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Teaching Writing as a Performing Art
A Paradigm for the College Writing Class

Mark Fullmer

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A few years ago, while I was teaching inner city Los Angeles high school students,
a senior brought me a personal essay for his college admission application. The prompt
was one of those delightfully bland ones, something like "write about a significant
and/or formative event in your life." George had chosen to write about his mother,
whose serious drug problem was causing him considerable trauma, behavior problems
in school, night terrors, and heated, sometimes violent confrontations with his mother.
After reading his essay, knowing that George's writing wouldn't be considered sophisticated
or unique by college admissions committees, confident that I knew just how George
should write up this event, I suggested he write more creatively, more descriptively,
and in a way that displayed how he'd reflected on his experience. To my surprise,
George reacted with open hostility. In his mind, he'd answered the prompt perfectly:
write about a significant event in his life—and his mother's drug problem was the
significant event if anything was. If that didn't show the college admission people
who he was, nothing would, and he couldn't believe that I didn't see this.

How should I have handled this student, resistant to changing his writing, which
I believe was rooted in a resistance to compromising his sense of self in composition?
On the one hand, I knew that the college application essay, like all writing, requires
a constructed, even calculated performance of self, with one's audience—in this case,
a college admission panel—determining much of that performance. At the same time,
my student had pinpointed an event in his life that he saw as essential to who he
was. Should I have kept silent and hoped that the admissions committee would somehow
see, among the thousands of significant-experience essays, the depth of the person
behind George's limited prose? Should I have explained to George that his traumatic
experience wasn't important, and all that mattered in the college application essay
was to be a good little social construct who could perform the author-function well?

This has led me to wonder how teachers of developing writers might best negotiate
their knowledge that writing is a performance when our students feel writing to be
an essentialist expression of self. How do we communicate to students the potentially
empowering knowledge that writing is framed within discourse conventions that, as
Linda Flower (1994) puts it, "set goals, pose constraints, [and] propose language"
for our writing, without making students feel disempowered and constrained in their
creativity? In exploring these questions, I want to explore our concept of performance
in writing, but in doing so, return "performance" to its more literal sense—that
is, to place it in the context of the performing arts. The hypothetical question
I'm posing is this: what would it look like if we applied the performing arts paradigm
to the comp classroom?

But, you may say, what have the performing arts got to do with student writers and
composition teachers? In thinking about my graduate work in literature next to my
undergraduate days as a music student, the similarities spring to mind easily (think
composition, tone, rhythm, motif, exposition, counterpoint, to name a few linguistic
overlaps). Indeed, I often get a very familiar feeling in writing workshops these
days, where discussions sound much like music master classes. However, for this discussion,
I'm not interested in the similarities. Somewhat counter-intuitively (but I think
more interestingly), I want to examine three differences between how we conceive
of writing and the performing arts, and to speculate how the performing arts might
provide a practicable metaphor for teaching writing.

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Creation versus Execution
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The most obvious difference between a writer and a performing artist regards creation:
writers create original compositions, while ballet dancers, musicians, and actors
execute already-composed works. Accordingly, writing and performing tend toward different,
even oppositional, ideological value systems. We value professional writer, as T.S.
Eliot suggested in "Tradition and the Individual Talent," for their originality,
their individuality. Performing artists, on the other hand, are praised simply for
delivering someone else's composition, though there's nothing simple about it, of
course. In other words, for the classical musician or the ballerina, interpretive
mastery is the mark of accomplishment, rather than innovation. But which of these
measuring sticks is more appropriate for the special stage of the writing classroom?
Consider this: most first-year composition programs aim to teach students to write
in established discourse styles: at a university where I have taught, the writing
program description reads: "Part of learning to write well, especially in academic
settings, involves attention to the conventions and tropes of academic discourse."
David Bartholomae (1985) has described the process of learning to write well similarly:
the "student has to appropriate (or be appropriated by) a specialized discourse."
To me, this seems to share more affinity with the performing artist interpreting
and executing than the professional writer creating. Presenting writing as a performing
art might encourage students in a positive way to learn how to write within discourse
conventions.

