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What to Know About Creative Writing Degrees

Many creative writing degree recipients pursue careers as authors while others work as copywriters or ghostwriters.

Tips on Creative Writing Degrees

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Prospective writing students should think about their goals and figure out if a creative writing degree will help them achieve those goals.

Many people see something magical in a beautiful work of art, and artists of all kinds often take pride in their craftsmanship. Creative writers say they find fulfillment in the writing process.

"I believe that making art is a human need, and so to get to do that is amazing," says Andrea Lawlor, an author who this year received a Whiting Award – a national $50,000 prize that recognizes 10 excellent emerging authors each year – and who is also the Clara Willis Phillips Assistant Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.

"We all are seeing more and more of the way that writing can help us understand perspectives we don't share," says Lawlor, whose recent novel "Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl" addresses the issue of gender identity.

"Writing can help us cope with hard situations," Lawlor says. "We can find people who we have something in common with even if there's nobody around us who shares our experience through writing. It's a really powerful tool for connection and social change and understanding."

Creative writing faculty, many of whom are acclaimed published authors, say that people are well-suited toward degrees in creative writing if they are highly verbal and enjoy expressing themselves.

"Creative imaginative types who have stories burning inside them and who gravitate toward stories and language might want to pursue a degree in creative writing," Jessica Bane Robert, who teaches Introduction to Creative Writing at Clark University in Massachusetts, wrote in an email. "Through formal study you will hone your voice, gain confidence, find a support system for what can otherwise be a lonely endeavor."

Read the guide below to gain more insight into what it means to pursue a creative writing education, how writing impacts society and whether it is prudent to invest in a creative writing degree. Learn about the difference between degree-based and non-degree creative writing programs, how to craft a solid application to a top-notch creative writing program and how to figure out which program is the best fit.

Why Creative Writing Matters and Reasons to Study It

Creative writers say a common misconception about their job is that their work is frivolous and impractical, but they emphasize that creative writing is an extremely effective way to convey messages that are hard to share in any other way.

Kelly Caldwell, dean of faculty at Gotham Writers Workshop in New York City, says prospective writing students are often discouraged from taking writing courses because of concerns about whether a writing life is somehow unattainable or "unrealistic."

Although creative writers are sometimes unable to financially support themselves entirely on the basis of their creative projects, Caldwell says, they often juggle that work with other types of jobs and lead successful careers.

She says that many students in her introductory creative writing class were previously forbidden by parents to study creative writing. "You have to give yourself permission for the simple reason that you want to do it," she suggests.

Creative writing faculty acknowledge that a formal academic credential in creative writing is not needed in order to get writing published. However, they suggest, creative writing programs help aspiring authors develop their writing skills and allow space and time to complete long-term writing projects.

Working writers often juggle multiple projects at once and sometimes have more than one gig, which can make it difficult to finish an especially ambitious undertaking such as a novel, a play for the screen or stage, or a well-assembled collection of poems, short stories or essays. Grants and fellowships for authors are often designed to ensure that those authors can afford to concentrate on their writing.

Samuel Ace, a published poet and a visiting lecturer in poetry at Mount Holyoke, says his goal is to show students how to write in an authentic way that conveys real feeling. "It helps students to become more direct, not to bury their thoughts under a cascade of academic language, to be more forthright," he says.

Tips on Choosing Between a Non-Degree or Degree-Based Creative Writing Program

Experts note that someone needs to be ready to get immersed in the writing process and devote significant time to writing projects before pursuing a creative writing degree. Prospective writing students should not sign up for a degree program until they have reached that sense of preparedness, warns Kim Todd, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts and director of its creative writing program.

She says prospective writing students need to think about their personal goals and figure out if a creative writing degree will help them achieve those goals.

Aspiring writers who are not ready to invest in a creative writing degree program may want to sign up for a one-off writing class or begin participating in an informal writing workshop so they can test their level of interest in the field, Todd suggests.

How to Choose and Apply to a Creative Writing Program

In many cases, the most important component of an application to a writing program is the writing portfolio, writing program experts say. Prospective writing students need to think about which pieces of writing they include in their portfolio and need to be especially mindful about which item they put at the beginning of their portfolio. They should have a trusted mentor critique the portfolio before they submit it, experts suggest.

Because creative writing often involves self-expression, it is important for aspiring writing students to find a program where they feel comfortable expressing their true identity.

This is particularly pertinent to aspiring authors who are members of minority groups, including people of color or LGBTQ individuals, says Lawlor, who identifies as queer, transgender and nonbinary.

How to Use a Creative Writing Degree

Creative writing program professors and alumni say creative writing programs cultivate a variety of in-demand skills, including the ability to communicate effectively.

"While yes, many creative writers are idealists and dreamers, these are also typically highly flexible and competent people with a range of personal strengths. And a good creative writing program helps them understand their particular strengths and marketability and translate these for potential employers, alongside the more traditional craft development work," Melissa Ridley Elmes, an assistant professor of English at Lindenwood University in Missouri, wrote in an email.

Elmes – an author who writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction – says creative writing programs force students to develop personal discipline because they have to consistently produce a significant amount of writing. In addition, participating in writing workshops requires writing students "to give and receive constructive feedback," Elmes says.

Cindy Childress, who has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Louisiana—Lafayatte and did a creative writing dissertation where she submitted poetry, says creative writing grads are well-equipped for good-paying positions as advertising and marketing copywriters, speechwriters, grant writers and ghostwriters.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual compensation for writers and authors was $63,200 as of May 2019.

"I think the Internet, and writing communities online and in social media, have been very helpful for debunking the idea that if you publish a New York Times Bestseller you will have 'made it' and can quit your day job and write full time," Elmes explains. "Unless you are independently wealthy, the odds are very much against you in this regard."

Childress emphasizes that creative writing degree recipients have "skills that are absolutely transferable to the real world." For example, the same storytelling techniques that copywriters use to shape public perceptions about a commercial brand are often taught in introductory creative writing courses, she says. The ability to tell a good story does not necessarily come easily to people who haven't been trained on how to do it, she explains.

Childress says she was able to translate her creative writing education into a lucrative career and start her own ghostwriting and book editing company, where she earns a six-figure salary. She says her background in poetry taught her how to be pithy.

"Anything that we want to write nowadays, particularly for social media, is going to have to be immediately understood, so there is a sense of immediacy," she says."The language has to be crisp and direct and exact, and really those are exactly the same kind of ways you would describe a successful poem."

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Creative Writing and Literature Master’s Degree Program

Unlock your creative potential and hone your unique voice.

Online Courses

11 out of 12 total courses

On-Campus Experience

One 1- or 3-week residency in summer

$3,220 per course

Program Overview

Through the master’s degree in creative writing and literature, you’ll hone your skills as a storyteller — crafting publishable original scripts, novels, and stories.

In small, workshop-style classes, you’ll master key elements of narrative craft, including characterization, story and plot structure, point of view, dialogue, and description. And you’ll learn to approach literary works as both a writer and scholar by developing skills in critical analysis.

Program Benefits

Instructors who are published authors of drama, fiction, and nonfiction

A community of writers who support your growth in live online classes

Writer's residency with agent & editor networking opportunities

Personalized academic and career advising

Thesis or capstone options that lead to publishable creative work

Harvard Alumni Association membership upon graduation

Customizable Course Curriculum

As you work through the program’s courses, you’ll enhance your creative writing skills and knowledge of literary concepts and strategies. You’ll practice the art of revision to hone your voice as a writer in courses like Writing the Short Personal Essay and Writing Flash Fiction.

Within the creative writing and literature program, you will choose between a thesis or capstone track. You’ll also experience the convenience of online learning and the immersive benefits of learning in person.

11 Online Courses

• Primarily synchronous
• Fall, spring, January, and summer options

Writers’ Residency

A 1- or 3-week summer master class taught by a notable instructor, followed by an agents-and-editors weekend

Thesis or Capstone Track

• Thesis: features a 9-month independent creative project with a faculty advisor
• Capstone: includes crafting a fiction or nonfiction manuscript in a classroom community

The path to your degree begins before you apply to the program.

First, you’ll register for and complete 2 required courses, earning at least a B in each. These foundational courses are investments in your studies and count toward your degree, helping ensure success in the program.

Getting Started

We invite you to explore degree requirements, confirm your initial eligibility, and learn more about our unique “earn your way in” admissions process.

A Faculty of Creative Writing Experts

Studying at Harvard Extension School means learning from the world’s best. Our instructors are renowned academics in literary analysis, storytelling, manuscript writing, and more. They bring a genuine passion for teaching, with students giving our faculty an average rating of 4.7 out of 5.

Bryan Delaney

Playwright and Screenwriter

Talaya Adrienne Delaney

Lecturer in Extension, Harvard University

Elisabeth Sharp McKetta

Our community at a glance.

80% of our creative writing and literature students are enrolled in our master’s degree program for either personal enrichment or to make a career change. Most (74%) are employed full time while pursuing their degree and work across a variety of industries.

Download: Creative Writing & Literature Master's Degree Fact Sheet

Average Age

Course Taken Each Semester

Work Full Time

Would Recommend the Program

Professional Experience in the Field

Pursued for Personal Enrichment

Career Opportunities & Alumni Outcomes

Graduates of our Creative Writing and Literature Master’s Program have writing, research, and communication jobs in the fields of publishing, advertising/marketing, fundraising, secondary and higher education, and more.

Some alumni continue their educational journeys and pursue further studies in other nationally ranked degree programs, including those at Boston University, Brandeis University, University of Pennsylvania, and Cambridge University.

Our alumni hold titles as:

• Marketing Manager
• Director of Publishing
• Senior Research Writer

Our alumni work at a variety of leading organizations, including:

• Little, Brown & Company
• New York University (NYU)
• Bentley Publishers

Career Advising and Mentorship

Whatever your career goals, we’re here to support you. Harvard’s Mignone Center for Career Success offers career advising, employment opportunities, Harvard alumni mentor connections, and career fairs like the annual on-campus Harvard Humanities, Media, Marketing, and Creative Careers Expo.

Your Harvard University Degree

Upon successful completion of the required curriculum, you will earn the Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) in Extension Studies, Field: Creative Writing and Literature.

Expand Your Connections: the Harvard Alumni Network

As a graduate, you’ll become a member of the worldwide Harvard Alumni Association (400,000+ members) and Harvard Extension Alumni Association (29,000+ members).

Harvard is closer than one might think. You can be anywhere and still be part of this world.

Tuition & Financial Aid

Affordability is core to our mission. When compared to our continuing education peers, it’s a fraction of the cost.

After admission, you may qualify for financial aid . Typically, eligible students receive grant funds to cover a portion of tuition costs each term, in addition to federal financial aid options.

What can you do with a master’s degree in creative writing and literature?

A master’s degree in creative writing and literature prepares you for a variety of career paths in writing, literature, and communication — it’s up to you to decide where your interests will take you.

You could become a professional writer, editor, literary agent, marketing copywriter, or communications specialist.

You could also go the academic route and bring your knowledge to the classroom to teach creative writing or literature courses.

Is a degree in creative writing and literature worth it?

The value you find in our Creative Writing and Literature Master’s Degree Program will depend on your unique goals, interests, and circumstances.

The curriculum provides a range of courses that allow you to graduate with knowledge and skills transferable to various industries and careers.

How long does completing the creative writing and literature graduate program take?

Program length is ordinarily anywhere between 2 and 5 years. It depends on your preferred pace and the number of courses you want to take each semester.

For an accelerated journey, we offer year round study, where you can take courses in fall, January, spring, and summer.

While we don’t require you to register for a certain number of courses each semester, you cannot take longer than 5 years to complete the degree.

What skills do you need prior to applying for the creative writing and literature degree program?

Harvard Extension School does not require any specific skills prior to applying, but in general, it’s helpful to have solid reading, writing, communication, and critical thinking skills if you are considering a creative writing and literature master’s degree.

Initial eligibility requirements can be found on our creative writing and literature master’s degree requirements page .

Harvard Division of Continuing Education

The Division of Continuing Education (DCE) at Harvard University is dedicated to bringing rigorous academics and innovative teaching capabilities to those seeking to improve their lives through education. We make Harvard education accessible to lifelong learners from high school to retirement.

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

Home > JCWS > Vol. 6 > Iss. 1

Volume 6, Issue 1 (2021)

Research: qualitative and quantitative.

Bad Grades, Making Bank, and Hating Piano: The Divergent Trajectories of Two Creative Writers’ Semiotic Becomings Jon Udelson

Theory, Culture, and Craft

How Creative Writers can work with Archivists: A Crash Course in Cooperation and Perspectives Erin Renee Wahl and Pamela Pierce

Looking While Reading I, II, III Sarah Minor

Toward an Erotics of Reading: Three Hypotheses on Pleasure from Barthes's "The Pleasure of the Text" C. Connor Syrewicz

Diversity and Inclusion

The Extracurriculum of Creative Writing Nancy Reddy

The Mind and the Self: A Preliminary Analysis of Handbooks Written by Women and Men on How to Write Fiction from 1900-1940 Mitchell R. James

Public Promises, Hazy Vision: What Program Learning Outcomes Tell Us About Creative Writing as an Academic Subject Tanya Perkins and Lisa Marling

Digital and Multimodal/Multimedia

Utilizing Digital Literacy in the Creative Writing Classroom Sam Meekings

“Against Thoughts and Prayers” Robert Grant Price

Prolific Moment Diane Stubbings

Beyond Craft: An Anti-Handbook for Creative Writers Elena Traina

Why Writing Matters Diane Stubbings

Conference Proceedings

Space is Time: Keynote for the Creative Writing Studies Conference 2020 Sarah Minor

Community Building Panel

Building Literary Community Through Online Readings Alexa Garvoille

Moonlighting Together: Faculty (Creative) Writing Groups Erick Piller

Craft and Genre Analysis Panel

Toward a Theory of Brittle Moments: The Nature Essay, Psychoanalytic Criticism, and the Role of Danger Jen Hirt

Fragmenting Fatherhood: Nonlinear Memoir’s Articulation of the Effects of Toxic Fatherhood David Haydon

Toward a Volupology of Literary Fiction C. Connor Syrewicz

Pedagogy Panel

“Do I Bend Genre? Or Does Genre Bend Me?”: Toward an Ageneric Pedagogy Wes Jamison

“Implementing the Student-Centered Creative Writing Workshop Model in Remote Learning Classroom Environments” Zoë Bossiere

Creative Writing and the Cultural Moment

Teaching Responsiveness in Creative Writing Janelle Adsit

Responding to Creative Writing Graeme Harper

On Writing in Two Languages in the Creative Writing Workshop: Exploring Diverse and Inclusive Workshop Models and Pedagogies Caleb González

Creative Writing and Non-traditional Applications

Meaningful Machines: Exploring Creative Programming for Creative Writing Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

Beyond the Classroom: Translating Creative Writing Skills for “Real World” Contexts Alyse Bensel and Kristin Coffey

"But How Do You Write It?": Teaching Flash Fiction in the Short Story Workshop Emily Capettini

Curriculum and Program Design

a Practice of Freedom: modestly rendered in curriculum Rachel Haley Himmelheber and Gary Hawkins

A brief history of the development of Chinese creative writing (2009-2020): Paths and issues Liu Weidong

Disciplinarity

“How Do You Get from Here to There?”: Traversing the Space between Creative Writing Studies and Secondary English Teacher Training Chris Drew

Bridging a Divide or Dividing a Bridge?: Style, Disciplinarity, and Creative Writing Studies Jon Udelson

Creative Writing Studies and Literary Studies: Converging Agendas? Tim Mayers

Feedback and Students

What’s Wrong With It? Helping Students Assess Their Own Creative Work John Vigna

Signal to Noise Ratio: Information Overload and Feedback Reception Amy Ash

Reimagining

Revisiting the Challenge: Rethinking Creative Writing Ten Years on Stephanie Vanderslice

Meet Me in the Middle: Creative Writing Classrooms as Spaces of Diversity Melinda Ruth

Students Ask Questions

Students Ask Questions (Prep for Live Workshop) Lania Knight

Visual Art and Creative Writing Together

Bridging the Brick Divide: Graphic Design and Writing Collaboration in Undergraduate Student Magazine Production Kelly Ferguson and Meri Page

Intersecting Visual Art and Text: Creative-Critical, Transgenre Approaches and Identities in Writing and Teaching Kristin LaFollette and Jonathan Brownlee

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Creative Writing

Stanford’s Creative Writing Program--one of the best-known in the country--cultivates the power of individual expression within a vibrant community of writers. Many of our English majors pursue a concentration in creative writing, and the minor in Creative Writing is among the most popular minors on campus. These majors and minors participate in workshop-based courses or independent tutorials with Stegner Fellows, Stanford’s distinguished writers-in-residence.

English Major with a Creative Writing Emphasis

The English major with a Creative Writing emphasis is a fourteen-course major. These fourteen courses comprise eight English courses and six Creative Writing courses.

English majors with a Creative Writing emphasis should note the following:

All courses must be taken for a letter grade.

Courses taken abroad or at other institutions may not be counted towards the workshop requirements.

Any 190 series course (190F, 190G, etc.), 191 series course (191T, etc.), or 192 series course (192V, etc.) counts toward the 190, 191, or 192 requirement.

PWR 1 is a prerequisite for all creative writing courses.

Minor in Creative Writing

The Minor in Creative Writing offers a structured environment in which students interested in writing fiction or poetry develop their skills while receiving an introduction to literary forms. Students may choose a concentration in fiction, poetry.

In order to graduate with a minor in Creative Writing, students must complete the following three courses plus three courses in either the prose or poetry tracks. Courses counted towards the requirements for the minor may not be applied to student's major requirements. 30 units are required. All courses must be taken for a letter grade.

Prose Track

Suggested order of requirements:

English 90. Fiction Writing or English 91. Creative Nonfiction

English 146S Secret Lives of the Short Story

One 5-unit English literature elective course

English 190. Intermediate Fiction Writing or English 191. Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Writing

English 92. Reading and Writing Poetry

Another English 190, 191, 290. Advanced Fiction, 291. Advanced Nonfiction, or 198L. Levinthal Tutorial

Poetry Track

English 92.Reading and Writing Poetry

English 160. Poetry and Poetics

English 192. Intermediate Poetry Writing

Another English 192, or 292.Advanced Poetry or 198L.Levinthal Tutorial

Creative Writing minors should note the following:

To declare a Creative Writing minor, visit the Student page in Axess. To expedite your declaration, make sure to list all 6 courses you have taken or plan to take for your minor.

