A century of teaching creative writing in schools (original) (raw)
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Alan Maley is a British, award-winning, internationally-known writer and artist, highly regarded for his unique observation of life at the turn of the century. He has been involved in English Language Teaching (ELT) for over 50 years. He worked for the British Council in Yugoslavia, and was the Director of the Bell Educational Trust in Cambridge for 5 years. He later worked in universities in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and UK. Alan has published over 40 books and numerous articles. In the following, Dr. Maley answered our questions on teaching creative writing in academic centers, the relationship between creative writing and language learning, and the status of creative writing in non-English speaking countries.
"'Goodly tales": Creative writing in the literary studies classroom (2009)
English in Australia, 2009
The discipline of creative writing is growing at a brisk rate. University creative writing courses are usually hosted by English departments, and are taught alongside literary studies (less often media studies, and less often generalised humanities courses). Creative writing is, admittedly, more at home in secondary schooling: students from the earliest grades are encouraged to make up stories in English class. Even so, the perception that creative writing has more to do with self-expression than with cultural analysis means that it does not possess the same status as traditional scholarly criticism in either sector. The relationship between the discipline areas of creative writing and literary studies, therefore, remains an uneasy one. Creative writing is often cast in the role of the popular but not particularly bright sibling: a 'popular refuge for (mainly weaker) students from the greater demands of disciplined reading, analysis and essay writing' (Everett 2005, p. 232). To extend the metaphor, the field of literary studies would represent the uptight sibling who is brainy and too serious: creative writing's very existence is sometimes attributed to 'the perennial crisis in English studies', a way to make literary studies less dry to students (Dawson 2005, p. 6). In sum, few people want to associate with the serious sibling, but nor does the popular one get much respect. There are, however, many benefits -both to the disciplines and to the students -of putting these differences aside. This paper, which describes my own experiences introducing creative writing assessment into an undergraduate literary studies course, has two intentions. First, I want to articulate the links between the two disciplines and the benefits that may arise from integrating them; and second, I want to address the practical and methodological issues -including assessment -to aid undergraduate and uppersecondary teachers in including creative writing tasks in the literary studies classroom.
Interview with Alan Maley on Teaching and Learning Creative Writing
Alan Maley is a British, award-winning, internationally-known writer and artist, highly regarded for his unique observation of life at the turn of the century. He has been involved in English Language Teaching (ELT) for over 50 years. He worked for the British Council in Yugoslavia, and was the Director of the Bell Educational Trust in Cambridge for 5 years. He later worked in universities in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and UK. Alan has published over 40 books and numerous articles. In the following, Dr. Maley answered our questions on teaching creative writing in academic centers, the relationship between creative writing and language learning, and the status of creative writing in non-English speaking countries.
Creative Writing Cannot be Taught but it Can be Learned – Creative Writing in Higher Education
Creative Writing Cannot be Taught but it Can be Learned – Creative Writing in Higher Education, 2022
The University of Iowa’s graduate Writers’ Workshop is ‘often considered the best MFA program in the country’ (Heimbach, 2021). However, despite Iowa providing the ‘founding model’ (Wandor, 2012, p. 51) for creative writing study, Menand (2009) discusses the premise’s scepticism, ‘that creative writing is something that can be taught’, and quotes the school themselves: ‘the fact that the Workshop can claim as alumni nationally and internationally prominent poets, novelists, and short story writers is, we believe, more the result of what they brought here than of what they gained from us’ (The University of Iowa, 2022). It is also interesting to consider how, as Laurillard (2012) discusses, for many years the university teaching pedagogy had been that of ‘imparting knowledge’, which ‘has usually been only a partially successful teaching activity’ (p. 11). If research is the ‘careful study of a subject, especially in order to discover new facts or information about it’ (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, 2022), then creative writing students in higher education might learn as much, if not more, from their own research, as from lecturers/tutors.
