English 693Z: Creative Writing Pedagogy, Fall 2002

W 4-6:50

Jim Harms |

Office: 461 Stansbury, 293-3107 x451; jharms@wvu edu

As part of the requirements for the MFA, students must take a course in creative writing pedagogy, which will prepare them to teach our introductory creative writing classes and by extension classes they might teach as they obtain positions as instructors of creative writing. From a less practical perspective, there seems a real need to investigate and consider the role of the writer in academe, the writer in society, the writer as a human being walking around looking for work or, simply, an identity.

I'd like every student (each of you) to leave this course with a better sense of what's possible in the creative writing class, and to have developed a philosophy that supports an approach (or several approaches). There are, of course, many people who think that writing cannot be taught. This doesn't seem to me a very useful or relevant position. I'm not sure I teach students how to write poetry or prose; rather, I point out how the masters wrote, and what patterns seem to apparent in their own efforts. The students usually figure out what to do on their own. Still, I believe the journey is often shortened thanks to the workshop, that certain realizations are arrived at sooner. Perhaps more importantly, I know that students leave the creative writing class more excited about literature and with more faith in literature's relevance in their lives. Creative writing classes produce readers more than writers: one of the things you need to decide is how you feel about this fact.

Each of you has strong feelings about what works and what doesn't in the classroom. Regardless, please allow the activities and discussions this semester to subvert and erode, not to mention strengthen those beliefs. For instance, the workshop is considered the bedrock of creative writing classes, but more and more it is being interrogated, even discarded in favor of other models (what are those models?). Can we honestly evaluate the success of something as subjective, organic and imprecise as the workshop process? If so, how should such an assessment proceed? What do we hope to accomplish in a creative writing class? What are the goals? How do we know when we've reached these goals?

We'll discuss a lot of things this semester: What do we do differently in a more advanced class than a beginning class? How much reading should we assign? Should we use anthologies or individual author texts? How big should a creative writing class be? Should we grade creative writing assignments? Should we make assignments at all, or simply allow the students to write what they wish? Does the answer to the previous question depend upon the sophistication and experience of the class? Should a large percentage of the course be devoted to in-class writing? How directed should such writing be? Should we spend time teaching the students how to workshop? Should we worry about the sensitivity level of students? Should we discourage harsh criticism? Encourage it? How involved should the professor be in the workshop discussion? Should we set time limits on workshop discussions of individual pieces?

Should we require a certain number of teacher-student conferences? Should we provide detailed, prescriptive suggestions directly on the student's work? General comments? encouragement only? specific editing instructions? no written feedback at

all? something else? Should class time be devoted to more academic assignments (reviews, critical essays, oral presentations, etc.)? Or should the focus be on the student work almost exclusively? Do the answers to the two previous questions depend on the sophistication and experience of the students? Should repetition be revised out of a syllabus? Should teachers show their students their own work? How aware should the students be of their teachers' professional accomplishments (does it make a difference?)? Is it ethical or useful to assign your own work to students (to what degree--a few poems in an anthology versus an entire collection of a book you collect royalties on?)? How hard should we be on our less accomplished students? Is it our place to tell a young writer that she/he "doesn't have what it takes?" "is wasting his/her time?" "couldn't write him/herself out of a bag?" Should we encourage students to pursue such a difficult and impractical profession? Do we emphasize publishing? If so, when? Is it harmful to encourage students who aren't ready to send their work to magazines or competitions, especially when they're determined and eager to do so? How close should we allow ourselves to be with out creative writing students? This question is especially pertinent to cw instructors, who inevitably work with students' personal lives via the material of their art. How involved should we allow ourselves to become, particularly when we see students struggling with difficult emotional issues?

And on and on. The questions are endless. Granted, some of the above is true for any class. But as Richard Hugo puts it in his essay "In Defense of Creative-Writing Classes" (which you'll read in its entirety this week), "A creative-writing class may be one of the last places you can go where your life still matters." This may sound dramatic, even hyperbolic, but the longer you teach creative writing the more poignant Hugo's sentence seems, if for no other reason than it is very difficult to maintain the emotional commitment required of a creative writing teacher. This is, perhaps, a self-indictment; still creative writing classes are only "easy" to teach in that they are very human, very involving, very much the sort of work that matters inter-personally and socially, which makes them gratifying and satisfying to teach. But they require enormous amounts of energy, not to mention an improvisational skill that is downright draining. What does this say about the activity, about what we're truly trying to do in the creative writing class? Answering this questions honestly is one of the main goals of this class.

Aside from such existential concerns, the course has several components:

1. Each student will start the semester by reflecting on his/her relationship to the teaching of creative writing, to identify a model or anti-model, and to use these reflections to write a short essay that discusses her/his goals and ambitions as a teacher of creative writing. This essay will then be reexamined at the end of the semester and critiqued as part of the introduction to the final portfolio.

2. The students will review as a class the many creative writing texts now available, selecting several for close analysis. The class will be broken into groups, with each group responsible for a detailed presentation on the theory, practice and effectiveness of a particular text.

3. Each student will prepare and present several in-class exercises to the rest of the class; the class will then assess the effectiveness of the exercises and provide feedback. The student will write short papers that discusses the pedagogical value of each exercise within the larger context of a typical, semester-long creative writing workshop. The papers will also include a discussion of each exercise as a reflection of a teaching philosophy.

4. Students will be asked to "ghost" various members of the creative writing faculty: this involves classroom observations, one-on-one interviews with faculty about teaching styles and approaches, and the compiling of a report on pedagogical approaches based on the observations and interviews.

5. Students may be asked to guest teach creative writing classes to try out exercises or to lead workshop discussions.

6. Each student will create a plan for a community-based or high school/middle school workshop of limited duration.

7. Each student will be placed in a West Virginia High School, Middle School or community center where he/she will conduct a short-term workshop with students interested in creative writing.

8. As a final project for English 693 the student will turn in a portfolio of all of the above with an introduction that articulates a personal pedagogy for creative writing instruction.

Along the way we'll talk about whatever occurs to us and try to help each other be better teachers.