While I get what Elbow is saying, I can't say I much agree when it comes to closed-form, argumentative prose. What he describes is quite often very useful when it comes to composing in more creative ways. The reason this is so is because a short story usually has no clean divisions in which various subpoints are divided. So, all that can move us forward is a certain type of rhythm and pull.
I suppose it is a matter of preference in any case, and how a person prefers to write. For myself, I prefer a still that is strictly analytical, without much nonsense. I like a clear, clean point, and I like for an author to get to it quickly.
For awhile I found his comparison of writing to music to be intriguing and interesting. As someone who has studied musical composition, I was receptive to the comparison. Yet, when he claimed that rhythm was a more important structural element than melody, he completely lost me. *shrug*
Perhaps some of what he talks about in terms of expectation and fulfillment could be used in more open forms of writing, like the exploratory form of essay. But here again I have to say that my experience in trying to teach the exploratory essay have been mostly bad, and the idea of adding yet more complexity to it is not pleasant. I am lucky if I can even get a student to understand how to summarize a source in an intelligible manner.
While some of Elbow's theoretical notions might have some currency in high-level writing (maybe), I really can't imagine trying to teach them in English 1000.
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