Reflections on the Teaching of Creative Writing At the American Universities
Creative writing as an academic discipline has been contested since the very beginning of its existence at the American universities, and "backlash against it is always in full blood" (Burroway, 61). To critics, it seems to be softer, and less rigorous discipline, in comparison to other English studies (Elliott 100). Other critics describe it as the most under-theorized and in that respect the most anachronistic [field] in the entire constellation of English study (Haake, 83). Even some faculty members at English departments expressed mockery and sarcasm when the universities began recruiting creative writers to teach creative writing. For instance, a professor of English at Cornell University, who when told of the proposal to hire the novelist Vladimir Nabokov, said to do so would be like the Department of Zoology hiring an elephant (Dibble & Van Loon. April 2000). In examining critics' negative stand, one may assume that it basically stems from two different misconceptions: first, critics seem unable or possibly unwilling to digest the idea that creative writing is a process-led, process-based discipline and its nature decrees different set of conventions and teaching techniques; second, it is more possibly that critics' adverse stand is based chiefly upon the performances of some incompetent instructors whose ineffective performances are taken as ground for criticism. Against all odds, creative writing has continued growing and expanding incessantly and has always received strength from its popularity and ability to recruit, and all attempts to marginalize it would be doomed to failure. Unfair and rather groundless attitudes persist regardless of the acknowledged popularity. The current study is designed to show the highlights of teaching creative writing at the American universities, and then to fairly discuss this peculiar experience and gauge its validation. After surveying the current state of this ever-blooming discipline and the negative stand held by some critics, the study examines the commonalties, the shared conventions, and the ground rules of fiction writing workshops. A considerable number of essentials would be tackled
An Argument Worth Having: Championing Creative Writing in the Disciplines
English Leadership Quarterly, 2015
In this article, the author argues for the inclusion of creative writing assignments in secondary school disciplines other than English in order to (1) improve the authenticity of students’ written voices, (2) provide new formative evaluation tools for teachers, and (3) create opportunities for meaningful collaboration between secondary English teachers and teachers in other disciplines. The author provides a variety of example assignment ideas, including “time traveler” journals, poetry exercises, scriptwriting, and fictional journalism to further support the argument for creative writing in the disciplines.
CREATIVE WRITING PERFORMANCE- Faculty Research.doc
This sex-aggregated descriptive-correlational study assessed the performance of the Middle-Age Filipino ESL Learners (Senior Teacher Education Students enrolled in the course, English for Occupation Purposes at Urdaneta City University,Philippines) in Creative Writing. Purposive selection of the respondents account for balance in sex distribution to allow for fair statistical sex-aggregation analysis of data. The respondents were likewise profiled in terms of age, mother tongue, most preferred reading material in English, linguistic intelligence, and English proficiency. Assesment of their performance in Creative Writing employed the criteria: (a) creativity; (b) coherent structure; and (c) adherence to topic. The study sought to determine the extent of the relationship of creative writing performance and the pre-identified learner-trait variables. A standardized questionnaire was used in data-gathering.The research findings indicate no significant relationship between the sex of the learners and their creative writing performance, in which the ESL learners (18 years old and above) were generally found to have a performance level of “Approaching Proficiency”. This finding cuts across other findings that a large majority of the respondents have a common Mother Tongue (Ilokano: a major language in the Philippines). They also subject to frequent exposure and preference for “fiction” as a reading material in English, and were generally found to have “High Linguistic Intelligence” but only a “Satisfactory” level of English Proficiency. No further significant correlation was found among the other learner-trait variables that associate with the respondents’ Creative Writing Performance. Recommendations were advanced by the researchers from the conclusions of the study, and which explores on the possibility to develop an instructional material in Creative Writing that will assist in further enhancing the relatively low-competence of male and female ESL learners in terms of skills in Creative Writing based on the specific criteria to which they were found to perform at relatively lower levels. The materials should also encourage the employment of tasks and activities that encourage preference for a wider range of reading materials in English in the context of further improving the learners’ English Proficiency.