Any 190 series course (190F, 190G, etc.), 191series course (191T, etc.), or 192 series course (192V, etc.) counts toward the 190, 191, or 192 requirement.

For more information, visit the Stanford Creative Writing Program.

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Ph.D. Creative Writing

Ph.d. in creative writing.

A rigorous program that combines creative writing and literary studies, the Ph.D. in Creative Writing prepares graduates for both scholarly and creative publication and teaching. With faculty guidance, students admitted to the Ph.D. program may tailor their programs to their goals and interests.

The creative writing faculty at KU has been widely published and anthologized, winning both critical and popular acclaim. Faculty awards include such distinctions as the Nebula Award, Hugo Award, Osborn Award, Shelley Memorial Award, Gertrude Stein Award, the Kenyon Review Prize, the Kentucky Center Gold Medallion, and the Pushcart Prize.

Regarding admission to both our doctoral and MFA creative writing programs, we will prioritize applicants who are interested in engaging with multiple faculty members to practice writing across genres and forms, from speculative fiction and realism to poetry and playwriting/screenwriting, etc.

The University of Kansas' Graduate Program in Creative Writing also offers an  M.F.A degree .

Opportunities

A GTA appointment includes a tuition waiver for ten semesters plus a competitive stipend. In the first year, GTA appointees teach English 101 (first year composition) and English 102 (a required reading and writing course). Creative Writing Ph.D. students may have the opportunity to teach an introductory course in creative writing after passing the doctoral examination, and opportunities are available for a limited number of advanced GTAs to teach in the summer.

Department Resources

• Graduate Admissions
• Graduate Contacts
• Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)

Affiliated Programs

• LandLocked Literary Magazine
• The Project on the History of Black Writing
• Center for the Study of Science Fiction
• Ad-Hoc African/Americanists and Affiliates

Degree Requirements

• At least 24 hours of credit in appropriate formal graduate courses beyond the M.A. or M.F.A. At least 15 hours (in addition to ENGL 800 if not taken for the M.A.) of this course work must be taken from among courses offered by the Department of English at the 700-level and above. English 997 and 999 credits cannot be included among the 24 hours. Students may petition to take up to 6 hours outside the Department.
• ENGL 800: Methods, Theory, and Professionalism (counts toward the 24 required credit hours).
• The ENGL 801/ENGL 802 pedagogy sequence (counts toward the 24 required credit hours).
• Two seminars (courses numbered 900 or above) offered by the Department of English at the University of Kansas, beyond the M.A. or M.F.A. ENGL 998 does not fulfill this requirement.
• ENGL 999, Dissertation (at least 12 hours).

If the M.A. or M.F.A. was completed in KU’s Department of English, a doctoral student may petition the DGS to have up to 12 hours of the coursework taken in the English Department reduced toward the Ph.D.

For Doctoral students,  the university requires completion of a course in responsible scholarship . For the English department, this would be ENGL 800, 780, or the equivalent). In addition, the Department requires reading knowledge of one approved foreign language: Old English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Greek, Latin, or Hebrew. Upon successful petition, a candidate may substitute reading knowledge of another language or research skill that is studied at the University or is demonstrably appropriate to the candidate’s program of study.

Doctoral students must fulfill the requirement  before  they take their doctoral examination, or be enrolled in a reading course the same semester as the exam. Students are permitted three attempts at passing each foreign language or research skill. Three methods of demonstrating reading knowledge for all approved languages except Old English are acceptable:

• Presenting 16 hours, four semesters, or the equivalent of undergraduate credit, earned with an average of C or better.
• Passing a graduate reading course at the University of Kansas or peer institution (e.g., French 100, German 100, etc.) with a grade of C or higher. In the past, some of these reading courses have been given by correspondence; check with the Division of Continuing Education for availability.
• Passing a translation examination given by a designated member of the English Department faculty or by the appropriate foreign language department at KU. The exam is graded pass/fail and requires the student to translate as much as possible of a representative text in the foreign language in a one-hour period, using a bilingual dictionary.
• Passing a translation examination given by the appropriate foreign language department at the M.A.-granting institution. Successful completion must be reflected either on the M.A. transcript or by a letter from the degree-granting department.

To fulfill the language requirement using Old English, students must successfully complete ENGL 710 (Introduction to Old English) and ENGL 712 (Beowulf).

Post-Coursework Ph.D. students must submit, with their committee chair(s), an annual review form to the DGS and Graduate Committee.

Doctoral students must take their doctoral examination within three semesters (excluding summers) of the end of the semester in which they took their final required course. If a student has an Incomplete, the timeline is not postponed until the Incomplete is resolved. For example, a student completing doctoral course work in Spring 2018 will need to schedule their doctoral exam no later than the end of Fall semester 2019. Delays may be granted by petition to the Graduate Director in highly unusual circumstances. Failure to take the exam within this time limit without an approved delay will result in the student’s falling out of good standing. For details on the consequences of falling out of good standing, see “Falling Out of Good Standing,” in General Department Policies and Best Practices.

A student may not take their doctoral exam until the university’s Research Skills and Responsible Scholarship requirement is fulfilled (ENGL 800 or equivalent and reading knowledge of one foreign language or equivalent).

Requirements for Doctoral Exams

Reading Lists: 

All students are required to submit three reading lists, based on the requirements below, to their committee for approval. The doctoral exam will be held on a date at least twelve weeks after the approval from the whole committee is received. To facilitate quick committee approval, students may copy the graduate program coordinator on the email to the committee that contains the final version of the lists. Committee members may then respond to the email in lieu of signing a printed copy. Students should work with their committee chair and graduate program coordinator to schedule the exam at the same time as they finalize the lists.

During the two-hour oral examination (plus an additional 15-30 minutes for a break and committee deliberation), a student will be tested on their comprehension of a literary period or movement, including multiple genres and groups of authors within that period or movement. In addition, the student will be tested on two of the following six areas of study:

• An adjacent or parallel literary period or movement,
• An author or group of related authors,
• Criticism and literary theory,
• Composition theory, and
• English language.

No title from any field list may appear on either of the other two lists. See Best Practices section for more details on these six areas. See below for a description of the Review of the Dissertation Proposal (RDP), which the candidate takes the semester after passing the doctoral exam. 

While many students confer with the DGS as they begin the process of developing their lists, they are also required to submit a copy of their final exam list to the DGS. Most lists will be left intact, but the DGS might request that overly long lists be condensed, or extremely short lists be expanded.

Review of Literature

The purpose of the Review of Literature is to develop and demonstrate an advanced awareness of the critical landscape for each list. The student will write an overview of the defining attributes of the field, identifying two or three broad questions that animate scholarly discussion, while using specific noteworthy texts from their list ( but not all texts on the list ) as examples.

The review also must accomplish the following:

• consider the historical context of major issues, debates, and trends that factor into the emergence of the field
• offer a historical overview of scholarship in the field that connects the present to the past
• note recent trends and emergent lines of inquiry
• propose questions about (develop critiques of, and/or identify gaps in) the field and how they might be pursued in future study (but not actually proposing or referencing a dissertation project)

For example, for a literary period, the student might include an overview of primary formal and thematic elements, of the relationship between literary and social/historical developments, of prominent movements, (etc.), as well as of recent critical debates and topics.

For a genre list, the Review of Literature might include major theories of its constitution and significance, while outlining the evolution of these theories over time.

For a Rhetoric and Composition list, the review would give an overview of major historical developments, research, theories, methods, debates, and trends of scholarship in the field.

For an English Language Studies (ELS) list, the review would give an overview of the subfields that make up ELS, the various methodological approaches to language study, the type of sources used, and major aims and goals of ELS. The review also usually involves a focus on one subfield of particular interest to the student (such as stylistics, sociolinguistics, or World/Postcolonial Englishes).

Students are encouraged to divide reviews into smaller sections that enhance clarity and organization. Students are not expected to interact with every text on their lists.

The review of literature might be used to prepare students for identifying the most important texts in the field, along with why those texts are important to the field, for the oral exam. It is recommended for students to have completed reading the bulk of (if not all) texts on their lists before writing the ROL.

The Reviews of Literature will not be produced in an exam context, but in the manner of papers that are researched and developed in consultation with all advisors/committee members,  with final drafts being distributed within a reasonable time for all members to review and approve in advance of the 3-week deadline . While the Review of Literature generally is not the focus of the oral examination, it is frequently used as a point of departure for questions and discussion during the oral examination.

Doctoral Exam Committee

Exam committees typically consist of 3 faculty members from the department—one of whom serves as the Committee Chair—plus a Graduate Studies Representative.  University policy dictates the composition of exam committees . Students may petition for an exception for several committee member situations, with the exception of  the Graduate Studies Representative .

If a student wants to have as a committee member a person outside the university, or a person who is not in a full-time tenure-track professorship at KU, the student must contact the Graduate Secretary as early as possible. Applications for special graduate faculty status must be reviewed by the College and Graduate Studies. Requests for exam/defense approval will not be approved unless all committee members currently hold either regular or special graduate faculty status

Remote participation of committee members via technology

Students with committee members who plan to attend the defense via remote technology must be aware of  college policy on teleconferencing/remote participation of committee members .

A majority of committee members must be physically present for an examination to commence; for doctoral oral examinations this requirement is 2 of the 4 members, for master’s oral examinations the requirement is 2 of the 3 members. In addition, it is required that the student being examined, the chair of the committee, and the Graduate Studies Representative all be physically present at the examination or defense. Mediated attendance by the student, chair and Grad Studies Rep is prohibited.

The recommended time between completion of coursework and the doctoral examination is two semesters.

Final exam lists need to be approved and signed by the committee at least 12 weeks prior to the prospective exam date. This includes summers/summer semesters. The lists should then be submitted to the Graduate Program Coordinator. Reviews of Literature need to be approved and signed by the committee at least 3 weeks prior to the exam date. Failure to meet this deadline will result in rescheduling the exam. No further changes to lists or Reviews of Literature will be allowed after official approval. The three-week deadline is the faculty deadline--the last date for them to confirm receipt of the ROLs and confer approval--not necessarily the student deadline for submitting the documents to the faculty. Please keep that timing in mind and allow your committee adequate time to review the materials and provide feedback.

Students taking the Doctoral Exam are allowed to bring their text lists, the approved Reviews of Literature, scratch paper, a writing utensil, and notes/writing for an approximately 5-minute introductory statement to the exam. (This statement does not need to lay out ideas or any aspect of the dissertation project.)

Each portion of the oral examination must be deemed passing before the student can proceed to the Review of the Dissertation Proposal. If a majority of the committee judges that the student has not answered adequately on one of the three areas of the exam, the student must repeat that portion in a separate oral exam of one hour, to be taken as expeditiously as possible.  Failure in two areas constitutes failure of the exam and requires a retake of the whole.  The doctoral examining committee will render a judgment of Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory on the entire examination. A student who fails the exam twice may, upon successful petition to the Graduate Committee, take it a third and final time.

Students cannot bring snacks, drinks, treats, or gifts for committee members to the exam. Professors should avoid the appearance of favoritism that may occur if they bring treats to some student exams but not others.

The doctoral oral examination has the following purposes:

• To establish goals, tone, and direction for the pursuit of the Ph.D. in English for the Department and for individual programs of study;
• To make clear the kinds of knowledge and skills that, in the opinion of the Department, all well-prepared holders of the degree should have attained;
• To provide a means for the Department to assess each candidate’s control of such knowledge and skills in order to certify that the candidate is prepared to write a significant dissertation and enter the profession; and
• To enable the Department to recommend to the candidate areas of strength or weakness that should be addressed.

In consultation with the Graduate Director, a student will ask a member of the Department’s graduate faculty (preferably their advisor) to be the chairperson of the examining committee. The choice of examination committee chair is very important, for that person’s role is to assist the candidate in designing the examination structure, preparing the Review of Literature (see below), negotiating reading lists and clarifying their purposes, and generally following procedures here outlined. The other three English Department members of the committee will be chosen in consultation with the committee chair. (At some point an additional examiner from outside the Department, who serves as the Graduate School representative, will be invited to join the committee). Any unresolved problems in negotiation between a candidate and their committee should be brought to the attention of the Graduate Director, who may choose to involve the Graduate Committee. A student may request a substitution in, or a faculty member may ask to be dismissed from, the membership of the examining committee. Such requests must be approved, in writing, by the faculty member leaving the committee and by the Graduate Director.

Reading Lists

Copies of some approved reading lists and Reviews of Literature are available from the Graduate Secretary and can be found on the U: drive if you are using a computer on campus. Despite the goal of fairness and equity, some unavoidable unevenness and disparity will appear in the length of these lists. It remains, however, the responsibility of the examining committee, and especially the student’s chair, to aim toward consonance with the most rigorous standards and expectations and to insure that areas of study are not unduly narrow.

To facilitate quick committee approval, students may copy the graduate secretary on the email to the committee that contains the final version of the lists and reviews of literature. Committee members may then respond to the email in lieu of signing a printed copy.

Comprehension of a literary period (e.g., British literature of the 18th century; Romanticism; US literature of the 19th century; Modernism) entails sufficient intellectual grasp of both the important primary works of and secondary works on the period or movement to indicate a student’s ability to teach the period or movement and undertake respectable scholarship on it.

Comprehension of an author or group of related authors (e.g., Donne, the Brontës, the Bloomsbury Group, the Black Mountain Poets) entails knowledge, both primary and secondary, of a figure or figures whose writing has generated a significant body of interrelated biographical, historical, and critical scholarship.

Comprehension of one of several genres (the short story, the lyric poem, the epistolary novel). To demonstrate comprehension of a genre, a student should possess sufficient depth and breadth of knowledge, both primary and secondary, of the genre to explain its formal characteristics and account for its historical development.

Comprehension of criticism and literary theory entails a grasp of fundamental conceptual problems inherent in a major school of literary study (e.g., historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, poststructuralist, etc.). To demonstrate comprehension of that school of criticism and literary theory, a student should be able to discuss changes in its conventions and standards of interpretation and evaluation of literature from its beginning to the present. Students will be expected to possess sufficient depth and breadth of theoretical knowledge to bring appropriate texts and issues to bear on questions of literary study.

Comprehension of composition theory entails an intellectual grasp of fundamental concepts, issues, and theories pertaining to the study of writing. To demonstrate comprehension of composition theory, students should be able to discuss traditional and current issues from a variety of perspectives, as well as the field’s historical development from classical rhetoric to the present.

Comprehension of the broad field of English language studies entails a grasp of the field’s theoretical concepts and current issues, as well as a familiarity with significant works within given subareas. Such subareas will normally involve formal structures (syntax, etc.) and history of the English language, along with other subareas such as social linguistics, discourse analysis, lexicography, etc. Areas of emphasis and specific sets of topics will be arranged through consultation with relevant faculty.

Ph.D. candidates must be continuously enrolled in Dissertation hours each Fall and Spring semester from the time they pass the doctoral examination until successful completion of the final oral examination (defense of dissertation).

• Students enroll for a minimum of 6 hours each Fall and Spring semester until the total of post-doctoral exam Dissertation hours is 18. One hour each semester must be ENGL 999. In order to more quickly reach the 18-hour minimum, and to be sooner eligible for GRAships, it is highly recommended that students enroll in 9 hours of Dissertation in the Spring and Fall semesters. 
• Once a student has accumulated 18 post-doctoral exam  hours, each subsequent enrollment will be for a number of hours agreed upon as appropriate between the student and their advisor, the minimal enrollment each semester being 1 hour of ENGL 999.
• A student must be enrolled in at least one hour of credit at KU during the semester they graduate. Although doctoral students must be enrolled in ENGL 999 while working on their dissertations, per current CLAS regulations, there is no absolute minimum number of ENGL 999 hours required for graduation.
• Students who live and work outside the Lawrence area may, under current University regulations, have their fees assessed at the Field Work rate, which is somewhat lower than the on-campus rate. Students must petition the College Office of Graduate Affairs before campus fees will be waived.

Please also refer to  the COGA policy on post-exam enrollment  or the  Graduate School’s policy .

As soon as possible following successful completion of the doctoral exam, the candidate should establish their three-person core dissertation committee, and then expeditiously proceed to the preparation of a dissertation proposal.  Within the semester following completion of the doctoral exam , the student will present to their core dissertation committee a written narrative of approximately  10-15 pages , not including bibliography, of the dissertation proposal. While the exam schedule is always contingent on student progress, in the first two weeks of the semester in which they intend to take the review , students will work with their committee chair and the graduate program coordinator to schedule the 90-minute RDP. Copies of this proposal must be submitted to the members of the dissertation committee and Graduate Program Coordinator no later than  three weeks prior  to the scheduled examination date.

In the proposal, students will be expected to define: the guiding question or set of questions; a basic thesis (or hypothesis); how the works to be studied or the creative writing produced relate to that (hypo)thesis; the theoretical/methodological model to be followed; the overall formal divisions of the dissertation; and how the study will be situated in the context of prior scholarship (i.e., its importance to the field). The narrative section should be followed by a bibliography demonstrating that the candidate is conversant with the basic theoretical and critical works pertinent to the study. For creative writing students, the proposal may serve as a draft of the critical introduction to the creative dissertation. Students are expected to consult with their projected dissertation committee concerning the preparation of the proposal.

The review will focus on the proposal, although it could also entail determining whether or not the candidate’s knowledge of the field is adequate to begin the composition process. The examination will be graded pass/fail. If it is failed, the committee will suggest areas of weakness to be addressed by the candidate, who will rewrite the proposal and retake the review  by the end of the following semester . If the candidate abandons the entire dissertation project for another, a new RDP will be taken. (For such a step to be taken, the change would need to be drastic, such as a move to a new field or topic. A change in thesis or the addition or subtraction of one or even several works to be examined would not necessitate a new proposal and defense.)  If the student fails to complete the Review of the Dissertation Proposal within a year of the completion of the doctoral exams, they will have fallen out of departmental good standing.  For details on the consequences of falling out of good standing, see “Falling Out of Good Standing,” in General Department Policies and Best Practices.

After passing the Review of the Dissertation Proposal, the student should forward one signed copy of the proposal to the Graduate Program Coordinator. The RDP may last no longer than 90 minutes.

