Our Beliefs about teaching CW

In order to…

learn how to become writers not just produce writing, teachers need to engage students in Transactional Workshops that focus equally on the writer, the reader, the process, and the product.
be prepared for the many options that a Creative Writing degree gives, teachers need to develop students Critical Creative Thinking, or the ability to use the craft of CW to produce coherent creative communication and understand theirs and others creative decisions.
Create a class community where students are motivated and engaged, teachers need to design courses that explicitly connect to the course learning outcomes, rely on collaboration and active learning, and reflect culturally sustaining practices.
best achieve goals, teachers need to balance a variety of pedagogical identities: expert practitioner, change agent, facilitator, co-constructor of knowledge, and vocational trainer.

Traditional Workshops

The department discourages traditional workshops, like you may have experienced in graduate school. Most students are not ready for this level of critique; they can be destructive to a new writer, and they are not a great use of class time. This belief is based on research and contemporary pedagogy. (See Wendy Bishop’s Released into Language.)

Instead, we focus on discussion, scaffolding, small group workshops where there is no gag rule, and the Transactional Workshop.

For example, the 230 OER course ends in large group workshops (with at least 25 students per class, there is no successful way to do a whole class workshop. They end in two large groups). However, throughout the course, the students have built their knowledge of writing, craft, and critique, so they are prepared to engage in larger workshops. In our 220 OER course, we have small group workshops planned for one class day at the end of the semester, but not before. Before that, to end each section, students have an open mic — or a shop&share, where students read their work and other students can only ask questions.

In summary, We push workshopping/revision until the end of the semester so that students can focus on getting familiar with all genres of CW, finding their voice, and understanding craft generally, instead of critique, before they are ready.

If you feel like your students are really ready for large group workshops or traditional workshops, you can plan them for the last 2 weeks of the semester.

Traditional Workshops

Further Reading

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