This paper asks what role "play" plays in writing and how it can help a writer, whatever dread, boredom, skill, or ethnicity he/she brings to writing. Some of the ideas in the paper come from Africa, courtesy of Robert Farris Thompson. In his "philosophy of discourse" discussed in the paper, Thompson speaks of the "big picture," a culture's deep sense of how talking, listening, writing, reading (discourse) functions, operates, works, and plays--his word is "plerk," combining play and work. Style is the arrangement of language and students' writing is often the nexus for numerous impasses--impasses in society, in academics. The paper uses Thompson's book, "Flash of the Spirit," a reconsideration of African discourse, to search for a way out of the frequently grim, joyless, viciously circular, alienated zones of writing. At some point in all classes, the student writer should play with the rhythms of whatever he/she is asked to write. The following positions are taken: (1) what is written in college should be contested and negotiated; (2) students should "play off" each other's papers (co-revise); (3) students need to "own" their writing; and (4) they need to think of "big style," a way of seeing themselves and their writing wholly. The paper concludes with anecdotes about two students. Contains 9 references. (TB)