Students cannot bring snacks, drinks, treats, or gifts for committee members to the review. Professors should avoid the appearance of favoritism that may occur if they bring treats to some student exams but not others.

The Graduate Catalog states that the doctoral candidate “must present a dissertation showing the planning, conduct and results of original research, and scholarly creativity.” While most Ph.D. candidates in the Department of English write dissertations of a traditional, research-oriented nature, a creative writing candidate may elect to do a creative-writing dissertation involving fiction, poetry, drama or nonfiction prose.  Such a dissertation must also contain a substantial section of scholarly research related to the creative writing.  The precise nature of the scholarly research component should be determined by the candidate in consultation with the dissertation committee and the Graduate Director. Candidates wishing to undertake such a dissertation must complete all Departmental requirements demanded for the research-oriented Ph.D. degree.

Scholarly Research Component (SRC)

The Scholarly Research Component (SRC) of the creative-writing dissertation is a separate section of the dissertation than the creative work. It involves substantial research and is written in the style of academic prose. It should be 15-20 pages and should cite at least 20 sources, some of which should be primary texts, and many of which should be from the peer-reviewed secondary literature. The topic must relate, in some way, to the topic, themes, ideas, or style of the creative portion of the dissertation; this relation should be stated in the Dissertation Proposal, which should include a section describing the student’s plans for the SRC. The SRC may be based on a seminar paper or other work the student has completed prior to the dissertation; but the research should be augmented, and the writing revised, per these guidelines. The SRC is a part of the dissertation, and as such will be included in the dissertation defense.

The SRC may take two general forms:

1.) An article, publishable in a peer-reviewed journal or collection, on a specific topic related to an author, movement, theoretical issue, taxonomic issue, etc. that has bearing on the creative portion. The quality of this article should be high enough that the manuscript could be submitted to a peer-reviewed publication, with a plausible chance of acceptance.

2.) A survey . This survey may take several different forms:

• A survey of a particular aspect of the genre of the creative portion of the dissertation (stylistic, national, historical, etc.)
• An introduction to the creative portion of the dissertation that explores the influences on, and the theoretical or philosophical foundations or implications of the creative work
• An exploration of a particular technical problem or craft issue that is salient in the creative portion of the dissertation
• If the creative portion of the dissertation includes the results of research (e.g., historical novel, documentary poetry, research-based creative nonfiction), a descriptive overview of the research undertaken already for the dissertation itself
• A combination of the above, with the prior approval of the student’s dissertation director.

The dissertation committee will consist of at least four members—two “core” English faculty members, a third faculty member (usually from English), and one faculty member from a different department who serves as the Graduate Studies representative. The committee may include (with the Graduate Director’s approval) members from other departments and, with the approval of the University’s Graduate Council, members from outside the University. If a student wants to have a committee member from outside the university, or a person who is not in a full-time tenure-track professorship at KU, the student must contact the Graduate Secretary as early as possible. Applications for special graduate faculty status must be reviewed by the College and the Office of Graduate Studies. Requests for defense approval will not be approved unless all committee members currently hold either regular or special graduate faculty status.

The candidate’s preferences as to the membership of the dissertation committee will be carefully considered; the final decision, however, rests with the Department and with the Office of Graduate Studies. All dissertation committees must get approval from the Director of Graduate Studies before scheduling the final oral exam (defense). Furthermore, any changes in the make-up of the dissertation committee from the Review of the Dissertation Proposal committee must be approved by the Director of Graduate Studies.

Once the dissertation proposal has passed and the writing of the dissertation begins, membership of the dissertation committee should remain constant. However, under extraordinary circumstances, a student may request a substitution in, or a faculty member may ask to be dismissed from, the membership of the dissertation committee. Such requests must be approved, in writing, by the faculty member leaving the committee and by the Graduate Director.

If a student does not make progress during the dissertation-writing stage, and accumulates more than one “Limited Progress” and/or “No Progress” grade on their transcript, they will fall out of good standing in the department. For details on the consequences of falling out of good standing, see “Falling Out of Good Standing,” in General Department Policies and Best Practices

Final Oral Exam (Dissertation Defense)

When the dissertation has been tentatively accepted by the dissertation committee (not including the Graduate Studies Representative), the final oral examination will be held, on the recommendation of the Department. While the exam schedule is always contingent on student progress, in the first two weeks of the semester in which they intend to defend the dissertation, students should work with their committee chair and graduate program coordinator to schedule it.

Although the dissertation committee is responsible for certification of the candidate, any member of the graduate faculty may be present at the examination and participate in the questioning, and one examiner—the Graduate Studies Representative—must be from outside the Department. The Graduate Secretary can help students locate an appropriate Grad Studies Rep. The examination normally lasts no more than two hours. It is the obligation of the candidate to advise the Graduate Director that they plan to take the oral examination; this must be done at least one month before the date proposed for the examination.

At least three calendar weeks prior to the defense date, the student will submit the final draft of the dissertation to all the committee members (including the GSR) and inform the Graduate Program Coordinator. Failure to meet this deadline will necessitate rescheduling the defense.  The final oral examination for the Ph.D. in English is, essentially, a defense of the dissertation. When it is passed, the dissertation itself is graded by the dissertation director, in consultation with the student’s committee; the student’s performance in the final examination (defense) is graded by the entire five-person committee

Students cannot bring snacks, drinks, treats, or gifts for committee members to the defense. Professors should avoid the appearance of favoritism that may occur if they bring treats to some student defenses but not others

These sets of attributes are adapted from the Graduate Learner Outcomes that are a part of our Assessment portfolio. “Honors” should only be given to dissertations that are rated “Outstanding” in all or most of the following categories:

• Significant and innovative plot/structure/idea/focus. The writer clearly places plot/structure/idea/focus in context.
• Thorough knowledge of literary traditions. Clear/flexible vision of the creative work produced in relation to those literary traditions.
• Introduction/Afterword is clear, concise, and insightful. A detailed discussion of the implications of the project and future writing projects exists.
• The creative dissertation reveals the doctoral candidate’s comprehensive understanding of poetics and/or aesthetic approach. The application of the aesthetic approach is innovative and convincing.
• The creative dissertation represents original and sophisticated creative work.
• The creative dissertation demonstrates thematic and/or aesthetic unity.

After much discussion about whether the “honors” designation assigned after the dissertation defense should be for the written product only, for the defense/discussion only, for both together, weighted equally, or eradicated altogether, the department voted to accept the Graduate Committee recommendation that “honors” only apply to the written dissertation. "Honors" will be given to dissertations that are rated "Outstanding" in all or most of the categories on the dissertation rubric.

Normally, the dissertation will present the results of the writer’s own research, carried on under the direction of the dissertation committee. This means that the candidate should be in regular contact with all members of the committee during the dissertation research and writing process, providing multiple drafts of chapters, or sections of chapters, according to the arrangements made between the student and each faculty member. Though accepted primarily for its scholarly merit rather than for its rhetorical qualities, the dissertation must be stylistically competent. The Department has accepted the MLA Handbook as the authority in matters of style. The writer may wish to consult also  the Chicago Manual of Style  and Kate L. Turabian’s  A Manual for Writers of Dissertations, Theses, and Term Papers .

Naturally, both the student and the dissertation committee have responsibilities and obligations to each other concerning the submitting and returning of materials. The student should plan on working steadily on the dissertation; if they do so, they should expect from the dissertation committee a reasonably quick reading and assessment of material submitted.

Students preparing their dissertation should be showing chapters to their committee members as they go along, for feedback and revision suggestions. They should also meet periodically with committee members to assess their progress. Prior to scheduling a defense, the student is encouraged to ask committee members whether they feel that the student is ready to defend the dissertation. Ideally, the student should hold the defense only when they have consulted with committee members sufficiently to feel confident that they have revised the dissertation successfully to meet the expectations of all committee members.

Students should expect that they will need to revise each chapter at least once. This means that all chapters (including introduction and conclusion) are shown to committee members once, revised, then shown to committee members again in revised form to assess whether further revisions are needed, prior to the submitting of the final dissertation as a whole. It is not unusual for further revisions to be required and necessary after the second draft of a chapter; students should not therefore simply assume that a second draft is necessarily “final” and passing work.

If a substantial amount of work still needs to be completed or revised at the point that the dissertation defense is scheduled, such a defense date should be regarded as tentative, pending the successful completion, revision, and receipt of feedback on all work. Several weeks prior to the defense, students should consult closely with their dissertation director and committee members about whether the dissertation as a whole is in a final and defensible stage. A project is ready for defense when it is coherent, cohesive, well researched, engages in sophisticated analysis (in its entirety or in the critical introduction of creative dissertations), and makes a significant contribution to the field. In other words, it passes each of the categories laid out in the Dissertation Rubric.

If the dissertation has not clearly reached a final stage, the student and dissertation director are advised to reschedule the defense.

Prior Publication of the Doctoral Dissertation

Portions of the material written by the doctoral candidate may appear in article form before completion of the dissertation. Prior publication does not ensure the acceptance of the dissertation by the dissertation committee. Final acceptance of the dissertation is subject to the approval of the dissertation committee. Previously published material by other authors included in the dissertation must be properly documented.

Each student beyond the master’s degree should confer regularly with the Graduate Director regarding their progress toward the doctoral examination and the doctorate.

Doctoral students may take graduate courses outside the English Department if, in their opinion and that of the Graduate Director, acting on behalf of the Graduate Committee, those courses will be of value to them. Their taking such courses will not, of course, absolve them of the responsibility for meeting all the normal departmental and Graduate School requirements.

Doctoral students in creative writing are strongly encouraged to take formal literature classes in addition to forms classes. Formal literature classes, by providing training in literary analysis, theory, and/or literary history, will help to prepare students for doctoral exams (and future teaching at the college level).

FALL SEMESTER            

• GTAs take 2 courses (801 + one), teach 2 courses; GRAs take 3 courses.
• Visit assigned advisor once a month to update on progress & perceptions. 1st-year advisors can assist with selecting classes for the Spring semester, solidifying and articulating a field of specialization, advice about publishing, conferences, professionalization issues, etc.

SPRING SEMESTER

• GTAs take 2 courses (780/800/880 + one), teach 2 courses. GTAs also take ENGL 802 for 1 credit hour. GRAs take 3 courses.
• Visit assigned advisor or DGS once during the semester; discuss best advisor choices for Year 2.

SUMMER SEMESTER

• Enroll in Summer Institute if topic and/or methodology matches interests.
• Consider conferences suited to your field and schedule; choose a local one for attendance in Year 2 and draft an Abstract for a conference paper (preferably with ideas/materials/ writing drawn from a seminar paper).  Even if abstract is not accepted, you can attend the conference without the pressure of presenting.
• Attend at least one conference to familiarize yourself with procedure, network with other grad students and scholars in your field, AND/OR present a paper.

FALL SEMESTER

• Take 2 courses, teach 2 courses.
• Visit advisor in person at least once during the semester.

WINTER BREAK

• Begin revising one of your seminar papers/independent study projects/creative pieces for submission to a journal; research the journals most suited to placement of your piece.
• Begin thinking about fields and texts for comprehensive examinations.
• Choose an advisor to supervise you through the doctoral examination process.
• Visit assigned 1st-year advisor in person at least once during the semester (at least to formally request doctoral exam supervision OR to notify that you are changing advisors).
• Summer teaching, if eligible.
• Continue revising paper/creative writing for submission to a journal.
• Begin reading for comprehensive exams.
• Attend one conference and present a paper. Apply for one-time funding for out-of-state travel  from Graduate Studies .
• Teach 2 courses; take 997 (exam prep).
• Finalize comps list by end of September; begin drafting rationales.
• Circulate the draft of your article/creative piece to your advisor, other faculty in the field, and/or advanced grad students in the field for suggestions.
• Revise article/creative piece with feedback from readers.
• Teach 2 courses; take 997 or 999 (dissertation hours). Enroll in 999 if you plan to take your comps this semester, even if you don’t take them until the last day of classes.
• Take comps sometime between January and May.
• Summer teaching, if available.
• Submit article/creative work for publication.
• Continuous enrollment after completing doctoral exam (full policy on p. 20)
• Research deadlines for grant applications—note deadlines come early in the year.
• Attend one conference and present a paper.
• Teach 2 courses, take 999.
• Compose dissertation proposal by November.
• Schedule Review of Dissertation Proposal (RDP—formerly DPR).
• Apply for at least one grant or fellowship, such as a departmental-level GRAship or dissertation fellowship. (Winning a full-year, non-teaching fellowship can cut down your years-to-degree to 5 ½, or even 5 years.)
• Conduct research for and draft at least 1 dissertation chapter.
• Conduct research and complete a draft of at least 1 dissertation chapter.
• Revise & resubmit journal article, if necessary.
• Attend 1st round of job market meetings with Job Placement Advisor (JPA) to start drafting materials and thinking about the process.
• Research and complete a draft of at least 1 dissertation chapter, if teaching (1-2 chapters if not).
• Visit dissertation chair  and  committee members in person at least once during the semester.
• Research and complete a draft of at least 1 dissertation chapter (1-2 chapters if not teaching).
• Apply for a departmental grant or fellowship, or, if already held, try applying for one from outside the department, such as those offered by KU’s Hall Center for the Humanities or the Office of Graduate Studies. For  a monthly list of funding opportunities , visit the Graduate Studies website.
• Research and complete a draft of at least 1 dissertation chapter.
• Attend job market meetings with JPA in earnest.
• Apply for external grants, research fellowships, postdoctoral positions with fall deadlines (previous fellowship applications, your dissertation proposal, and subsequent writing should provide a frame so that much of the application can be filled out with the “cut & paste” function).
• Research and complete a draft of at least 1 dissertation chapter (1-2 if not teaching).
• Visit dissertation chair and committee members in person at least once during the semester.
• Polish dissertation chapters.
• Apply for grants and fellowships with spring deadlines.
• Defend dissertation.

Creative Writing Faculty

• Associate Professor

• Professor of English & Environmental Studies

• Assistant Professor

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Creative Writing

Undergraduate Creative Writing Program Office: 609 Kent; 212-854-3774 http://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate

Director of Undergraduate Studies: Prof. Anelise Chen, Fiction, Nonfiction, 609 Kent; 212-854-3774; [email protected]

Undergraduate Executive Committee:

• Prof. Anelise Chen, Fiction, Nonfiction, 609 Kent; 212-854-3774; [email protected]
• Prof. Heidi Julavits, Fiction, 609 Kent; 212-854-3774; [email protected]
• Prof. Dorothea Lasky, Poetry, 609 Kent; 212-854-3774; [email protected]
• Prof. Timothy Donnelly, Poetry, 415 Dodge; 212-854-4391; [email protected]
• Prof. Margo Jefferson, Nonfiction, 609 Kent; 212-854-3774; [email protected]
• Prof. Sam Lipsyte, Fiction, 609 Kent; 212-854-3774; [email protected]
• Prof. Deborah Paredez, Poetry, 609 Kent, [email protected]
• Prof. Alan Ziegler, Fiction, 415 Dodge; 212-854-4391; [email protected]

The Creative Writing Program in The School of the Arts combines intensive writing workshops with seminars that study literature from a writer's perspective. Students develop and hone their literary technique in workshops. The seminars (which explore literary technique and history) broaden their sense of possibility by exposing them to various ways that language has been used to make art. Related courses are drawn from departments such as English, comparative literature and society, philosophy, history, and anthropology, among others.

Students consult with faculty advisers to determine the related courses that best inform their creative work. For details on the major, see the Creative Writing website: http://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate .

Margo L. Jefferson

Phillip Lopate

• Benjamin Marcus
• Alan Ziegler

Associate Professors

• Susan Bernofsky
• Timothy Donnelly
• Heidi Julavits
• Dorothea Lasky
• Victor LaValle
• Sam Lipsyte
• Deborah Paredez

Assistant Professors

• Anelise Chen

Adjunct Professors

• Halle Butler
• Frances Cha
• Bonnie Chau
• Dennard Dayle
• Alex Dimitrov
• Joseph Fasano
• Elizabeth Greenwood
• Jared Jackson
• Katrine Øgaard Jensen
• Marie Myung-Ok Lee
• Hilary Leichter
• Madelaine Lucas
• Patricia Marx
• Molly McGhee
• Mallika Rao
• Nina Sharma
• Christine Smallwood
• John Vincler
• Madeleine Watts
• Samantha Zighelboim

Graduate Faculty Fellows

• Aamir Azhar
• Naomi Bernstein
• Rose Demaris
• Alex Kapsidelis
• Kai-Lilly Karpman
• Christian Kennedy
• Rebecca Levey
• James McGowan
• Wyonia McLaurin
• Sabrina Qiao
• Rachel Raiola
• Rhoni Blankenhorn
• Sophie Dess
• Nicholas Gambini
• Kayla Heisler
• Benn Jeffries
• Hannah Kaplan
• Emmett Lewis
• Frances Lindemann
• Halley McDonough
• Kellina Moore
• Ashley Porras
• Cory Scarola
• Jacob Schultz

Major in Creative Writing

The major in creative writing requires a minimum of 36 points: five workshops, four seminars, and three related courses.

Workshop Curriculum (15 points)

Students in the workshops produce original works of fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, and submit them to their classmates and instructor for a close critical analysis. Workshop critiques (which include detailed written reports and thorough line-edits) assess the mechanics and merits of the writing pieces. Individual instructor conferences distill the critiques into a direct plan of action to improve the work. Student writers develop by practicing the craft under the diligent critical attention of their peers and instructor, which guides them toward new levels of creative endeavor.

Creative writing majors select 15 points within the division in the following courses. One workshop must be in a genre other than the primary focus. For instance, a fiction writer might take four fiction workshops and one poetry workshop.

Seminar Curriculum (12 points)

The creative writing seminars form the intellectual ballast of our program.  Our seminars offer a close examination of literary techniques such as plot, point of view, tone, and voice.  They seek to inform and inspire students by exposing them to a wide variety of approaches in their chosen genre.  Our curriculum, via these seminars, actively responds not only to historical literary concerns, but to contemporary ones as well.  Extensive readings are required, along with short critical papers and/or creative exercises.  By closely analyzing diverse works of literature and participating in roundtable discussions, writers build the resources necessary to produce their own accomplished creative work. 

