In my
Theory of Composition class we have been assigned an article review. This
article review has been a great chance for me to dive into some readings about
the community that is created from creative writing. I have been interested in
this subject since I have wanted to be a teacher and one specific interest has
been how to get non-creative students to become creative. While I didn’t use
this article for my review, I felt that it was a valuable resource and offered
a multitude of great ideas about this topic.
Deborah
Dean and Adrienne Warren have worked together to write a great article,
entitled “Informal and Shared: Writing to Create Community”, about the benefits
of informal writing and how these activities have affected the community within
their classrooms. One exercise that I found fascinating is what Warren and Dean
call ‘Scribblers’. This activity involves scribbling on a sheet of paper,
passing it to a neighbor who then turns it into a drawing. The paper is then
returned to the original student who has to write a story about the scribble. I
thought this was a great way for students to be creative both visually and in
their writing.
Dean and
Warren also talk about how students can create a sense of community when they
are able to share their feelings about writing and how they write, even bad
experiences can create a strong sense of community in a classroom. I thought
that this might be a great way to address students who, when asked if they
liked to write creatively, say they do not enjoy writing. By sharing their
opinion and hesitations on this subject it can bring to light suggestions from
other students about how to solve this problem. Sometimes this kind of feedback
can be WAY more powerful than any advice a teacher would be able to offer, or
maybe it’s just the fact that it’s coming from a peer rather than from an out
of touch teacher.
This
problem has already arisen in my short time as a teacher. I was working with an
AP student who wanted to submit her writing to a writing competition. The
student wanted my feedback about what she could do to improve her writing. When
my suggestion included adding a bit of creative to writing to her more formal
writing project, I seemed to have hit a nerve. She immediately informed that she
despised creative writing and when I asked her why I learned that she felt she
wasn’t any good at it. Because she was able to confess her hatred of creative
writing, I was able to offer advice to help remedy this situation. I offered an
alternative improvement that wouldn’t focus as strongly on creative writing.
I think
that informal creative writing, writing that will never be seen by anyone else,
is the key to get students back into creative writing. Has there been a time
where you were asked to write creatively even though you HATE doing it? How
have you been able to overcome this same kind of situation in your classroom?
The link to the article is below!!
This article sounds like a great way to get students to think more creatively. I can understand why students can have problems with creative writing, but that was one area that I excelled. I loved to use my imagination, and think outside the box. I do understand that some students do have are very concrete sequential and can not get past that. I hope that the scribbler technique can help them with that. It can only make them better writers.
ReplyDeleteGood luck that, I do hope it helps your students. It sounds like a fun exercise.
Have a great week!
Gage,
ReplyDeleteThis article is great -- and I agree that we as educators need to create a community of learners. I remember when I was in high school I absolutely felt humiliated anytime a teacher asked us to read our creative writing out loud. The idea of having my peers as my judge made me feel horrible. I wish my teacher would have created a non-judgmental, open-minded classroom community. Then, I would have been able to overcome my vexed emotions about sharing my writing.
It's definitely important to get students motivated to work creatively; we're all unique, and we all have a story to tell. You're going to have such a creative classroom!
Good luck! I hope your article review went well.
Amber
Gage,
ReplyDeleteI am a pretty big fan of using informal writing in the classroom. It really does provide the students with an opportunity to get everything they want onto paper without the risk of having somebody look over their shoulders and judge whatever it is that they are writing about. I may have to find a way to incorporate the "scribbles" activity sometime in the future--in a way it reminds me of radio pictionary where you draw a picture, somebody writes about the scene, then somebody draws the scene and repeat. Those kinds of activities can be great for getting people to think on the same level and engage them in a conversation through nonthreatening means.
-Scott