Sometimes during private lessons, my trumpet teacher would ask me to imagine myself
as a particular musician I revered, and then, without trying to improve anything
specific, to play the music again. Surprisingly, this role-playing, nothing more
than psychological, improved my performance, and even though I was imitating a great
musician, the performance didn't feel any less authentic, less of my doing. Perhaps
I could have tried the same approach with my high school student, encouraging him
to imagine himself as a great writer.  Performing the role of writing in this sense,
our students might more willingly try on academic discourse, and we might, in turn,
praise them for their successful execution.

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The Writing Process as Rehearsal
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A second difference between performing artists and student writers: the musician
in the practice room rehearses many run-throughs from beginning to end. Generally
speaking, the writing student sits at the computer composing laborious sentence after
sentence without frequent observation of the piece as a whole, often revising in
what has been called the "thesaurus mode" of revision—replacing one word for a supposedly
better one. Wayne Peck (1990), who has noted this tendency, quotes how his student
describes this process: "all revisions are alike…you clean up what you messed up."
Sadly, this model runs counter to the nonlinear writing process so many professional
writers describe (I once asked Jonathan Safran Foer roughly what percentage prewriting,
writing, and revision figure into his process of novel writing. He replied, "It's
all revision"). The performing artist who rehearses run-throughs (while also, of
course, cleaning up difficult individual passages) would seem likely to justify artistic
decisions and revisions based on how they relate to the piece as a whole. So, the
hypothetical here is: what benefit might there be to encouraging students toward
more "run-throughs" of writing? And how, practically speaking, might we implement
such an approach?

Writer and teacher Wayne Koestenbaum (2003) has described his own writing process
as the polar opposite of sentence-level revision, one of "endlessly retyping" large
portions of his writing. This approach, while admirable, is nothing less than excruciating,
incomparably easier for the musician, ballet dancer or actor than for the writer,
and certainly not something we should foist on our students.

Nevertheless, Koestenbaum's approach, like the performing artist who  rehearses a
single work for countless hours in a cramped practice room, engenders seeing the
composition in its entirety. When I discuss the writing process in class, some students
will always describe themselves as perfectionists, explaining how they have to reread
a sentence again and again, and can't move onto the next until they've got it right.
Then we have class commiseration, where the student complains that this "takes forever"
and wishes "I could just move on sometimes."  Students rarely say they reread the
whole essay, though, and I doubt that when they reread sentences, it is more with
an eye to "fix it," less to consider how the sentence impacts the essay as a whole.

An emphasis on rereading would likely foster what Linda Flower (1981) has called
the reader-based approach to writing. Flower has noted in her own classroom experience
that students who seem to be able to perceive how readers will understand and receive
their writing  generally write more successful essays. Rehearsing compositions as
a whole would foster in students a more recursive prewriting, writing, and revising.
Bringing students back by way of this commodious recirculation might be one way to
enlarge developing writers' perspectives, to make them better readers—and practitioners—of
their own writing.

Sometimes my trumpet teacher would point out during private lessons that I seemed
to be playing the piece as if I was simply practicing—not performing it. He would
then ask me to play it as if I were giving a performance on stage. Doing so brought
a new perspective to my performance. Perhaps I could have suggested that George read
his college application essay to himself, as if he were on stage performing it for
the college admissions committee. Viewing his essay this way, he might have been
more open to revisions. The analogy would be to encourage students, when rereading
their drafts, to imagine it as an onstage performance, one they will repeat many
times.

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The Final Draft as Recital
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When the deadline arrives, writers' working drafts become their final drafts, and
they move to the next writing project. In contrast, the ballerina may perform the
choreography to the Nutcracker Suite many times in her career: the same steps, yet
multiple performances, developing (not fixing) as a performer each time. The writing
portfolio, which suspends our grading and our students' sense of a finished product
as long as possible, gets at this performing arts idea.

In a number of the writing course syllabi I have seen, teachers put the "final" of
"final draft" in quotes, emphasizing that it is final only in the sense that the
deadline has come.  It makes me wonder what greater benefit I could have made of
that college application essay, if I had presented it as a site of composition to
which George would return, recital after recital, as he continued to develop a sensibility
for writing and a sense of self through the relationship with his mother. Even though
writers don't perform the same "steps" repeatedly, a sense that each past performance
forms the building blocks for the subsequent ones pushes the idea of a "final" portfolio
substantially past the end of the semester.