Creative writing majors select 12 points within the division. Any 4 seminars will fulfill the requirement, no matter the student's chosen genre concentration.  Below is a sampling of our seminars.  The list of seminars currently being offered can be found in the "Courses" section. 

Related Courses (9 points)

Drawn from various departments, these courses provide concentrated intellectual and creative stimulation, as well as exposure to ideas that enrich students' artistic instincts. Courses may be different for each student writer. Students should consult with faculty advisers to determine the related courses that best inform their creative work.

Fiction Workshops

WRIT UN1100 BEGINNING FICTION WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. The beginning workshop in fiction is designed for students with little or no experience writing literary texts in fiction. Students are introduced to a range of technical and imaginative concerns through exercises and discussions, and they eventually produce their own writing for the critical analysis of the class. The focus of the course is on the rudiments of voice, character, setting, point of view, plot, and lyrical use of language. Students will begin to develop the critical skills that will allow them to read like writers and understand, on a technical level, how accomplished creative writing is produced. Outside readings of a wide range of fiction supplement and inform the exercises and longer written projects

WRIT UN2100 INTERMEDIATE FICTION WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Intermediate workshops are for students with some experience with creative writing, and whose prior work merits admission to the class (as judged by the professor). Intermediate workshops present a higher creative standard than beginning workshops, and increased expectations to produce finished work. By the end of the semester, each student will have produced at least seventy pages of original fiction. Students are additionally expected to write extensive critiques of the work of their peers. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

WRIT UN3100 ADVANCED FICTION WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: The department's permission required through writing sample. Please go to 609 Kent for submission schedule and registration guidelines or see http://www.arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate. Building on the work of the Intermediate Workshop, Advanced Workshops are reserved for the most accomplished creative writing students. A significant body of writing must be produced and revised. Particular attention will be paid to the components of fiction: voice, perspective, characterization, and form. Students will be expected to finish several short stories, executing a total artistic vision on a piece of writing. The critical focus of the class will include an examination of endings and formal wholeness, sustaining narrative arcs, compelling a reader's interest for the duration of the text, and generating a sense of urgency and drama in the work. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

WRIT UN3101 SENIOR FICTION WORKSHOP,Senior Fiction Workshop. 4.00,4 points .

Prerequisites: The department's permission required through writing sample. Please go to 609 Kent for submission schedule and registration guidelines or see http://www.arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate. Prerequisites: The department's permission required through writing sample. Please go to 609 Kent for submission schedule and registration guidelines or see http://www.arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate. Seniors who are majors in creative writing are given priority for this course. Enrollment is limited, and is by permission of the professor. The senior workshop offers students the opportunity to work exclusively with classmates who are at the same high level of accomplishment in the major. Students in the senior workshops will produce and revise a new and substantial body of work. In-class critiques and conferences with the professor will be tailored to needs of each student.,

Seniors who are majors in creative writing are given priority for this course.  Enrollment is limited, and is by permission of the professor.  The senior workshop offers students the opportunity to work exclusively with classmates who are at the same high level of accomplishment in the major.  Students in the senior workshops will produce and revise a new and substantial body of work.  In-class critiques and conferences with the professor will be tailored to needs of each student.

Fiction Seminars

WRIT UN2110 APPROACHES TO THE SHORT STORY. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. The modern short story has gone through many transformations, and the innovations of its practitioners have often pointed the way for prose fiction as a whole. The short story has been seized upon and refreshed by diverse cultures and aesthetic affiliations, so that perhaps the only stable definition of the form remains the famous one advanced by Poe, one of its early masters, as a work of fiction that can be read in one sitting. Still, common elements of the form have emerged over the last century and this course will study them, including Point of View, Plot, Character, Setting and Theme. John Hawkes once famously called these last four elements the "enemies of the novel," and many short story writers have seen them as hindrances as well. Hawkes later recanted, though some writers would still agree with his earlier assessment, and this course will examine the successful strategies of great writers across the spectrum of short story practice, from traditional approaches to more radical solutions, keeping in mind how one period's revolution -Hemingway, for example - becomes a later era's mainstream or "commonsense" storytelling mode. By reading the work of major writers from a writer's perspective, we will examine the myriad techniques employed for what is finally a common goal: to make readers feel. Short writing exercises will help us explore the exhilarating subtleties of these elements and how the effects created by their manipulation or even outright absence power our most compelling fictions

WRIT UN3111 EXERCISES IN STYLE. 3.00 points .

WRIT UN3127 Time Moves Both Ways. 3 points .

What is time travel, really? We can use a machine or walk through a secret door. Take a pill or fall asleep and wake up in the future. But when we talk about magic machines and slipstreams and Rip Van Winkle, we are also talking about memory, chronology, and narrative. In this seminar, we will approach time travel as a way of understanding "the Fourth Dimension" in fiction. Readings will range from the speculative to the strange, to the realism of timelines, flashbacks, and shifts in perspective. Coursework will include short, bi-weekly writing assignments, a completed short story, and a time inflected adaptation. 

WRIT UN3128 How to Write Funny. 3.00 points .

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die." --Mel Brooks "Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the End." --Sid Caesar "Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it." --E.B. White "What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke." --Steve Martin "Patty Marx is the best teacher at Columbia University." --Patty Marx One of the above quotations is false. Find out which one in this humor-writing workshop, where you will read, listen to, and watch comedic samples from well-known and lesser-known humorists. How could you not have fun in a class where we watch and critique the sketches of Monty Python, Nichols and May, Mr. Show, Mitchell ＆ Webb, Key and Peele, French and Saunders, Derrick Comedy, Beyond the Fringe, Dave Chappelle, Bob and Ray, Mel Brooks, Amy Schumer, and SNL, to name just a few? The crux of our time, though, will be devoted to writing. Students will be expected to complete weekly writing assignments; additionally, there will be in-class assignments geared to strategies for crafting surprise (the kind that results in a laugh as opposed to, say, a heart attack or divorce). Toward this end, we will study the use of irony, irreverence, hyperbole, misdirection, subtext, wordplay, formulas such as the rule of three and paraprosdokians (look it up), and repetition, and repetition

WRIT UN3125 APOCALYPSES NOW. 3.00 points .

From ancient myths of the world’s destruction to cinematic works that envision a post-apocalyptic reality, zealots of all kinds have sought an understanding of “the end of the world as we know it.”  But while apocalyptic predictions have, so far, failed to deliver a real glimpse of that end, in fiction they abound.  In this course, we will explore the narrative mechanisms by which post-apocalyptic works create projections of our own world that are believably imperiled, realistically degraded, and designed to move us to feel differently and act differently within the world we inhabit.  We will consider ways in which which authors craft immersive storylines that maintain a vital allegorical relationship to the problems of the present, and discuss recent trends in contemporary post-apocalyptic fiction.  How has the genre responded to our changing conception of peril?  Is literary apocalyptic fiction effective as a vehicle for persuasion and for showing threats in a new light?  Ultimately, we will inquire into the possibility of thinking beyond our present moment and, by doing so, altering our fate.

WRIT UN3129 Writing Nature in the Age of Climate Change. 3.00 points .

This class aims to look seriously at how we write literature about the environment, landscape, plants, animals, and the weather in an age of worsening climate change. What genres, forms, and structures can we use to creatively respond to and depict the conditions of the anthropocene? How can we use time to capture the simultaneous tedium and terror of the emergency? Can we write about the individual as well as the collective? Is it possible to write about climate change not as something that is coming, but as a phenomenon that’s already a part of our lives? In answering these questions, students will determine how best to address these issues in their own creative work. While this is a fiction class, we will take our lessons from writers working across many different formats. We will read novels and short stories, but also poetry, creative non-fiction, journalism, and theory. Through writing exercises, field journals, critical essays, and their own creative pieces, students will work through, and with, the despair and radical imaginative changes wrought on all our lives by the anthropocene

WRIT UN3130 The Punchline. 3.00 points .

Levity’s worth taking seriously. This seminar examines satire in several forms, including polemics from the late Roman Empire, stand-up from the late British Empire, and novels from the healthy and indestructible American Empire. We’ll explore satirical reactions to historic disasters, and how to apply those techniques during the next one. We’ll see satire flourish on bathroom walls and street signs (my specialty, admittedly). We’ll learn why every subculture has their own version of The Onion. Finally, we’ll apply lessons from the above to develop our own writing with creative responses, in-class exercises, and a final project. Anyone can be a satirist. Dealing with reality is the hard part

WRIT UN3131 NEW WORLDS IN WRIT ＆ VR. 3.00 points .

Creating New Worlds in Writing and in VR is a generative, exploratory fiction seminar where we will read, analyze, and experiment with the process of building new worlds. We will ask, What are the narrative possibilities that unfold within these environments? What are the conventions of sci-fi and fantasy and how can they be used to critique and scrutinize our lives on earth, particularly, experiences of violence, environmental degradation, and racial, sexual, and gender-based oppression? We will use VR technology to help us model our own invented spaces. We will examine how to incorporate traditional literary elements, such as character and dialogue, into these dynamic environments

Nonfiction Workshops

WRIT UN1200 BEGINNING NONFICTION WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. The beginning workshop in nonfiction is designed for students with little or no experience in writing literary nonfiction. Students are introduced to a range of technical and imaginative concerns through exercises and discussions, and they eventually submit their own writing for the critical analysis of the class. Outside readings supplement and inform the exercises and longer written projects

WRIT UN2200 INTERMEDIATE NONFICTION WRKSHP. 3.00 points .

The intermediate workshop in nonfiction is designed for students with some experience in writing literary nonfiction. Intermediate workshops present a higher creative standard than beginning workshops and an expectation that students will produce finished work. Outside readings supplement and inform the exercises and longer written projects. By the end of the semester, students will have produced thirty to forty pages of original work in at least two traditions of literary nonfiction. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

WRIT UN3200 ADVANCED NONFICTION WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Advanced Nonfiction Workshop is for students with significant narrative and/or critical experience. Students will produce original literary nonfiction for the workshop. This workshop is reserved for accomplished nonfiction writers and maintains the highest level of creative and critical expectations. Among the many forms that creative nonfiction might assume, students may work in the following nonfiction genres: memoir, personal essay, journalism, travel writing, science writing, and/or others. In addition, students may be asked to consider the following: ethical considerations in nonfiction writing, social and cultural awareness, narrative structure, detail and description, point of view, voice, and editing and revision among other aspects of praxis. A portfolio of nonficiton will be written and revised with the critical input of the instructor and the workshop. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

WRIT UN3201 SENIOR NONFICTION WORKSHOP. 4.00 points .

Nonfiction Seminars

WRIT UN2211 TRADITIONS IN NONFICTION. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. The seminar provides exposure to the varieties of nonfiction with readings in its principal genres: reportage, criticism and commentary, biography and history, and memoir and the personal essay. A highly plastic medium, nonfiction allows authors to portray real events and experiences through narrative, analysis, polemic or any combination thereof. Free to invent everything but the facts, great practitioners of nonfiction are faithful to reality while writing with a voice and a vision distinctively their own. To show how nonfiction is conceived and constructed, class discussions will emphasize the relationship of content to form and style, techniques for creating plot and character under the factual constraints imposed by nonfiction, the defining characteristics of each authors voice, the authors subjectivity and presence, the role of imagination and emotion, the uses of humor, and the importance of speculation and attitude. Written assignments will be opportunities to experiment in several nonfiction genres and styles

WRIT UN3214 HYBRID NONFICTION FORMS. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. Creative nonfiction is a frustratingly vague term. How do we give it real literary meaning; examine its compositional aims and techniques, its achievements and especially its aspirations? This course will focus on works that we might call visionary - works that combine art forms, genres and styles in striking ways. Works in which image and text combine to create a third interactive language for the reader. Works still termed fiction history or journalism that join fact and fiction to interrogate their uses and implications. Certain memoirs that are deliberately anti-autobiographical, turning from personal narrative to the sounds, sight, impressions and ideas of the writers milieu. Certain essays that join personal reflection to arts and cultural criticism, drawing on research and imagination, the vernacular and the formal, even prose and poetry. The assemblage or collage that, created from notebook entries, lists, quotations, footnotes and indexes achieves its coherence through fragments and associations, found and original texts

WRIT UN3224 Writing the Sixties. 3.00 points .

In this seminar, we will target nonfiction from the 1960s—the decade that saw an avalanche of new forms, new awareness, new freedoms, and new conflicts, as well as the beginnings of social movements and cultural preoccupations that continue to frame our lives, as writers and as citizens, in the 21st century: civil rights, feminism, environmentalism, LGBTQ rights, pop culture, and the rise of mass media. We will look back more than a half century to examine the development of modern criticism, memoir, reporting, and profile-writing, and the ways they entwine. Along the way, we will ask questions about these classic nonfiction forms: How do reporters, essayists, and critics make sense of the new? How do they create work as rich as the best novels and short stories? Can criticism rise to the level of art? What roles do voice, point-of-view, character, dialogue, and plot—the traditional elements of fiction—play? As we go, we will witness the unfolding of arguably the most transitional decade in American history—with such events as the Kennedy assassination, the Watts Riots, the Human Be In, and the Vietnam War, along with the rise of Pop art, rock ‘n’ roll, and a new era of moviemaking—as it was documented in real time by writers at The New Yorker, New Journalists at Esquire, and critics at Partisan Review and Harper’s, among other publications. Some writers we will consider: James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Susan Sontag, Rachel Carson, Dwight Macdonald, Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, Pauline Kael, Nik Cohn, Joseph Mitchell, Lillian Ross, Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, Thomas Pynchon, John Updike, Michael Herr, Martha Gellhorn, John McPhee, and Betty Friedan. We will be joined by guest speakers

WRIT UN3225 LIFE STORIES. 3.00 points .

In this seminar, we will target nonfiction that tells stories about lives: profiles, memoirs, and biographies. We will examine how the practice of this kind of nonfiction, and ideas about it, have evolved over the past 150 years. Along the way, we will ask questions about these nonfiction forms: How do reporters, memoirists, biographers, and critics make sense of their subjects? How do they create work as rich as the best novels and short stories? Can criticism explicate the inner life of a human subject? What roles do voice, point-of-view, character, dialogue, and plot—the traditional elements of fiction—play? Along the way, we’ll engage in issues of identity and race, memory and self, real persons and invented characters and we’ll get glimpses of such key publications as The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, and The New York Review of Books. Some writers we will consider: Frederick Douglass, Louisa May Alcott, Walt Whitman, Henry Adams, Joseph Mitchell, Lillian Ross, James Agee, John Hersey, Edmund Wilson, Gore Vidal, Gay Talese, James Baldwin, Vladimir Nabokov, Janet Malcolm, Robert Caro, Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morrison, Joan Didion, and Henry Louis Gates Jr. The course regularly welcomes guest speakers

WRIT UN3226 NONFICTION-ISH. 3.00 points .

This cross-genre craft seminar aims to uncover daring and unusual approaches to literature informed by nonfiction (and nonfiction-adjacent) practices. In this course we will closely read and analyze a diverse set of works, including Svetlana Alexievich’s oral history of women and war, Lydia Davis’s “found” microfictions, Theresa Hak Cha’s genre-exploding “auto-enthnography,” Alejandro Zambra’s unabashedly literary narratives, Sigrid Nunez’s memoir “of” Susan Sontag, Emmanuel Carrére’s “nonfiction novel,” John Keene’s bold counternarratives, W. G. Sebald’s saturnine essay-portraits, Saidiya Hartman’s melding of history and literary imagination, Annie Ernaux’s collective autobiography, Sheila Heti’s alphabetized diary, Ben Mauk’s oral history about Xinjiang detention camps, and Edward St. Aubyn’s autobiographical novel about the British aristocracy and childhood trauma, among other texts. We will also examine Sharon Mashihi’s one-woman autofiction podcasts about Iranian Jewish American family. What we learn in this course we will apply to our own work, which will consist of two creative writing responses and a creative final project. Students will also learn to keep a daily writing journal

WRIT UN3227 TRUE CRIME. 3.00 points .

The explosion of true crime programming in the past few years—from podcasts to documentaries to online communities sleuthing cold cases—would make you think that poring over real-life atrocities is a recent phenomenon. But in fact, our obsession with death, destruction, duplicity, and antisocial behavior is as old as humanity itself. In this class, we will trace the origins of true crime in nonfiction literature in the United States from Puritanism to the present. We will see how the genre has developed and how its preoccupations reflect the zeitgeist. We will consider how race, gender, class, and other identities shape narratives around victims and victors, guilt and innocence. We will think broadly about what, exactly, crime is, not limiting ourselves to the obvious. We will also look at corruption, fraud, systemic discrimination. Once (and sometimes still) considered a trash genre, we will read elevated works that turn that notion on its head. We will host guest speakers from the multifaceted perspectives true crime writing touches: victims, law enforcement, journalists, and convicts themselves. Since recent true crime reporting is such an expansive field that we can only begin to scratch the surface of in this class, students will present and analyze true crime artifacts to the class. The centerpiece of the semester will be students reporting and writing on a real crime themselves. It is all too easy to critique the work of others at a comfortable distance when one has not entered the thorny fray oneself. Students will craft their own true crime writing project, interrogate their own motivations and interest, and present their findings to the class. The subject matter of this class is disturbing in nature, and we will be looking at all manner of crimes from violent to white collar to sexual to social. Consider this a blanket trigger warning for each and every class. We will cultivate a safe space to think and feel through the crimes we examine and share ways to take care of ourselves. I am here as a resource and to help students navigate university resources as appropriate

Poetry Workshops

WRIT UN1300 BEGINNING POETRY WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. The beginning poetry workshop is designed for students who have a serious interest in poetry writing but who lack a significant background in the rudiments of the craft and/or have had little or no previous poetry workshop experience. Students will be assigned weekly writing exercises emphasizing such aspects of verse composition as the poetic line, the image, rhyme and other sound devices, verse forms, repetition, tone, irony, and others. Students will also read an extensive variety of exemplary work in verse, submit brief critical analyses of poems, and critique each others original work

WRIT UN2300 INTERMEDIATE POETRY WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Intermediate poetry workshops are for students with some prior instruction in the rudiments of poetry writing and prior poetry workshop experience. Intermediate poetry workshops pose greater challenges to students and maintain higher critical standards than beginning workshops. Students will be instructed in more complex aspects of the craft, including the poetic persona, the prose poem, the collage, open-field composition, and others. They will also be assigned more challenging verse forms such as the villanelle and also non-European verse forms such as the pantoum. They will read extensively, submit brief critical analyses, and put their instruction into regular practice by composing original work that will be critiqued by their peers. By the end of the semester each student will have assembled a substantial portfolio of finished work. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

WRIT UN3300 ADVANCED POETRY WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

This poetry workshop is reserved for accomplished poetry writers and maintains the highest level of creative and critical expectations. Students will be encouraged to develop their strengths and to cultivate a distinctive poetic vision and voice but must also demonstrate a willingness to broaden their range and experiment with new forms and notions of the poem. A portfolio of poetry will be written and revised with the critical input of the instructor and the workshop. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

WRIT UN3301 SENIOR POETRY WORKSHOP. 4.00 points .

