Teaching Creative Writing in the English Classroom

“When learning characterization, students practice empathy. When learning plot, they practice strategic thought. When learning sensory writing, they practice close observation. When learning grammar, they practice exact language. When learning how to invent worlds, they practice imagination. These skills will be needed for every worthwhile endeavor they undertake in their lives whether they go into teaching or science, the arts, or the art of politics.”

Julianna Baggott

            Christine Esposito writes for njfamily.com and in her article entitled, “The Lifelong Benefits of Creative Writing”, she states that creative writing can be a beneficial to the way that students think. When students learn the process of writing a story they learn many things that will not only benefit their writing but also the daily interaction with other students and teachers. The article goes on to mention the Kean University Writing Project, KURP, where a group of educators have dedicated their lives to improving how students write and the influence writing has on the students’ lives. The KURP offers summer institutes for students and educators who would like to learn or improve their writing skills. After Esposito talks a little about KURP she goes on to give some guidelines on how to implement creative writing into the classroom and how to make it important to the students.

            First, she states that you have to start the students out young. This is one of the most vital parts to implementing creative writing. I know that as high school teachers we don’t get to start with the students but making your individual classrooms a place where creative writing is acceptable is one of the first steps you have to take. By starting your school year with a creative writing project, you can make the classroom a place where creative writing is a focus and a routine. The second thing the Esposito states is that the teacher should be a muse. Make it so the students want to write for you. Encourage your students! The third: DON’T be an editor or a critic. When you decide to take the time out of class and let your students write creatively, give them a chance to do so without the constraints of a grade of criticism. Let them be creative. Finally, Esposito says that in order to make the writing more important get it published. This shows that the student’s writing is good and is deserving of praise.

            Recently in my class I have tried to implement some of the things that Esposito introduces in her article. For one of my bell work assignments I had the students write a letter home to their parents as if they were in Vietnam fighting the Vietcong. I gave the students some background information that would guide them through their letter. In my classes the assignment got a mixed reaction. When I reviewed the students’ writing I saw a mixture of seriousness and sarcasm. The students that embraced the writing all did a good job, their letters were well written showed a great bit of imagination. The students that treated the writing assignment a little more loosely were a mixture of not trying and sarcasm that led to inappropriate humor and unacceptable length.

            Do you think creative writing has a place in the English classroom? Would you structure a whole lesson around creative writing?

Creative Writing Creates Community

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!!

http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/download/nwp_file/16994/Informal_and_Shared.pdf?x-r=pcfile_d

District Inservice Day

A day at school with no students? How weird!

I woke up a little more casually, welcoming the chance to dress a little sloppier.  I made it to school around the same time I usually do and took my time wondering the deserted hallways, getting an insider's look at a quiet, clean hallway. A few teachers straggled past, mugs of coffee in hand. When I finally made it to class I sat my stuff down at my desk at the back of the classroom and asked about today's agenda.

I learned that we would sit through two group sessions and get together with the English department to grade the state assessments. Sparing you the nitty gritty of the day I can confidently say that it was an interesting experience and one that I can't say will be all that bad when I become a full time teacher.

Among other things, I learned that teachers are definitely still kids at heart and even though they may complain about how hair brained their students are, they can still be the same. I was glad for the opportunity to get to see all of the teachers that taught me while I attended school there and it was an even greater experience to see how those teachers really act when students are missing from the hallways.

Getting ready...

So after the short week next week I will get to start my KPTP lesson. At the last minute I decided that I would like to align my KPTP content with the history classes and do a unit over the Vietnam War/Literature. I have about half of the unit planned out and I am really excited about getting to start the unit. First we will be starting with centers that will introduce the students to different medias, such as YouTube news casts, newspaper clippings, some poems, etc. Then we will move onto one of my favorite writers, Tim O'Brien!! We are doing a whole day of O'Brien vignettes where the students will do a one pager over whatever vignette they choose to read.

Finally, I get to visit with a Vietnam vet and he is going to contribute to a stellar unit. Can't wait to see how this all turns out!!

KPTP

I started work on my KPTP this past week.

When I first started I was a little overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that I had to complete. The demographics, 2 lesson plans, 2 assessments, etc. But when I finally got started on it I realized that just being at school helps me with a great deal of the planning and preparation.

I am doing a lit circle for my KPTP. My lessons will be the intro activity and another smaller lesson within a lesson that I haven't picked yet. I started getting planned for first part of it. I am collaborating with a group of teachers and as a group we have decided that choice is what we wanted to focus on with these teen books, they all also seem to stay within that vein. So now for the during class activities, which is the part that I will have the most control over, we are giving the students a choice of activities with a 'menu' that lists them. Every time that they read they must complete each of the activities. This gives the students who like to draw a choice to concentrate on that or if they like to write then there are a few choices where they don't have to draw.

I think that this will be a good activity that will make the reading of these books a little more interactive for the students. I'll post my plan and the final draft of my menu on here when they are complete.

The Counting Continues

He slides the graded paper across the oak desk. Scratches and gouges imitate rolling, rocky waves as it slides the across the aged surface. His hand mechanically sets the paper in the 'done' tray, swings back across the desk and fumbles to separate the last two papers from each other. The sheets of paper give up their embrace and fall apart, one staying in his hand, the other falling like a orange leaf from a bare tree. The paper barely rustles as it is laid into place. He reaches up and removes the glasses from his face, the index finger and thumb on his opposite hand rub in the corner of his eyes to relieve some of exhaustion he fells creeping into his head. A new resolve pulses through his brain, he returns his glasses to his face, grabs the red, felt tipped marker and starts to read the essay that hulks on the table in front of him.*

* Thinking of doing something like this for my second genre reflection. An semi-extended metaphor for grading papers and finishing the end of the semester. Could use some suggestions. 

Thanks, 

Gage Gruning 

KATE Conference Response

 What breakout sessions were most helpful to you as a future teacher?  What ideas are you going to incorporate into your teaching and/or planning?

The last session that I attended was about learning studios. It is a kind of classroom arrangement that focuses on movement and student involvement. The classroom layout makes use of chairs and tables on casters (for the sake of mobility), dual projectors and dual whiteboards. I liked this breakout session the most because the classroom arrangement sounds like it would be very useful and would go well with the teaching style that I hope to emulate. Even though it would be close to impossible to incorporate every idea the presenters talked about I think that some would be useful and easy to incorporate. 

The easiest would be attaching casters to the furniture so that they are easier to move, this would be good for group activities. I also think that I would like to include dual projectors in my classroom design. The presenters talked a little about the use of these, including showing side by side texts and pictures so that the students can see the differences between the two texts/images. They talked about paint that is used especially for projecting screens and I figured that this would be easy to get permission for, it could be easy to do and easily to undo if I changed classrooms.

Overall, I enjoyed the conference and learned a lot of new things during the breakout sessions. I would definitely attend next year's conference.