A battlefield can provoke many different images in one’s mind. We see open fields amass with Redcoats and Bluecoats; painted warriors charging upon the enemy; snipers poised in their high towers, taking down one man at a time; bombs exploding in the middle of the jungle; warships, canons, torpedoes. It is my belief that education and writing is akin to battle. Students must participate in a variety of exercises, maneuver through the obstacle courses of each new syllabus, and mostly fight their way through papers and exams, just trying to come out alive. The type of battle you’re in depends on which level of writer you are.

Early writers, Elbow argues, can easily allow intimidating thoughts about their audience to hinder their writing. This is the open battlefield. “Once your words are on paper, they can be easily transported before the eyes of anyone – no matter how you feel about him, no matter how little he knows or understands you” (p. 125). Regardless of whether it is the teacher or the other students (or both) reading your work, you are exposed. This type of battle is surely menacing to the writer who doesn’t yet feel strong enough to withstand the artillery.

Another stage of the writer is outlined by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca in their introduction to The New Rhetoric. “The physical absence of his readers can lead a writer to believe that he is alone in the world, though his text is always conditioned, whether consciously or unconsciously, by those persons he wishes to address” (p.7). I imagine a writer at their desk by the attic window, totally alone, with thoughts of the audience being addressed. In this case, a writer has more freedom, and can invent an audience, thereby taking away a significant amount of fear. This writer is more adept on their battlefield, with few enemies in sight. She is constantly on the lookout for the sniper.

The writer most likely to survive the battle of education is the one who stops worrying about the audience altogether. “Damn the torpedoes,” Elbow says (p. 125). When you are the one to charge the battlefield, the one to aim the guns and fire, you may be “surprised how fluent (and powerful) your words are” (p.125). I hope to make it to that level someday.