Prerequisites: The department's permission required through writing sample. Please go to 609 Kent for submission schedule and registration guidelines or see http://www.arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate. Seniors who are majors in creative writing are given priority for this course. Enrollment is limited, and is by permission of the professor. The senior workshop offers students the opportunity to work exclusively with classmates who are at the same high level of accomplishment in the major. Students in the senior workshops will produce and revise a new and substantial body of work. In-class critiques and conferences with the professor will be tailored to needs of each student. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

Poetry Seminars

WRIT UN2311 TRADITIONS IN POETRY. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. “For those, in dark, who find their own way by the light of others’ eyes.” —Lucie Brock-Broido The avenues of poetic tradition open to today’s poets are more numerous, more invigorating, and perhaps even more baffling than ever before. The routes we chose for our writing lead to destinations of our own making, and we take them at our own risk—necessarily so, as the pursuit of poetry asks each of us to light a pilgrim’s candle and follow it into the moors and lowlands, through wastes and prairies, crossing waters as we go. Go after the marshlights, the will-o-wisps who call to you in a voice you’ve longed for your whole life. These routes have been forged by those who came before you, but for that reason, none of them can hope to keep you on it entirely. You must take your steps away, brick by brick, heading confidently into the hinterland of your own distinct achievement. For the purpose of this class, we will walk these roads together, examining the works of classic and contemporary exemplars of the craft. By companioning poets from a large spread of time, we will be able to more diversely immerse ourselves in what a poetic “tradition” truly means. We will read works by Edmund Spencer, Dante, and Goethe, the Romantics—especially Keats—Dickinson, who is mother to us all, Modernists, and the great sweep of contemporary poetry that is too vast to individuate. While it is the imperative of this class to equip you with the knowledge necessary to advance in the field of poetry, this task shall be done in a Columbian manner. Consider this class an initiation, of sorts, into the vocabulary which distinguishes the writers who work under our flag, each of us bound by this language that must be passed on, and therefore changed, to you who inherit it. As I have learned the words, I have changed them, and I give them now to you so that you may pave your own way into your own ways, inspired with the first breath that brought you here, which may excite and—hopefully—frighten you. You must be troubled. This is essential

WRIT UN3315 POETIC METER AND FORM. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. This course will investigate the uses of rhythmic order and disorder in English-language poetry, with a particular emphasis on formal elements in free verse. Through a close analysis of poems, well examine the possibilities of qualitative meter, and students will write original creative work within (and in response to) various formal traditions. Analytical texts and poetic manifestos will accompany our reading of exemplary poems. Each week, well study interesting examples of metrical writing, and Ill ask you to write in reponse to those examples. Our topics will include stress meter, syllable-stress meter, double and triple meter, rising and falling rhythms, promotion, demotion, inversion, elision, and foot scansion. Our study will include a greate range of pre-modern and modern writers, from Keats to W.D. Snodgrass, Shakespeare to Denise Levertov, Blake to James Dickey, Whitman to Louise Gluck etc. As writers, well always be thinking about how the formal choices of a poem are appropriate or inappropriate for the poems content. Well also read prose by poets describing their metrical craft

WRIT UN3320 Provocations in Twentieth-Century Poetics. 3.00 points .

This is a class about poetry and revolt. In a century of wars, unchecked proliferation of industrial and market systems in the continued legacy of settler-colonialism and the consolidation of state powers, does language still conduct with revolutionary possibilities? In this class, we will read manifestos, philosophical treatises, political tracts, literary polemics, poems, scores, and so on, as we consider poetry’s long-standing commitment to visionary practices that seek to liberate consciousness from the many and various structures of oppression. The term “poetry” is not limited to itself but becomes, in our readings, an open invitation to all adjacent experiments with and in the language arts. As such, we will look at the emergence of the international avant-gardes as well as a few student movements that populate and complicate the explorations of radical politics in the twentieth-century. In addition to our readings, students will be asked to produce creative responses for class discussion. Final projects will be provocations of their own design. Required Texts: Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Genealogy of Morality Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: The Communist Manifesto Aimé Césaire: Notebook of A Return to the Native Land Hilda Hilst: The Obscene Madame D Marguerite Duras: Hiroshima Mon Amour Guy Debord: Society of the Spectacle

WRIT UN3316 WEST TO EAST. 3.00 points .

This course examines two central movements in post World War II American poetry, The San Francisco Renaissance and The New York School, and uncovers their aesthetic impacts on language and cultural production, as well as the relationship to the city as a defining agent in the poetic imagination

WRIT UN3319 POETICS OF PLACE:AMERICAN LANDSCAPES, VO. 3.00 points .

When the American Poet Larry Levis left his home in California’s San Joaquin Valley, “all [he] needed to do,” he wrote, “was to describe [home] exactly as it had been. That [he] could not do, for that [is] impossible. And that is where poetry might begin. This course will consider how place shapes a poet’s self and work. Together we will consider a diverse range of poets and the places they write out of and into: from Philip Levines Detroit to Whitmans Manhattan, from Robert Lowells New England to James Wrights Ohio, from the Kentucky of Joe Bolton and Crystal Wilkinson to the California of Robin Blaser and Allen Ginsberg, from the Ozarks of Frank Stanford to the New Jersey of Amiri Baraka, from the Pacific Northwest of Robinson Jeffers to the Alaska of Mary Tallmountain. We will consider the debate between T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams about global versus local approaches to the poem, and together we will ask complex questions: Why is it, for example, that Jack Gilbert finds his Pittsburgh when he leaves it, while Gerald Stern finds his Pittsburgh when he keeps it close? Does something sing because you leave it or because you hold it close? Do you come to a place to find where you belong in it? Do you leave a place to find where it belongs in you? As Carolyn Kizer writes in Running Away from Home, Its never over, old church of our claustrophobia! And of course home can give us the first freedom of wanting to leave, the first prison and freedom of want. In our reflections on each “place,” we will reflect on its varied histories, its native peoples, and its inheritance of violent conquest. Our syllabus will consist, in addition to poems, of manifestos and prose writings about place, from Richard Hugos Triggering Town to Sandra Beasleys Prioritizing Place. You will be encouraged to think about everything from dialect to economics, from collectivism to individualism in poems that root themselves in particular places, and you will be encouraged to consider how those poems “transcend” their origins. You will write response papers, analytical papers, and creative pieces, and you will complete a final project that reflects on your own relationship to place

WRIT UN3321 Ecopoetics. 3.00 points .

“There are things / We live among ‘and to see them / Is to know ourselves.’” George Oppen, “Of Being Numerous” In this class we will read poetry like writers that inhabit an imperiled planet, understanding our poems as being in direct conversation both with the environment as well as writers past and present with similar concerns and techniques. Given the imminent ecological crises we are facing, the poems we read will center themes of place, ecology, interspecies dependence, the role of humans in the destruction of the planet, and the “necropastoral” (to borrow a term from Joyelle McSweeney), among others. We will read works by poets and writers such as (but not limited to) John Ashbery, Harryette Mullen, Asiya Wadud, Wendy Xu, Ross Gay, Simone Kearney, Kim Hyesoon, Marcella Durand, Arthur Rimbaud, Geoffrey G. O’Brien, Muriel Rukeyser, George Oppen, Terrance Hayes, Juliana Spahr, and W.S. Merwin—reading several full collections as well as individual poems and essays by scholars in the field. Through close readings, in-class exercises, discussions, and creative/critical writings, we will invest in and investigate facets of the dynamic lyric that is aware of its environs (sound, image, line), while also exploring traditional poetic forms like the Haibun, ode, prose poem, and elegy. Additionally, we will seek inspiration in outside mediums such as film, visual art, and music, as well as, of course, the natural world. As a class, we will explore the highly individual nature of writing processes and talk about building writing practices that are generative as well as sustainable

Cross Genre Seminars

WRIT UN3011 TRANSLATION SEMINAR. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Students do not need to demonstrate bilingual ability to take this course. Department approval NOT needed. Corequisites: This course is open to undergraduate & graduate students. Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Students do not need to demonstrate bilingual ability to take this course. Department approval NOT needed. Corequisites: This course is open to undergraduate ＆ graduate students. This course will explore broad-ranging questions pertaining to the historical, cultural, and political significance of translation while analyzing the various challenges confronted by the arts foremost practitioners. We will read and discuss texts by writers and theorists such as Benjamin, Derrida, Borges, Steiner, Dryden, Nabokov, Schleiermacher, Goethe, Spivak, Jakobson, and Venuti. As readers and practitioners of translation, we will train our ears to detect the visibility of invisibility of the translators craft; through short writing experiments, we will discover how to identify and capture the nuances that traverse literary styles, historical periods and cultures. The course will culminate in a final project that may either be a critical analysis or an original translation accompanied by a translators note of introduction

WRIT UN3010 SHORT PROSE FORMS. 3.00 points .

Note: This seminar has a workshop component.

Prerequisites: No Prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. Prerequisites: No Prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. Flash fiction, micro-naratives and the short-short have become exciting areas of exploration for contemporary writers. This course will examine how these literary fragments have captured the imagination of writers internationally and at home. The larger question the class seeks to answer, both on a collective and individual level, is: How can we craft a working definition of those elements endemic to short prose as a genre? Does the form exceed classification? What aspects of both crafts -- prose and poetry -- does this genre inhabit, expand upon, reinvent, reject, subvert? Short Prose Forms incorporates aspects of both literary seminar and the creative workshop. Class-time will be devoted alternatingly to examinations of published pieces and modified discussions of student work. Our reading chart the course from the genres emergence, examining the prose poem in 19th-century France through the works of Mallarme, Baudelaire, Max Jacob and Rimbaud. Well examine aspects of poetry -- the attention to the lyrical, the use of compression, musicality, sonic resonances and wit -- and attempt to understand how these writers took, as Russell Edson describes, experience [and] made it into an artifact with the logic of a dream. The class will conclude with a portfolio at the end of the term, in which students will submit a compendium of final drafts of three of four short prose pieces, samples of several exercises, selescted responses to readings, and a short personal manifesto on the short prose form

WRIT UN3016 WALKING. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. As Walter Benjamin notes in The Arcades Project: Basic to flanerie, among other things, is the idea that the fruits of idleness are more precious than the fruits of labor. The flaneur, as is well known, makes studies. This course will encourage you to make studies -- poems, essays, stories, or multimedia pieces -- based on your walks. We will read depictions of walking from multiple disciplines, including philosophy, poetry, history, religion, visual art, and urban planning. Occasionally we will walk together. An important point of the course is to develop mobile forms of writing. How can writing emerge from, and document, a walks encounters, observations, and reflections? What advantages does mobility bring to our work? Each week you will write a short piece (1-3 pages) that engages your walks while responding to close readings of the assigned material

WRIT UN3027 Science Fiction Poetics. 3.00 points .

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." —Carl Sagan "Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming." —David Bowie "I grew up reading science fiction." —Jeff Bezos Science fiction is the literature of the human species encountering change. It is the literature of the Other, of philosophy and ideas, of innovation and experimentation. This seminar will examine how poets and writers from around the world have imagined alternate realities and futures, linguistic inventions, and new poetic expressions inspired by science. We will discuss what these imaginings might tell us about the cultural and political presents in which they were conceived, as well as what the extreme conditions offered by science fiction might teach us about writing into the unknown. Topics will include astroecology and apocalyptic ecopoetics, extraterrestrial aphrodites, monstrous bodyscapes, space exploration and colonization, future creoles and the evolution of language, bio-poetics and crystalline formations, immortal texts, and global futurisms—from the European Futurists of the early 20th century to Afrofuturism, as well as recent figurations such as Gulf Futurism and Arabfuturism. Course reading will include work by Aase Berg, Etel Adnan, Chen Qiufan, Johannes Heldén, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Velimir Khlebnikov, Hao Jingfang, Eve L. Ewing, Sun Ra, Ursula K. Le Guin, Italo Calvino, Anaïs Duplan, Ursula Andkjær Olsen, Dempow Torishima, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Octavia E. Butler, Tracy K. Smith, Cathy Park Hong, and others

WRIT UN3028 LOST ＆ FOUND IN THE ANTHROPOCENE. 3.00 points .

We are living through a time of unprecedented change. This change is characterized by “solastalgia,” a word that describes a response to environmental loss in our daily lives which encompasses both pain and solace. In this course we will think seriously about the imperative to notice, pay attention, and remember that which is changing or disappearing. How might we work through and with loss, and how might we harness attention and awareness to envision different futures and new creative approaches? Students will consider the ways writers and other artists are working with losing and finding in a posthuman world across different forms, genres, and cultures. Will take an imaginative and interdisciplinary attitude to these questions, studying literary work alongside visual art, anthropology, psychology, literary theory, and science. We will consider extinction, elegy, landscape, geological temporalities, fragments, trash, and ghosts. In his call to arms, The Great Derangement, author Amitav Ghosh writes that climate change resists so many of the literary and artistic forms we currently possess. As such, he calls for an embrace of hybrid genres. Through reflections, critical essays, and their own creative work, students will think seriously about hybridity and the imaginative challenge of being alive in the world today

WRIT UN3031 INTRO TO AUDIO STORYTELLING. 3.00 points .

It’s one thing to tell a story with the pen. It’s another to transfix your audience with your voice. In this class, we will explore principles of audio narrative. Oral storytellers arguably understand suspense, humor and showmanship in ways only a live performer can. Even if you are a diehard writer of visually-consumed text, you may find, once the class is over, that you have learned techniques that can translate across borders: your written work may benefit. Alternatively, you may discover that audio is the medium for you. We will consider sound from the ground up – from folkloric oral traditions, to raw, naturally captured sound stories, to seemingly straightforward radio news segments, to highly polished narrative podcasts. While this class involves a fair amount of reading, much of what we will be studying and discussing is audio material. Some is as lo-fi as can be, and some is operatic in scope, benefitting from large production budgets and teams of artists. At the same time that we study these works, each student will also complete small audio production exercises of their own; as a final project, students will be expected to produce a trailer, or “sizzle” for a hypothetical multi-episode show. This class is meant for beginners to the audio tradition. There are some tech requirements: a recording device (most phones will suffice), workable set of headphones, and computer. You’ll also need to download the free audio editing software Audacity

WRIT UN3032 IT'S COMPLICATED: WRITING AS A RELATIONSHIP. 3.00 points .

In this cross-genre class, we’ll explore writing process as relationship, one that reflects how we relate to both ourselves and the world. How do we bring the public back to the private space of the writing desk? How do our social, cultural, and political realities and histories influence our writing process? How is our relationship with our audience informed by our relationship with language? How can we be at play in structures of grammar and narrative without assimilating to what seems otherwise unrelatable? Seeing the sentence as a set of relationships, one tied to our human relations, we will write and revise with the hope of fostering an enduring relationship with the page. Coursework will include in-class writing exercises and 3 short (3-6 page) pieces

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Teaching creative writing in primary schools: a systematic review of the literature through the lens of reflexivity

• Open access
• Published: 17 June 2023

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• Georgina Barton   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2703-238X 1 ,
• Maryam Khosronejad 2 ,
• Mary Ryan 2 ,
• Lisa Kervin 3 &
• Debra Myhill 4  

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Teaching writing is complex and research related to approaches that support students’ understanding and outcomes in written assessment is prolific. Written aspects including text structure, purpose, and language conventions appear to be explicit elements teachers know how to teach. However, more qualitative and nuanced elements of writing such as authorial voice and creativity have received less attention. We conducted a systematic literature review on creativity and creative aspects of writing in primary classrooms by exploring research between 2011 and 2020. The review yielded 172 articles with 25 satisfying established criteria. Using Archer’s critical realist theory of reflexivity we report on personal, structural, and cultural emergent properties that surround the practice of creative writing. Implications and recommendations for improved practice are shared for school leaders, teachers, preservice teachers, students, and policy makers.

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Introduction

Creative writing in schools is an important part of learning, assessment, and reporting, however, there is evidence globally to suggest that such writing is often stifled in preference to quick on-demand writing, usually featured in high-stakes testing (Au & Gourd, 2013 ; Gibson & Ewing, 2020 ). Research points to this negatively impacting particularly on students from diverse backgrounds (Mahmood et al., 2020 ). When teachers teach on-demand writing typical pedagogical traits are revealed, those that are often referred to as formulaic (Ryan & Barton, 2014 ). When thinking about creative writing, however, Wyse et al. ( 2013 ) noted that it involves the absence of structure and teaching creative writing requires an ‘open’ pedagogical approach for students to be given imaginative choice. By this, they mean that teachers need to consider less formulaic ways to teach writing so that students can experience different opportunities and ways to write creatively. They argued that if students are not given the flexibility to experiment through writing then their creativity might be stifled. Similarly, Barbot et al. ( 2012 ), who carried out a study with a panel of 15 experts of creative writing, posited that creative writing is when students draw on their imagination and other creative processes to create fictional narratives or writing that is ‘unusually original’. They also noted that creative writing is important for the development of students’ critical and creative thinking skills and ways in which they can approach life in creative ways.

Creative writing is defined in various ways in literature. Wang ( 2019 ) defined creative writing as a form of original expression involving an author’s imagination to engage a reader. Other definitions of creative writing involve the notion of children’s imagination, choice, and originality and much research has explored the concept of creativity within and through the writing process.

While creative writing is defined in various ways, and the many ways that it is treated in literacy education, this article is not concerned with the nature of the term per se. Rather, it focusses on research about creative writing and creativity in writing to understand how research unpacks the personal and contextual characteristics that surround creative writing practices. To this aim, we adopt a broad definition of creative writing as a form of original writing involving an author’s imagination and self-expression to engage a reader (Wang, 2019 ). Creative writing is important for children’s development (Grainger et al., 2005 ), allowing them to use their imagination and broaden their ability to problem-solve and think deeply. Creativity in writing refers to specific aspects within a writing product that can be deemed creative. Some examples include the use of senses and how a writer might engage a reader (Deutsch, 2014 ; Smith, 2020 ).

