…What’s hard about
writing comes from trying to improve what’s in your head
while you are in the act of writing it down.”
-A Community of Writers
Students are in groups of three:
 Writer talks out ideas
 Questioner probes for more details
 Recorder takes down/types everything the writer says
Peers annotate each other’s drafts, looking for patterns
that may have been conscious or subconscious on the part
of the writer
 Consider repetition in:
 Words/connotations
 Images
 Big ideas
 Appeals to
holistic right
brain
 Ability to see
the big picture
and make
connections
“Every successful piece of nonfiction
should leave the reader with one
provocative thought that he didn’t have
before…”
- William Zinsser, On Writing Well
 “armada of players”
 “It was war; it was a slaughter”
 “the anguish on his face only further satisfied my blood




lust”
“massacre”
“war-torn battlefield”
“some people think tennis is a civilized sport”
Title: “A Gentleman’s Game?”
How does this relate to
human nature or the
nature of the universe?
How does my experience
relate to other people’s
experiences?
How does this event fit
into my life and who I am?
NOTE:
The term “climbing” is borrowed from
Discovering the Writer Within, by Bruce
Ballenger and Barry Lane
 Is tennis a civilized game?
 What does it mean to be “civilized”?
 Is it possible for sports to be civilized?
 Where does this kind of aggression come from? Is it
necessary to feel this way toward your opponent?
 Why do people (especially men?) feel these savage
impulses?
 Do we “play” sports because it’s a socially acceptable
outlet for these caveman impulses?
 Or do sports bring out this savage mentality?
Even though we like to think of ourselves as civilized,
humans are lured by violence, and we find ways to let our
savage side out even in something that is supposed to be a
simple game.
BEFORE:
Tennis was just a fun
family activity.
AFTER:
Tennis has become a war,
bringing out the savage
side of human nature.
 Excuse your Watcher.
 Take a risk.
 Make a nice mess!
Lisa Couch
College of DuPage – [email protected]
Waubonsee Community College – [email protected]