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So What Do We Do?
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None of these observations advocates anything radical in the comp classroom, though
further exploration of the crossover between the performing arts and writing might
enliven a tired lesson plan (What would an end-of-semester "writing recital" look
like? How would students see writing conferences differently if we called them "private
writing lessons"? How might a writing "master class" that gloms developing writers
with advanced students teach both levels of students?). What they offer is a new
perspective for presenting what in large part we're doing already. It is like how
Toni Morrison provides a view of her literary development and style through the the
black musical tradition, which she says builds on itself but stays new, like how
the Louis Armstrong's trumpet echoes in the saxophone solos of John Coltrane's, but
Coltrane's music is still innovative and wholly distinct: "It can be copied, just
like the music can be copied. But once one has it, it is distinguishable and therefore
recognizable for itself. If it is written, it can be learned—but to be learned, it
has to be in print" (409).

It can be learned. The student who views discourse conventions like a musician studying
a Bach composition—the indications and rules already there, waiting for her to perform
her artistry—will be less likely to resist what might feel like a sacrifice of creativity
when she puts on academic discourse. The student who rereads (and rereads, and rereads)
his essay may develop stronger sense of a unified writing performance. And the student
who sees a final draft as the first stage in many steps toward Carnegie Hall might
foster a performing artist's sensibility of recital. We, as teachers, can in turn
conceive our composition classroom as a place in which performance and authenticity
meet, a space where play and practice thrive, where students can embrace the electricity
of stepping center stage to articulate a melody awaiting them.

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Ways to Apply the Performing Arts Paradigm in the Classroom
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1. We can promote, in our rhetoric, essay prompts, and grading comments, an ideology
that emphasizes performance alongside invention.
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In the performing arts, "imitate" and "copy" aren't bad words, but in composition,
they conjure  images of plagiarism and rudiment, while we reserve "unique," "authentic,"
"original," and "distinctive" for our highest praise. I find myself torn between
the truth of social constructionism and my intuitive feeling that writing is self-expression.
Instead of implying in our comments that students must re-invent writing, we should
consider praising students for their ability to "identify" with a writer's style,
or to "appropriate" the conventions of academic discourse, or to successfully "model"
an essay they've read.

***
2. We can make students (self-)conscious about their writing influences.
***
Professional writers and artists often name their mentors and influences, but in
my experience,  the passion and profundity with which many jazz players speak of
their models seems unique, perhaps because the jazz form requires familiarity with
riffs and phrases of other players which you then orchestrate into your own vocabulary
in performance. Naming influences—or as Toni Morrison puts it, ancestors—would seem
to accompany a strong self-awareness about one's own style. A writing class discussion
might explore how the lyrics and movie quotes students have memorized or the Seventeen
and Maxim magazines they read shape the discourse tendencies they import into college
essays.  We might likewise discuss how writing practices (text-messaging, blogging,
emailing, a past high school essay) influence rhetorical choices.

***
3. We can encourage imitation (or even parody) of professional writers' style.
***
A young pianist will intentionally emulate Glen Gould's interpretation of the Goldberg
Variations. This is not considered plagiarism. It's considered knowledgeability.
Read a chapter from A Farewell to Arms then have your students, in their descriptive
essay, writing a 'Hemingway paragraph.' Or have them imitate Tom Wolfe's typographical
inventiveness. Or for convoluted academic discourse, give a passage of Judith Butler
or Homi Bhabha (but I think we need to do this playfully). After all, just as my
trumpet teacher didn't immediately expect me to sound like the virtuoso I was imagining,
we shouldn't critique students' partially successful renderings of Virginia Woolf's
style.  Behind this idea is the concept we always must remind ourselves that while
an essay about a dead grandmother or a football game, or about sleep deprivation
or eating disorders may seem tired and tiresome to us, it is not likely so for the
student.

***
4. We can have students perform "run-throughs," talking through an essay before composing,
reading first drafts multiple times, writing multiple mini-drafts.
***
Like the ballerina who, through hundreds of repetitions, understands her choreography
as a nuanced whole, our students might see their essays holistically before writing
the first draft. In class, I have students "talk the essay," where, in a sort of
speed-dating setup, students have 2 minutes to tell a classmate their essay, then
move on to another classmate and do the same, and again, until they've spoken their
essay five or six times. When I've asked students about it, they often say that each
time they had to explain their essay, the idea became both more nuanced and they
found better ways of saying what they wanted to say.