International research on teaching writing has indicated a loss in innovative or creative pedagogical practices due to the pressure on teachers to teach prescribed writing skills that are assessed in high-stakes tests (Göçen, 2019 ; Stock & Molloy, 2020 ), often resulting in specific trends including teaching a genre approach to writing (Polesel et al., 2012 ; Ryan & Barton, 2014 ). A comprehensive meta-analysis by Graham et al ( 2012 ), designed to identify writing practices with evidence of effectiveness in primary classrooms, found that explicitly teaching imagery and creativity was an effective teaching practice in writing. In addition, a review of methods related to teaching writing conducted by Slavin et al. ( 2019 ) included studies that statistically reported causal relationships between teacher practice and student outcomes. Common themes in Slavin et al’s ( 2019 ) quest for improving writing included comprehensive teacher professional development, student engagement and enjoyment, and explicit teaching of grammar, punctuation, and usage. While they did not specifically cite creativity, motivating environments and cooperative learning were important characteristics of writing programs.

This systematic literature review aims to share empirical international research in the context of elementary/primary schools by exploring creativity in writing and the conditions that influence its emergence. It specifically aims to answer the question: What influences the teaching of creative writing in primary education? And how can reflexivity theorise these influences? The review shares scholarly work that attempts to define personal aspects of creative writing including imagination, and creative thinking; discusses creative approaches to teaching writing, and shows how these methods might support students’ creative writing or creative aspects of writing.

Writing is a complex process that involves students making decisions about word choice, sentence, and text structure, and ways in which to engage readers. Such decisions require a certain amount of reflection or at times deeper reflexive judgments by both teachers and students. Consequently, we draw on Archer’s ( 2012 ) critical realist theory of reflexivity to guide our review as research shows that reflexive thinking in practice can improve writing outcomes (Ryan et al., 2021 ). Archer ( 2007 ) highlights how reflexivity is an everyday activity involving mental processes whereby we think about ourselves in relation to our immediate personal, social, and cultural contexts. She suggests we make decisions through negotiating the connected emergences of personal properties (PEPs) related to the individual, structural properties (SEPs) related to the contextual happenings and cultural properties (CEPs) related to ideologies, each of which is influenced by the other developments. These decisions influence, and are influenced by, our subsequent actions. In applying reflexivity theory to writing (see Ryan, 2014 ), we cannot simply focus on the writing product, but should also interrogate the process of writing, that is, the influences on decision-making and design which are enabled or constrained through pedagogical practices in the classroom. Writing practices and outputs are formed through the interplay of personal, structural, and cultural conditions. Student decisions and actions about writing ensue through the mediation of personal (e.g. beliefs, motivations, interests, experiences), structural (e.g. curriculum, programs, testing regimes, teaching strategies, resources), and cultural (e.g. norms, expectations, ideologies, values) conditions. Therefore, teachers play an important role in facilitating the interplay of these conditions for their students and recontextualising curricula and policy (Ryan et al., 2021 ). For example, by enabling students’ agency and creating an authentic purpose for writing, teachers can balance the personal conditions of students (such as their motivation and interest) against the structural effects of the curriculum requirements. Using a reflexive approach to investigating the literature on creative writing we aim to reveal the personal, structural, and cultural conditions surrounding the study and the practice of creative writing. We argue that it is through the understanding of these conditions that we can theorise how a. students might make their writing more creative and b. how teachers might establish classroom conditions conducive to creativity.

The approach taken for this paper was guided by the PRISMA method (Moher et al., 2009 ) for conducting systematic literature reviews (see Table 1 ).

Our electronic search involved several databases: researchers’ library online catalogue, EBSCO host ultimate, ProQuest, Eric, Web of Science, Informit, and ScienceDirect. Using the following search terms: creativ* AND (‘teaching methods’ OR pedagog*) AND writing AND (elementary OR primary) to search titles and abstracts as well as limiting the search to peer-reviewed articles written in English within a 10-year timeframe (2011–2020), we initially retrieved 172 articles. Information about all 172 articles was input into a data spreadsheet including author, article title, journal title, volume and issue number, and abstract. Once completed, these articles were divided into two equal groups and two researchers were assigned to review the articles for relevancy against the following inclusion criteria:

Studies were peer-reviewed empirical research published in English;

Participants were primary students and/or teachers;

Students were not specifically English as a Second or Additional Language/Dialect learners (samples of culturally and linguistically diverse students in primary classrooms were included);

Studies were not carried out in curriculum areas other than English; and

Studies did not have a specific focus on digital technologies in the classroom.

For this systematic review, we were interested in the ways in which teachers thought about, understood, and taught the ‘creative’ aspect of writing.

The 25 studies that met the inclusion criteria were synthesised to review what influences the improvement of creative writing in primary education. We analysed the papers for how creative writing and/or creative aspects in writing were viewed as well as how teachers might best support students to develop reflexive capacities to improve the creative aspects of writing. We also identified any personal, structural, and/or cultural emergences that might impact on the effectiveness of students’ creative writing. Two of the authors read the entire articles and identified four main categories of research which were (1) understanding creative writing; (2) creative thinking and its contribution to writing; (3) creative pedagogy; and (4) what students can do to be more creative in their writing. These were cross-checked by the entire research team. Some of the papers fit more than one of these themes. In the next section, each theme is introduced and defined and then the articles that fall within the theme are reviewed.

Overall a total number of 25 articles had overlapping themes that included various personal and contextual aspects. Figure  1 shows what we have identified as the key themes under each category. In the next sections, we represent papers based on their main theme.

The personal, structural, and cultural conditions surrounding creative writing

Personal emergent properties

A total number of 13 articles were about what students can do to be more creative in their writing (Mendelowitz, 2014 ; Steele, 2016 ) and how teachers’ and students’ personal characteristics relate to the development of creative writing. These articles were mainly focussed on the personal emergent aspects of writing (Alhusaini & Maker, 2015 ; Barbot et al., 2012 ; Cremin et al., 2020 ; DeFauw, 2018 ; Dobson, 2015 ; Dobson & Stephenson, 2017 , 2020 ; Edwards-Groves, 2011 ; Healey, 2019 ; Lee & Enciso, 2017 ; Macken-Horarik, 2012 ; Ryan, 2014 ). The personal aspects identified in our review were (1) personal views about creative writing, (2) creative thinking, (3) writer identity, (4) learner motivation and engagement, and (5) knowledge and capabilities.

Personal views about creative writing

From our systematic review, we identified three articles exploring views about what creative writing is, and more specifically the role that it plays and the elements that make creative writing, in primary classrooms. One of these studies was focussed on the views and experiences of experts in writing (Barbot et al., 2012 ), whereas the other two investigated students’ perspectives and experiences (Alhusaini & Maker, 2015 ; Healey, 2019 ). Barbot et al’s ( 2012 ) work, for example, recognised that creative writing involves both cognitive and metacognitive abilities. This was determined by the expert panel of people whose work related to writing including teachers, linguists, psychologists, professional writers, and art educators. The panel were asked to complete an online survey that rated the relative importance of 28 identified skills needed to creatively write. Six broad categories were identified as a result of the responses and the rank given to each factor by the expert groups (See Table 2 ). They acknowledged that these features cross over various age groups from children to professional writers.

Findings suggested that each independent rater weighted different key components of creative writing as being more or less important for children. Overall, the findings showed.

a global ‘consensus’ across the expert groups indicated that creative writing skills are primarily supported by factors such as observation, generation of description, imagination, intrinsic motivation and perseverance, while the contributions of all of the other relevant factors seemed negligible (e.g. intelligence, working memory, extrinsic motivation and penmanship). (p. 218)

One factor that was ranked as critical by most respondents, but underemphasised by teachers, was imagination. Teachers’ work in classrooms around creative writing is complex due to the difficulty in defining imagination (Brill, 2004 ). Teachers also under-rated other aspects related to creative cognition.

Another study that explored students’ creativity in writing was conducted by Alhusaini and Maker ( 2015 ) in the south-west of the United States. Participants included 139 students with mixed ethnicities including White, Mexican American, and Navajo. This study involved six elementary/primary school teachers judging students’ writing samples of open-ended stories. To assess the work a Written Linguistic Assessment tool, which was based on the Consensual Assessment Technique [CAT] (Amabile, 1982 ) was implemented. According to Baer and McKool ( 2009 ), The CAT involves experts rating written artefacts or artistic objects by using their ‘sense of what is creative in the domain in question to rate the creativity of the products in relation to one another’ (p. 4). Interestingly, Alhusaini and Maker ( 2015 ) found the CAT to be effective in relation to interrater reliability. The authors do not share what the Judge’s Guidelines to Assess Students’ Stories entail. They mention the difference between technical quality and creativity and note that assessors were able to distinguish the differences between the two, but the reader is not made aware of the aspects of each quality. Overall, the study revealed that one of the most challenging problems in the field of creativity and writing is trying to measure creativity across cultures by using standardised tests. Such studies could have implications for other students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds as teachers become more aware of cultural nuances in constituting ‘creative’ in creative writing.

The final study we identified in this category was by Healey ( 2019 ). Healey employed an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and explored how eight children (11–12 Years of age) experienced creative writing in the classroom. He shared how children’s writing experiences were based on ‘the affect, embodiment, and materiality of their immediate engagement with activities in the classroom’ (p. 184). Results from student interviews showed three themes related to the experience of writing: the writing world (watching, ideas from elsewhere, flowing); the self (concealing and revealing, agency, adequacy); and schooled writing (standards, satisfying task requirements, rules of good writing). The author stated that children’s consciousness shifts between their imagination (The Writing World) and set assessment tasks (Schooled Writing). Both of these worlds affect the way children experience themselves as writers. Further findings from this work argued that originality of ideas and use of richer vocabulary improved students’ creative writing. Vocabulary improvement included diversity of word meanings, appropriate usage of words, words being in line with the purpose of the text; while originality of ideas featured creative and unusual (original) ideas—which in many ways is difficult to define.

Overall, when concerned with personal views and attitudes in creative writing, the two studies by Healey ( 2019 ) and Barbot et al. ( 2012 ) show contrasting findings about ‘imagination’ captured through the view of students and teachers, respectively. While Healey’s ( 2019 ) study suggests that children shift between their imagination and set assessment tasks in creative writing, Barbot et al. ( 2012 ) highlight the lack of attention to imagination among their participated teachers. Although these results cannot be generalised, they highlight the significance of understanding personal emergent properties that both students and teachers bring to the classroom and the way that they interact to affect the experience of creative writing for learners. From this theme, we suggest the importance of educators acknowledging students’ imagination through their definition of creative writing as well as providing quality time for students to choose what they write through imaginative thought. We now turn to creative thinking and related pedagogical approaches to teaching creative writing from the research literature.

Creative thinking

We identified two articles that were focussed on creative thinking and its contribution to writing (Copping, 2018 ; Cress & Holm, 2016 ). Copping ( 2018 ) explored writing pedagogy and the connections between children’s creative thinking, or a ‘new way of looking at something’ (p. 309), and their writing achievement. The study involved two primary schools in Lancashire, one in an affluent area and one in an underprivileged area. Approximately 28 children from each school were involved in two, 2-day writing workshops based on a murder mystery the children had to solve. Findings from this study revealed that to improve students’ writing achievement (1) a thinking environment needs to be created and maintained, (2) production processes should have value, (3) motivation and achievement increase when there is a tangible purpose, and (4) high expectations lead to higher attainment.

Cress and Holm’s ( 2016 ) study described a curricular approach implemented by a first-grade teacher and their class comprised 13 girls and 11 boys. The project known as the Creative Endeavours project aimed to develop creative thinking by (1) creating an environment of respect with a positive classroom climate. (2) offering new and challenging experiences, and (3) encouraging new ideas rather than praise. The authors argued that through peer collaboration and the flexibility to choose their own projects, children can become more authentically engaged in the writing process. The children wrote about their experiences and their choices, and reflected upon the projects undertaken. In this study, it was revealed that the children showed diversity in their writing assignments including presentation through sewing, photography, and drama. While there were only two papers in this particular theme, their findings are supported by systematic reviews (Graham et al., 2012 ; Slavin et al., 2019 ) that emphasise not only new ways of exploring a range of concepts for learning but also the creation of motivating environments for improving writing (Copping, 2018 ). In addition to the significance of positive and encouraging learning environments, these two studies suggest that setting ‘high expectations’ or ‘challenging experiences’ are conducive to creative thinking however, teachers would need to set appropriate, reflexive conditions for this to occur.

Writer identity

Studies in this category revolve around choice and learner writer identity. The study carried out by Dobson and Stephenson ( 2017 ) focussed on developing a community of writers involving 25 primary school pupils from low socio-economic backgrounds. The project was offered over 2 weeks and featured a number of creative writing workshops. The authors applied the theoretical frameworks of practitioner enquiry and discourse analysis to explore the children’s creative writing outputs. They argued that the workshops, which promoted intertextuality and freedom for the children as writers, enabled a shifting of their ‘writer’ identities (Holland et al., 1998). Dobson and Stephenson ( 2017 ) showed that allowing students to make decisions and choices in regard to authentic writing purposes supported a more flexible approach. They recommend stronger partnerships between schools and universities in relation to research on creative writing, however, it would be important for these relationships to be sustainable.

The second paper on this theme is by Ryan ( 2014 ) who noted that writing is a complex activity that requires appropriate thinking in relation to the purpose, audience, and medium of a variety of texts. Writers always make decisions about how they will present subject matter and/or feelings through all of the modes. Ryan ( 2014 ) suggested that writing is like a performance ‘whereby writers shape and represent their identities as they mediate social structures and personal considerations’ (p. 130). The study analysed writing samples of culturally and linguistically diverse Australian primary students to uncover the types of identities students shared. It found that three different types of writers existed—the school writers who followed teacher instructions or formulas to produce a product; the constrained writers who also followed instructions and formulas but were able to add in some authorical voice; and the reflexive writers who could show a definite command of writing and showed creative potential. Ryan ( 2014 ) argued that teachers’ practices in the classroom directly influence the ways in which students express these identities. She stated that when students are provided choices in writing, they are more able to shape and develop their voices. Such choices would need to include quality time and support to be reflexive in the decisions being made by the students.

The Teachers as Writers project (2015–2017) was conducted by Cremin, Myhill, Eyres, Nash, Wilson, and Oliver. In a recent paper ( 2020 ), the team reported on a collaborative partnership between two universities and a creative writing foundation. Professional writers were invited to engage with teachers in the writing process and the impact of these interactions on classroom teaching practices was determined. Data sets included observations, interviews, audio-capture (of workshops, tutorials and co-mentoring reflections), and audio-diaries from 16 teachers; and a randomised controlled trial (RCT) involving 32 primary and secondary classes. An intervention was carried out involving teachers writing in a week long residence with professional writers, one-on-one tutorials, and extra time and space to write. They also continued learning through two Continuing Professional Development (CPD) days. Results showed that teachers’ identities as writers shifted greatly due to their engagement with professional authors. The students responded positively in terms of their motivation, confidence, sense of ownership, and skills as writers. The professional authors also commented on positive impacts including their own contributions to schools. Conversely, these changes in practice did not improve the students’ final assessment results in any significant way. The authors noted that assuming a causal relationship between teachers’ engagement with writing workshops and students’ writing outcomes was spurious. They, therefore, developed further research building on this learning.

Knowledge and capabilities

The role of knowledge and capability is central to the articles in this category. In Australia, Macken-Horarik ( 2012 ) reported on the introduction of a national curriculum for English. This article drew on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) by investigating the potential of Halliday’s notion of grammatics for understanding students’ writing as acts of creative meaning in context. Macken-Horarik ( 2012 ) argued that students needed to know deeply about language so that they could make creative decisions with their writing. She outlined that a ‘good enough’ grammatics would assist teachers in becoming comfortable with ‘playful developments in students’ texts and to foster their control of literate discourse’ (p. 179).

A project carried out by Edwards-Groves in 2011 highlights the role of knowledge about digital technologies in writing practices. 17 teachers in primary classrooms in Australia were asked to use particular digital technologies with their students when constructing classroom texts. Findings showed that an extended perspective on what counts as writing including the writing process was needed. Results revealed that collaborative methods when constructing diverse texts required teachers to rethink pedagogies towards writing instruction and what they consider as writing. It was argued that technology can be used to enhance creative possibilities for students in the form of new and dynamic texts. In particular, it was noted that teachers and students should be aware that digital technologies can both constrain and/or enable text creation in the classroom depending on a number of variables including knowledge and understanding, locating resources and logistical issues such as connectivity and reliability.

In addition, Mendelowitz’s ( 2014 ) study argued that nurturing teachers’ own creativity assisted their ability to teach writing more generally. She noted several ‘interrelated variables and relationships that still need to be given attention in order to gain a more holistic understanding of the challenges of teaching creative writing’ (p. 164). According to Mendelowitz ( 2014 ), elements that impacted on these challenges include teachers’ school writing histories, conceptualisations of imagination, classroom discourses, and pedagogy. Documenting teachers’ work through interviews and classroom observations by the researcher, the study found that teachers need to be able to define imagination and imaginative writing and know what strategies work best with their students. She noted that the teacher’s approaches to teaching writing ‘powerfully shaped by the interactions between their conceptualisations and enactments of imaginative writing pedagogy’ (p. 181) and that these may either limit or create a space for students to be more creative with their writing.

Such Personal Emergent Properties show that individual attributes of both teachers and students are important in learning creative writing. The next section of the paper explores the articles that shared various structural and cultural properties.

Structural emergent properties

In the subset of structural emergent properties, we mainly identified pedagogical approaches for creative writing that explored primary school learning and teaching (Christianakis, 2011a ; Christianakis, 2011b ; Coles, 2017 ; DeFauw, 2018 ; Hall & Grisham-Brown, 2011 ; Portier et al., 2019 ; Rumney et al., 2016 ; Sears, 2012 ; Steele, 2016 ; Southern et al., 2020 ; Yoo & Carter, 2017 ). These pedagogical approaches were aimed at addressing issues related to personal emergent properties such as motivation and engagement, and confidence in writing. The two categories of writing pedagogies were those that engaged professional authors and artists in teaching about creative writing, and the approaches that involved play(ful) activities, and use of visual arts, and drama.

