Vision and Revision

The Whys and Hows of Employing Creative Writing Pedagogy in the College Classroom

Authors

  • Susan Friedman University of Alabama-Huntsville

Keywords:

creative writing, composition pedagogy, Australia and the U.K.

Abstract

Current research suggests that students who struggle with grammar, spelling, mechanics and other “problems of ability,” as well as students who suffer from “problems of engagement,” as well as those students who see reading and writing as a chore, can benefit from creative writing assignments and learn to enjoy reading and writing on the college level through this genre of writing. This paper explores several benefits from teaching creative writing in composition courses, and proposes that creative writing assignments be assigned to composition students as a precursor to teaching academic writing. Several Anglophone countries worldwide have been deploying creative writing pedagogies in their English classrooms as replacements for, or supplements to, other forms of college writing with great success.

Author Biography

Susan Friedman, University of Alabama-Huntsville

Susan Friedman is an Honors College Fellow and Senior Lecturer who teaches English, Creative Writing, Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.  She is also a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher who regularly teaches “The Bhagavad-Gita: Yoga Philosophy and Practice” for the Honors College. Her scholarship focuses on life-writing and implementing liberatory and feminist pedagogical practices in the college classroom.  She has presented eight scholarly papers at CEA conferences and published “Physician Heal Thyself: Employing ‘Patient-Doctor’ Communication Practices to Build Bridges in the Women’s and Gender Studies Classroom” in the CEA Critic, Spring 2019.

An 80s themed cover that displays an old school desktop computer and an illustration of Shakespeare with 80s yellow sunglasses and an old school cell phone.

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Published

2023-10-02

Issue

Vol. 49 No. 2 (2023): Summer/Fall 2023

Section

Articles

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