***
5. We can let students "rehearse" their writing performance
***
Actors and musicians often use visualization techniques prepare them for the stage,
imagining the environment, the execution of each note or action, the reaction of
the audience. My trumpet teacher made me run before practicing a solo so I would
get used to the frenetic heartbeat and breathing that accompany a nerve-wracking
performance. In preparing students for in-class midterms and finals, we should simulate
as much as possible what they will experience. In class teaching essays, we can ask
students to read parts of their essays, giving them a stronger sense of how their
writing is perceived. In doing so, we return "audience" to its literal sense.

***
6. We can distract students from the grade-driven mode of writing.
***
When I would play a solo for a master class (where fellow music students listen and
critique), the last thing I was thinking was what grade my teacher would give me
for the semester. I was too busy wondering what my peers would say. Among other things,
these master classes made me see music outside of the school context, something our
writing students don't do frequently enough with their research papers. By putting
students' writing "onstage" in classroom workshops, we can encourage them to forget—at
least temporarily, while they wonder what their classmates and teacher will say—the
inevitable, ubiquitous grade.

***
7. We can have students imagine that instead of writing this essay for the teacher,
they're preparing it to be read multiple times.
***
Another problematic consequence of grade-driven essay writing is students who, subconsciously
or not, shape their essay around perceived desires and biases of an individual instructor.
By framing class discussions about academic writing around an imagined academic audience,
students aren't trying to idealize their essay to fit the teacher, but rather to
accommodate a broad academic audience.

***
8. We can teach that writing is relevant—that in some form, students will 'perform'
compositions throughout their life.
***
A musician or a ballet dancer prepares a piece not for a single performance, but
for lifelong repertoire. In discussing essay prompts and composition in our classes,
we can emphasize how the essay is not as an end in itself, but a starting point for
writing techniques and ideas they will return to in other college classes and in
the workplace. We can make part of class discussion how an essay debating the efficacy
of America's war on terror may play a part in historicizing their anthropology essay
at university, or energizing the activism they do after college, or structuring the
department presentation they deliver at at board meeting.

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A Final Caution About Performance (or What I'm Not Advocating)
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In our desire to help students replicate as quickly as possible the academic writing
they read, we mustn't leap to simply tell them how to do it, losing sight of the
fact that learning to write well has to do with a struggle, and even that at some
point, learning to write with their distinctive voice will require that agonistic
struggle against the poet-father that Harold Bloom proposes in “The Anxiety of Influence.”
Paolo Freire puts this reminder another way, saying that the process of learning
has to be “forged with, not for” those being taught.

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Works Cited or Referenced
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Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University” (1985). in Cross Talk in Comp Theory.
Ed. Victor Villanueva, 2003. Urbana: National Council of Teachers, 2003. 623-	653.
Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence.
Boston College First Year Writing Seminar Program Description, Retrieved April 3,
2004.  http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/eng/fws/program.htm
Flower, Linda. (1981). “Revising Writer-Based Prose.” Journal of Basic Writing, 3,
62-74.
-----------------. (1994). The Construction of Negotiated Meaning: A Social Cognitive
Theory of Writing. Southern Illinois University Press, p.67.
Friere, Paolo.
Koestenbaum, Wayne. (2003). “My 80s.” Best American Essays 2004. Ed. Louis Menand.
New York, Houghton Mifflin.
Morrison, Toni. (1983). Nellie McKay. “An Interview with Toni Morrison.” Contemporary
Literature. 24(Winter), 413-29.
Newkirk, Thomas. (1997) The Performance of Self in Student Writing. Portsmouth: Boynton/Heinemann.
Peck, Wayne. (1990). “The Effects of Prompts on Revision: A Glimpse of the Gap Between
Planning and Performance.” Reading-to-Write: Exploring a Social and Cognitive Process.
Ed Linda Flower. New York, Oxford University Press, 156.
Tobin, Lad. (1991). Writing Relationships: What Really happened in the Composition
Class. Portsmouth: Boyton/Cook.