Engaging professional authors and artists

Interestingly, many of the studies used literary forms and/or professional creative authors to spike interest and motivation in the students. Coles’ ( 2017 ) study, for example, used a garden-themed poetry writing project to support 9–10-year-old children’s creative writing in a London primary school. The 5-week project partnered with a professional creative writing organisation that facilitated the Ministry for Stories (MoS) writing centres across the USA. The study found that the social relationships created through this partnership allowed for a more inclusive and socially generative model of creativity. This meant that teachers should not just include creative aspects in assessment rubrics but rather recognise that creativity is encouraged through imagination and working with others. The researchers found improvements in the children’s participation in classroom writing activities as well as diversity in the ways they expressed their writing. The approach valued ‘rich means of expression rather than a set of rules to be learnt’ (p. 396). They also acknowledged issues associated with school–community partnerships including the sustainability of the practice.

Similarly, Rumney et al. ( 2016 ) found that using creative multimodal activities increased students’ confidence and motivation for writing. The study implemented the Write Here project with over 900 children in 12 primary and secondary schools. The study involved the children visiting local art galleries to work with professional authors and artists. Case studies were presented about pre-writing activities, the actual gallery work and post-gallery follow-up sessions. It aimed to improve students’ social development and literacy outcomes through diverse learning activities such as visual art and play in different contexts such as art galleries and classrooms. Like Coles’ ( 2017 ) study, this project showed that creative activities (e.g. talking about and acting out pictures; using story maps; backwards writing and planning) engaged students more than just teaching skills.

In addition, DeFauw’s ( 2018 ) study had student-centred learning and leadership at the core when working with a children’s book author for one year. The collaboration involved three face-to-face sessions with the author as well as online communication through blog posts. Data included recorded interactions, readings and pre and post interviews with teachers ( n  = 9), students ( n  = 36), and the author. The partnership showed that students’ interest was activated and sustained due to the situational context as well as the extended time given to students to interact with the author. The project improved students’ interest in and motivation to write as a result of engaging with authors and hearing about their own experience and writing strategies. It also found that teachers gained more confidence to support students’ exploration of writing in more creative ways. The creative pedagogies were also used in addressing issues related to creative writing outcomes for students, including teachers’ lack of confidence about pedagogies (Southern et al., 2020 ). Through a creative social enterprise approach, the authors facilitated professional development and learning involving artist-led activities for students. The program called Zip Zap had been implemented in schools in Wales and England, and data were collected through focus groups with teachers, students, and parents/carers. Observations of some of the professional development workshops were also video recorded. Third space theory was used to describe the collaborative practice between educators and artists that supported students’ creative writing outcomes. It was noteworthy that involving ‘creative’ practitioners largely focussed on the specific strategies that could be used in classrooms, to which our next section now turns.

Play(ful) activities, visual arts, and drama

Much research explores how to best support students who find writing difficult. Sears’ research ( 2012 ) is a case in point. The author shared how visual arts may be an effective way to improve struggling students with writing. They argued that the visual arts can provide ways of ‘accessing and expressing [student] ideas and ultimately opening a world of creative possibilities’ (p. 17). In the study, six third-grade students engaged with drawing and painting as pre-writing strategies, leading to the creation of poems based on the artworks. The students’ final poems were assessed and showed improved knowledge of all 6 technical categories in writing: ideas, organisation, fluency, voice, word choice, and conventions. The author also argued that students’ motivation to write increased as a result of the visual art activities.

A study by Portier et al. ( 2019 ) investigated approaches to teaching writing that were motiving and engaging for students. Involving 10 northern rural communities in Canada, the project implemented collaborative, play(ful) learning activities alongside sixteen teachers and their students. Interestingly, the study, like many others in our review, found a disconnect ‘between the achievement of curricular objectives and the implementation of play(ful) learning activities’ (p. 20); an approach valued in early childhood education. The students were supported through action research projects in creating texts with different purposes. Students’ motivation as well as samples of work were analysed and showed that student interest areas and collaborative approaches benefited both teachers and students. Further research on how reflexive thinking might have influenced these benefits is recommended.

Similarly, Lee and Enciso ( 2017 ) highlighted the importance of motivation and engagement in their study. In a collaboration with Austin Theatre Alliance, Lee and Enciso ( 2017 ) investigated how dramatic approaches to teaching, such as through expanded imagination and improvisation, can improve students’ story writing. They argued that the students’ motivation to write was also increased. The study was carried out through a controlled quasi-experimental study over 8 weeks of story-writing and drama-based programs. 29 third-grade classrooms in various schools, located in an urban district of Texas, were involved. The study also pre- and post-tested the students’ writing self-efficacy through story building. The study found that students were more able to use their cultural knowledge such as ‘culturally formed repertoires of language and experience to explore and express new understandings of the world and themselves…’ (p. 160) for creative writing purposes but needed more quality resources to support opportunities such as the Literacy for Life program. A most important finding was that for children who experience poverty, drama-based activities developed and led by teaching artists were extremely powerful and allowed the students to express themselves in entertaining ways. We do note that ‘entertainment’ and or engagement might mean different things for different students so reflexive approaches to deciding what these are would be necessary.

Steele’s ( 2016 ) study also looked at supporting teachers’ work in the classroom. Involving 6 out of 20 teacher workshop participants in Hawaii, this exploratory case study utilised observations, interview, and portfolio analyses of teacher and student work. Findings from the study showed that some teachers relished moving away from everyday ‘typical’ practice and increased student voice and choice. Other teachers, however, found it difficult to take risks and hence respond to student needs and ideas.

Dobson and Stephenson’s ( 2020 ) study focussed on the professional development of primary school teachers using drama to develop creative writing across the curriculum. The project was sponsored by the United Kingdom Literacy Association and ran for two terms in a school year. Researchers based the research on a collaborative approach involving academics and four teachers working with theatre educators to use process drama. Data sets included lesson observations, notes taken during learning conversations, and interviews with the teachers. The findings showed that three of the four teachers resisted some of the methods used such as performance; resulting in a lack of child-centred learning. The remaining teacher could take on board innovative practice, which the researchers attributed to his disposition. The study argued that these teachers, while a small participant group, needed more support in feeling confident in implementing new and creative approaches to teaching writing.

The final study, identified as addressing creative pedagogies for creative writing, was carried out by Yoo and Carter ( 2017 ) as professional development for teachers. Data included teacher survey responses and field notes taken by the researchers at each workshop (note: number of workshops and participants is unknown). The program aimed to investigate how emotions play a role in teachers’ work when teaching creative writing. The researchers found that intuitive joint construction of meaning was important to meet the needs of both primary and secondary teachers. A community of practice was established to support teachers’ identities as writers (see also Cremin et al., 2020 ). Findings showed that teachers who already identified as writers engaged more positively in the workshop.

These studies presented some approaches for teachers to consider how to teach creative writing. For example, the need to value unique spaces for students to write, including authentic connections with people and places outside of school environments was shared. Further, the need for quality stimuli and time for writing was acknowledged. Several other studies identified that blended teaching approaches to support student learning outcomes in the area of creative writing is important for schools and teachers to consider. We do acknowledge there may be other methods available to support students in creative writing, however, understanding what types of SEPs are impacting on teaching creative writing is an important step in determining improvements in schools.

Cultural emergent properties

Christianakis ( 2011a , 2011b ) wrote two papers about children’s creative text development with an emphasis on the cultural aspects. The first was an ethnographic study across 8 months with a year five class in East San Francisco Bay. The study included audio recording the students’ conversations and analysing over 900 samples of work. In the classroom, students were involved in a range of meaning-making practices including those that were arts-based and multimodal. The conversations with the students involved the researcher asking questions such: tell me more about this drawing, how did you come up with the idea? or why did you make this choice? The study found that there was a need for schools to reconceptualise the teaching of writing ‘to include not only orthographic symbols, but also the wide array of communicative tools that children bring to writing’ (p. 22). The author argued that unless corresponding institutional practices and ideologies were interrogated then improved practice was unlikely.

Christianakis’ ( 2011b ) second article, from the same project, explored more specifically the creation of hybrid rap poems by the children. She explicated how educators needed to negotiate and challenge dominant practices in primary classroom literacy learning. Like many studies before, a strong recommendation was to be more inclusive of youth popular cultures and culturally relevant literacies for students to be more engaged in creative writing practices. For Christianakis, culturally relevant literacies meant practices that embraced diversity in class and race and accounted for, and challenged, the dominant hegemonic curriculum that ‘privileges a traditional canon’ (p. 1140).

In summary, we found several themes under PEPs that could be considered for further research including those outlined in Table 3 below.

Discussion and implications for classroom practice

From this systematic literature review, several positions were exposed about the personal, structural, and cultural influences (Archer, 2012 ; Ryan, 2014 ) on teaching creative writing. These include limited teacher and student knowledge of what constitutes creative writing (Personal Emergent Properties [PEPs]), and no shared understanding or expectation in relation to creative writing pedagogy in their context (Cultural Emergent Properties [CEPs]). The negative impact of standardised testing and trending approaches on how teachers teach writing (CEP; Structural Emergent Properties [SEPs]) could also be considered (see AUTHORS 1 and 3, 2014 for example). In addition, teachers’ poor self-efficacy in terms of teaching creative writing (PEP); a paucity of quality professional development about teaching and assessing creative writing (SEP); and issues related to the sustainability of creative approaches to teach writing (SEP; CEP) need to be considered by leaders and teachers in schools. Our literature review advances knowledge about creative writing by revealing two interconnected areas that affect creative writing practices. Findings suggest that a parallel focus on personal conditions and contextual conditions—including structural and cultural—has the potential to improve creative writing in general. Below, we share some implications and recommendations for improved practice by focussing on both (1) personal views about creative writing and (2) the structural and cultural aspects that affect creative writing practices at schools.

Focussing on personal views about creative writing

School leaders and teachers must clearly define what creative writing is, what key skills constitute creative writing.

From our search it was apparent that schools and their educators often do not have a clear idea or indeed a shared idea as to what constitutes creative writing in relation to their own context. Without a well-defined focus for creative writing students may find it difficult to know what is required in classroom tasks and assessment. In addition, when planning for creative writing in school programs, teachers should consider flexible learning opportunities and choice for their students when developing their creative writing skills. Such flexibility should also involve choice of topic, ways of working (e.g. peer collaboration, individual activities etc.), and open discussions led by students in the classroom as shown throughout this paper. It would also be important for leaders and teachers to interrogate current approaches to teaching writing which we argued in the introduction to be formulaic and genre based.

Improve teacher self-efficacy, confidence, and content knowledge in teaching writing

Many of our studies showed that teachers who lacked confidence about writing themselves had less knowledge and skills to teach writing than those that may have participated in projects encouraging ‘teachers as writers’. Further, improved knowledge of grammar (as highlighted in Macken-Horarik’s, 2012 work); talk about writing in the classroom and other spaces (Cremin et al., 2020 ) and the writing process (see Ryan, 2014 ) could assist teachers in becoming more confident to take risks in the classroom with their students. Above all being playful about writing through extended conversations and practices is required.

Focussing on the structural and cultural resources

Improve training and further professional development and learning about teaching and assessing creative writing.

In order for the above personal attributes to be improved, further professional development and learning are required. Many of the papers presented throughout this review demonstrated the powerful impact of immersive professional learning for teachers. Working alongside professional authors, researchers, drama practitioners, visual artists, poets, for example, provided positive opportunities for teachers to learn about writing but also to feel more confident to teach it without imposing strict boundaries on students. We argue for professional development to be both formal and informal including such approaches as coaching and mentoring in the classroom. Demonstrated practice alongside the teacher is also recommended. This, in turn, would address the ongoing issue of creative writing being stifled for students in the classroom context.

Consider sustainability of creative pedagogic approaches and spaces for creative writing in curriculum planning

Many of the studies throughout this paper shared creative approaches to teaching writing but there were concerns that some of these methods may not be sustainable. It is important for school leaders to support the work of teachers in relation to teaching creative writing. We acknowledge that there is increasing uncertainty and scrutiny surrounding teachers’ everyday work (Knight, 2020 ), however, continued engagement in learning about and participating in creative pedagogy for writing is highly recommended. In addition, the studies suggested the provision of appropriate and authentic spaces in which students could creatively write and these often included spaces outside of the normal classroom environment and arts-based approaches implemented in such spaces. Teachers should be encouraged to collaborate and take risks rather than follow predetermined strategies for every lesson. A whole of school practice can be developed with important conversations about the ideologies that inform the school’s approach to writing.

Schools should not stifle creativity in the classroom due to the infiltration of standardised and/or trending approaches to teaching and assessing writing

It is evident that pedagogical approaches to teaching writing have been stifled by more formulaic methods aiming to meet expectations of standardised tests despite other evidence showing the benefits of more productive, engaging, and creative approaches to teaching writing as highlighted above. This can be particularly the case for students from non-dominant backgrounds where writing about cultural and life experiences through innovative practices has been proven to empower their voices (Johnson, 2021 ). The research shows that when students are offered rigid structures of texts, no choice of genres, and indeed word lists, their own decisions about writing are diminished (Ryan & Barton, 2013 ). It has been proven that students’ engagement and motivation to write can increase when they are able to write directly from their own experience or in social groups. It is therefore recommended that school leaders and teachers reconsider their ideologies about writing and explicitly indicate the importance of real-world purposes for writing—not just formulised, quick writing as usually included in external tests—but also those that encourage students’ growth in imagination, creativity, and innovative thought.

This systematic review used a lens of reflexivity to situate writing as a process of active and creative design whereby students make conscious decisions about their writing, with guidance from their teachers. As explained, we see creative writing as writing that engages a reader and, therefore, requires knowledge of authorial voice and appropriate word choice. This involves reflexive decisions relating to personal, structural, and cultural emergent properties. Predominant in the literature was the striking influence of CEPs or the values and expectations ascribed to writing, which in turn influence the strategies and resources (SEPs) and the experiences and motivations of students and teachers in the classroom (PEPs). Writing is about more than a series of perfectly formed sentences in a recognisable structure, which dominates conceptions of writing through high-stakes testing globally. It is about engagement with the expressive self, emergent identities, and relationships to places and people and above all communicating to and/or entertaining a reader. Without quality education in creative writing, society is at risk of losing an art form that is important for cultural practice and expression (Watson, 2016 ).

We do foresee several limitations with such a review, largely related to the positive nature of the studies in relation to creative approaches to teaching writing as well as the relatively small numbers of participants in some of the studies. Most of the studies reported favourably on the approaches taken by teachers to influence student motivation towards writing with limited comments about adverse effects. In terms of contributions, the notion that students need to draw on creative thought and ideas when writing means that teachers and leaders must think about diverse ways to teach writing. We argue, on the basis of the findings, that inquiry-based and reflexive professional learning projects about creativity are crucial for primary classrooms: what creativity means in different contexts and for different writers; how it is enabled; and the decisions and actions that emerge when creative and reflexive design guide our approach to classroom writing. Without quality knowledge and understanding of what creative writing is and how it is taught, we would be at risk of diminishing students’ self-expression and ability to communicate meaning to others in literary forms.

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Barton, G., Khosronejad, M., Ryan, M. et al. Teaching creative writing in primary schools: a systematic review of the literature through the lens of reflexivity. Aust. Educ. Res. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-023-00641-9

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At the Nexus: Cross-Disciplinary Connections in Creative Writing

Creative Writing Studies lives in community with other fields. Grown out of writing studies, CWS has long made strides drawing on frameworks from literary studies, rhetoric and composition, craft studies, and creativity studies. In our past years’ conferences we have seen creative writing explored in tandem with journalism, cognitive psychology, education, critical theory, and trauma-informed care, and more. Given the ever-increasing interest in the field, however, we now find ourselves asking after the other cross-disciplinary connections that might enrich our work, as well as how our work might enrich these other disciplines from which we draw.

To that end, this year we are calling for papers and presentations that put Creative Writing Studies into conversation with subjects, practices, and disciplines often not associated with our field. CWS has historically located itself at the intersection of multiple branches of knowledge creation, but rather than think about the field’s precarious position or the ways it has often existed in tension with other fields, we might instead focus in on its cross-, multi-, inter-, poly- and trans-disciplinary potentials.

In pursuing these connections, we resist the disciplinary siloing that has resulted from the institutional structures of academia. This is especially important during a time of political tension when access to knowledge as well as the production and reception of creative writing have become issues of contention in the public sphere. We as a field must be continually engaged in the project of intellectual renewal by conversing within and beyond our disciplinary boundaries.

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

Saturday, october 21, welcome // 8:15-8:30 am edt // room a.

A short welcome from CWSO Chair Graeme Harper.

PROFESSIONALIZATION PANEL // Session 1, Room A // 8:30 – 9:30 am

The Odyssey: Defining Mentorship for Creative Writing Studies, *Brent House

This presentation attempts to craft a mentoring pedagogy for creative writing from the knowledge gained from years of mentoring practices in business, sciences, and education, among other disciplines. 

From the Derived to the Deviant: A Translation-Based Creative Writing Pedagogy, Xia Fang

This paper tries to present a solidly grounded and practice-based creative pedagogy that fully utilizes the practise of translation by drawing on two opposing elements of translation: derivation and deviation. I first investigated the relationship between translation and creative writing by examining various forms of deviance in translation and explaining their creative potential. Then, using Bakhtin’s self and otherness and Huizinga’s play, I investigate the fundamental relationship between deviance and self-expression. Lastly, I will propose a translation-based creative pedagogy while examining works from my poetry project that incorporated the practice of translation.

The Meow Wolf Model for the Marketable Creative, Michael Sheehan

Inspired by Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return , an immersive art installation that is also “a multidimensional mystery house,” I redesigned a creative writing course to include an interdisciplinary collaboration with a sculpture class. By an analysis of this course design, this paper explores how a “postdisciplinary,” project-based approach to creative writing offers expansive opportunities for student creative accomplishment and professional preparation.

NARRATIVE MEDICINE PANEL // Session 1, Room B // 8:30 – 9:30 am

Creative Writing in the Realm of Neuropsychology: Exploring Narrative Before and After Exposure Therapy in Psychogenic Non-epileptic Events, *Sam Meekings

This paper will discuss the results of my recent collaborative research with a neuropsychologist on the links between creative writing techniques and the practices of exposure therapy. It will explore how the tools of creative writing might help shed light on the processes of self-construction and self-fictionalizing enacted in response to trauma, and how an understanding of such narrative techniques might therefore be useful for diagnosis and treatment by medical professionals working with PNEE patients.

Online Expressive Writing as an Approach to Enhance Chinese University English Learners’ Well-Being, Xiaojuan Gao

Writing expressively has proved beneficial to people’s well-being in many previous studies, yet little such research has been conducted in the area of second/foreign language writing. The present study tries to fill the gap by investigating the effect of expressive writing in English as a Foreign Language on Chinese language learners’ psychological well-being. The results showed that students had increased positive emotions, better cognitive framing of their unpleasant experience, enhanced appreciation towards the current life and a more positive attitude towards their EFL writing. 

In Search of Alternative Story: An Analysis of “No Name Woman” Based on the Theory of Narrative Therapy, Jie Liu

This paper aims to discuss how narrative therapy reconstructs one’s self, which offers a new interpretive frame for the genre personal essay. Michael White’s theory stresses replacing the problematic dominant story with a preferred alternative story and indicates that individuals subject to dominant knowledges can rely on alternative knowledges to construct a new narrative. Based on his theory, the paper will analyze Maxine Hong Kingston’s well-known essay “No Name Woman” and reveal that though without successfully completing a real alternative story, Kingston attempts to resist her mother’s thin description and reconstructs the forgotten aunt’s life with a unique outcome.

TWINE WORKSHOP // Session 2, Room A // 9:45 – 10:45 am

Link and Shift to Open up Pedagogical Opportunities through an Interactive Digital Tool: Using Twine in the Creative Writing Classroom, Anna Lee-Popham

Many scholars, educators, and practitioners emphasize the opportunities that arise when introducing digital technologies into the creative writing classroom. This workshop introduces participants to Twine, an interactive storytelling tool through which to tell non-linear and choice based stories, as a pedagogical tool for the creative writing classroom. From a feminist perspective, Twine is particularly interesting as it is accessible, free to use, and, by having a low learning curve (Evans), “challenges mainstream standards by subverting the celebration of difficulty, in both production and play” (Harvey).

NARRATIVE MEDICINE WORKSHOP // Session 2, Room B // 9:45 – 10:45 am

Narrative Medicine Creative Writing Prompts and Positionality Art in Teaching, *Mary Leoson, Finnian Burnett, Jeffery Buckner-Rodas

Participants for this session will write in response to narrative medicine-based prompts and create positionality art (art that helps participants examine how they see the world). As trained Narrative Medicine Facilitators, Dr. Leoson, Dr. Burnett, and Dr. Buckner-Rodas will share how they have integrated writing prompts and positionality art projects in various ways in English courses at the high school and college levels to foster empathy for the self and others. 

DISCIPLINARITY PANEL // Session 3, Room A // 11 am – noon

You Can’t Make a Cake With a Hammer: Disciplinary Awareness in Creative Writing Studies, *Graeme Harper

The session will consider what Creative Writing Studies is, in relation to other disciplines, and explore what Creative Writing Studies is today. Looking both nationally and internationally, it will suggest directions the field is heading, and why, and how and to what results.

(Re)Crafting Writing, Tim Mayers

Creative Writing Studies can–and should–engage in cross-disciplinary efforts to expand students’ and colleagues’ conceptual definitions of what writing is and how writing works in the world. This presentation will outline seven available definitions of writing and offer suggestions about how to use the definitions to spark discussion and debate among students and colleagues.

Rhetorical Genre Theory for Multi-Genre Creative Writing Classes, Khem Aryal

In this presentation, I will demonstrate how familiarizing students with rhetorical genre theory can not only better equip them to produce work within expected genre conventions but also empower them to manipulate those conventions to be more “creative.” This understanding can nurture their ability to channel their creativity more effectively, countering the inclination to resort to unrestricted expression typified by “doing whatever they want to do to be creative.”

PROCESS & PLAY PANEL // Session 3, Room B // 11 am – noon

Mental Health in Creative Writing: Centering Play and Confronting Fear, Leah Hedrick

Looking to the fields of psychology and sociology, this presentation will discuss transforming creative writing classrooms into spaces that prioritize mental-emotional wellbeing. I will present research data that highlights the impact of creative play on overall wellness. Then, we will turn our focus to workshop-related fear, panic, and anxiety. Leaning on the knowledge funds of cognitive behavioral therapists, I will summarize healthy and effective strategies for approaching scary things. As teachers, we can use the insights from these strategies to interrogate and adapt our workshop to be more anxiety-friendly.

Play and Practice for the Artist: A Course Plan, * Rachel Haley Himmelheber

This paper will explore the types of readings and assignments I will include in an upper-level undergraduate course called Play and Practice for the Artist that I will teach this spring. 

LUNCH BREAK // noon – 1 p.m.

Writing against power panel // session 4, room a // 1 – 2 pm.

Laugh Till You Change: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis of Difficult People (2015-2017) and Broad City (2014-2019), Amalie Kwassman

Explore how the television shows Broad City (2014-2019) and Difficult People (2015-2019), both written by funny women, expose the patriarchal, ableist, and homophobic norms of our society, one laugh at a time.

Crip Queer Storytelling: An Intersectional Analysis, * Audrey T. Heffers

What is the current state of queer disabled representation? This presentation seeks to outline potential criteria for such representation to highlight the intersections of queer/disabled identity in fiction. The critical framework used here sits at the nexus of Creative Writing Studies, Disability Studies, and Queer Studies.

Imaginative Protest: Climate Crisis Activism through the Creation of Speculative Worlds, Scott Guild

Writers of speculative fiction often create narrative worlds with similar tensions as our contemporary world. In the case of recent eco-fiction novels–such as N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season or Lydia Millet’s A Children’s Bible –speculative worldbuilding acts as a form of protest in the face of the growing climate crisis.

RESEARCH PANEL // Session 4, Room B // 1 – 2 pm

Under or Away from the Umbrella?: Inviting a Discourse around Creative Rhetorics, Jon Udelson

This discussion will invite attendees to consider how a discourse around creative rhetorics—specifically rhetorics of ineffability, of the aesthetic, and of difference—might inform research study design, data gathering procedures, and orientations to both research goals and contexts of research.

Consider the Source: The Interview as a Research Tool in Creative Writing, *Kelly K. Ferguson

Whether interviewing strangers, your family, or a vampire, a few basic tips can go a long way. This skill, a staple of journalism, is rarely taught in the creative writing classroom, but people make the most interesting resources. This presentation will cover the fundamentals of the successful and ethical interview. To be covered: uses for human sourcing in creative writing; social anxiety; tips; ethical concerns for trauma victims. 

What Makes Someone “Good” at Creative Writing? What the Social Sciences are Teaching Me about Creative Writing and Why We Need More Empiricism in Creative Writing Studies, C. Connor Syrewicz

What makes someone “good” at creative writing? In the first half of this paper, I review some empirical research on expert creative writers and offer a few evidence-based hypotheses on what makes them “good” at creative writing. In the second half, I treat my experience of reviewing this research as a case study. Empirical research, I argue, has a lot to offer us as instructors and even as writers, so I conclude by outlining some of the obstacles that stand in the way of creative writing studies becoming more empirical, and by offering some potential ways of overcoming these obstacles.

CW ACROSS THE CURRICULUM PANEL // Session 5, Room A // 2:15 – 3:15 pm

Creative Writing Across the Curriculum: A Systematic Review, Justin Nicholes

This presentation synthesizes primary research studies (N = 130) on creative writing across disciplines from the last 20 years located through library and journal searches into “dialogue across differences of population, context, and in some cases, methodology or research paradigm” (Lorenc et al., 2011, p. 7). The result is a grounded theory of creative writing across the curriculum (CWAC) as meaningful, engaging, inclusive literacy practice.

A Creative Writing Approach in First Year Writing, Brendan Stephens

Who said freshman composition can’t be creative? While the pedagogy surrounding first year writing courses is treated as the exclusive domain of rhetoric and composition, creative writers offer a unique perspective to these required courses.

Tracing Creative Writing Methods as a Way to Track Literate Activity Practices (to Inspire Future Writing), Samantha Moe

A literate activity approach challenges the perception that creative writing is untraceable. Tracing our creative practices as writers, making note of our writing environments, and our writing tools can inform us about our patterns and habits. The research of literate activities, connected with repair and care-work, seeks to unveil creative writing methods. As poet and professor Donika Kelly writes: “I wish people would talk about their writing practices with more of that joy. I just know people love their own work, because why else would you do it?” (rescheduled to this session)

WRITER-SCIENTIST PANEL // Session 5, Room B // 2:15 – 3:15 pm

Writer Scientist or Scientist Writer? Teaching Creative Writing at STEM-Dominant Universities, * Jennifer Pullen, Alyse Bensel, and Sara Henning

Three panelists who teach at STEM-dominant colleges and universities will discuss opportunities for STEM students in the creative writing classroom as well as methods for designing courses, assignments, and curriculum that benefit creative writing programs and increase equitable student outcomes.

CRAFT & PEDAGOGY PANEL // Session 5, Room C // 2:15 – 3:15 pm

Seeing the Story: Techniques of Narrative Perspective in Written vs. Visual Media, Rachel Cochran

Creative Writing Studies can–and should–engage in cross-disciplinary efforts to expand students’ and colleagues’ conceptual definitions of what writing is and how writing works in the world. This paper will draw parallels between dynamic perspectives in visual media–such as film, games, visual art, and graphic design–and creative writing craft approaches to perspective. It will break down components such as framing, focus, transition/juxtaposition, tone, and temporality, engaging in close reading practices to explore the unique registers creators of media can access to achieve these various effects.

Sense and Sensitivity: Sensory Appeals in Storytelling, Rachael Hammond

This presentation considers how sensory appeals can contribute to meaningful storytelling. Specifically, I will discuss some sensory exercises that my fiction writing students have completed. Then I will share observations about how those experiences can foster a sense of classroom community and support students’ efforts to create vivid worlds filled with round, compelling characters. Ultimately, sensory appeals can provide writers with the ability to fulfill our most important obligation –to provide touchstones for human connection.

LOCATING CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP // Session 6, Room A // 3:30 – 4:30 pm

Locating Creative Writing, Eli Goldblatt

Where do we locate CW, among disciplinary or institutional terrains, to ensure that writers can connect with resources and audiences often occluded by the narrow slotting of MFA programs in English departments? After a brief introduction, this workshop will center on the ideas and experiences of the participants.

IMPROV WORKSHOP // Session 6, Room B // 3:30 – 4:30 pm

Improv-ing the Inclusive Classroom, Angela Sorby

This workshop, scaffolded by educational research and grounded in a collective, participatory experience, will explore how improv games might support, not just imaginative play, but also inclusive play. As we learn/play a series of improv games–Mind Meld, I Am a Tree, Kitty-cat Careers, and others–we will also engage in discussions about how each game might work (or not) in a consciously inclusive creative writing classroom setting.

CLOSING REMARKS & DISCUSSION // Room A // 4:35 – 5 pm

Facilitated by CWSO Chair Graeme Harper.

Sunday, October 22

Hybrid plenary session // room a // 10 – 11 am.

Join CWSO members online and in-person at Shenandoah University’s Mary M. Henkel Hall to discuss the state of the discipline and highlights from the conference.

The challenge of being a creative person once you’ve created a person

A very tired parent’s tips for writing a book while also doing all the other things.

Eight or nine years ago, an old friend called seeking advice. She was trying to write a novel, but she was also a new mom with a full-time job, and she was exhausted. I, who had breezily published a couple of books by then, offered my best wisdom. You have to push through, I told her sternly. You have to take your own writing seriously, or nobody else will. Set aside two hours every night. Put on the coffee and push through the exhaustion. You can and will do it.

Years passed. Then I, too, had a baby. Then I, too, set out to write a book while also being a mother with a full-time job. And somewhere in the middle of this endeavor, I called my friend and asked whether my advice had been as bad as I was beginning to sense it had been. No, she told me cheerfully, it had actually been much worse. The callousness of it had shocked her, she said, until she decided that I simply hadn’t known any better and that, when I did, I would apologize.

God, I’m so sorry.

My first post-baby book came out today, and I have been thinking, almost nonstop, about the relationship between creativity and motherhood. I used to love reading articles with titles such as “The daily routines of 10 famous artists,” until I realized that Leo Tolstoy may have finished his masterpieces by locking his study doors to ensure uninterrupted productivity, but, like, what were his 13 children doing while he was in there? Did anyone check in on Mrs. Tolstoy? For the women I know, there is no setting aside a few hours at the end of the workday. The end of the workday is the beginning of the parent day. The end of the parent day is never, because 2-year-olds wake cheerfully at 5 a.m., and strep throat comes for us all.

Where, in this schedule, was the life of the mind? TikTok would not stop showing me videos of mothers showing off their “realistic beauty routines,” but what I really wanted were realistic creativity routines: the mothers who didn’t give a crap about heatless curlers, but had somehow composed a cello sonata while working five days a week as a dental hygienist.

In my bleariest days of early parenthood, I met a woman at the playground who had just finished doing something extraordinary (Triathlon? Solo art exhibit?), and when the rest of us asked her how she’d found the time, she shrugged and said, modestly, “Oh, you know.” But the point was that we didn’t know, and we were desperate for her to tell us. (Live-in grandparents? Adderall?)

The bigger point is that we weren’t really trying to figure out how to compete in triathlons. We were trying to figure out how to be people.

When you have a baby or a toddler, reminding yourself that you are a full person with your own dreams and needs can feel both completely vital and completely impossible. But being a full person is a sacred legacy to give to a child. My own mother is a folk artist. When I was growing up, she made Ukrainian eggs in the frigid concrete sunroom, a space heater at her feet, and her works were shown and sold at galleries around the Midwest. I knew then, and I know now, that my mother would die and kill for me. But I also knew that she loved other things, too. She had loved those things before she ever knew me. She had secrets and wisdom to pass on.

Her work had nothing to do with me, yet it was a gift. It paid for my brother and me to go to summer camp. It went on display at the Art Institute of Chicago, and we visited it, as well as the Seurats and the Hoppers, and ate granola bars. When my mother dies, I will carefully unwrap the tissue paper surrounding the astonishing works of art she gave to me over the years, and I will sob.

I want that for my own daughter. I want her to know that motherhood doesn’t have to atrophy personhood; it can expand it.

And in wanting that, desperately, I came up with a routine that allowed me to maintain a grip on the parts of me that were me before I was a mother. A realistic creativity routine, if you will.

I write between the hours of 10 p.m. and midnight, unless it turns out that I write between the hours of 2 a.m. and 4. I write 300 to 400 words every time I am on the Metro; I write 30 to 40 words each time I pick my daughter up from day care, in the three-minute gap between when I ring the outer bell and when a teacher’s aide comes to let me inside. I write badly. I write very, very badly, vaguely remembering a quote I’d once heard attributed to author Jodi Picoult, about how you can always edit a bad page, but you can never edit a blank page.

Does it look like the routines of Tolstoy, or Virginia Woolf, or anyone else I may have once read about in an article about the routines of famous artists? It does not. But the bad pages get edited, and then they get good.

Pursuing creativity as a working mom means, in other words, letting go of any romantic notions of what creativity means or looks like.

It means not waiting for inspiration to strike, but instead striking inspiration, bludgeoning it upside the head and wrestling it to the ground. Inspiration is a luxury, and once you realize that, you can also understand that the ability to create something through sheer force of will — without inspiration, without routine, without time — is a far more creative act than relying on a muse.

If my old friend called me now, I think that is what I would say to her. That, and:

You will not be Mark Twain, summoned by a horn when it’s time to eat the dinner someone else has prepared. You will not be going on Tchaikovsky’s vigorous two-hour walks through the countryside or spending the morning shopping for inspiring objects like Andy Warhol.

But you will create something. Not by pushing through the exhaustion so much as living alongside it, and then peering beyond it, and then stopping, and then starting, and then having superhuman discipline, and then eating a whole package of Oreos, and then finishing something beautiful at 2 a.m. and sneaking into your child’s room to see another beautiful thing, and then thinking about how the things that make us the most tired are the things that give us reason to create at all.

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[CANCELLED] GREENHOUSE 2024: Gender Studies

Cancellation notice.

This event has been cancelled. Thank you for your interest.

The Creative Writing Department and Theatre Arts Department present GREENHOUSE 2024, the annual Greenhouse Reading Series festival of staged plays by M.A./M.F.A. Playwriting candidates in the Creative Writing Program. There will be five readings across the week in The Lab theater located in the Creative Arts Building. We hope to see you there!

Gender Studies by Joshua Graves Directed by Kieran Becia

Kevin is a closeted, gay, trans man exploring his new identity by studying and emulating his husband, Steven. But Kevin's plan to come out to his husband hits a snag when Stephen struggles to understand a new genderqueer employee at his company. Kevin realizes he’s got some work to do before his straight, cis husband is ready for him.

Greenhouse Reading Series

• Monday, May 13 — Memories by Ben Zingos, Directed by Ely Sonny Orquiza
• Tuesday May 14 — Gender Studies by Joshua Graves, Directed by Kieran Becia
• Wednesday, May 15 — Saffron Stain   by Ferdos Heidari, Directed by Hasti Jafari 
• Thursday, May 16 — Glue by Lynn Mari, Directed by Adam L Sussman
• Friday, May 17 — Jars   by Marina Lee, Directed by Ciera Eis

Upcoming Events

• Email: [email protected]
• Telephone: (415) 338-1891

Office Hours

Quick links.

• Undergraduate Advising Center
• SF Bulletin
• Academic Calendar

Giving Students Options for a Concept Paper in a Business Communications Course

The Communication Spotlight features innovative instructors who teach written, oral, digital/technological, kinetic, and visual communication modes.

Jennifer Hite received her BA majoring in Environmental Studies with a minor in Political Science from University of California at Santa Barbara, her MA in Communication Management from the Annenberg School of Communication at University of Southern California. She received a PhD in Organizational Behavior at UCI/The Paul Merage School of Business. Professor Hite has been an Instructor at the Annenberg School of Communication at USC, School of Business Administration at USC and UCI/The Paul Merage School of Business. She is a member of the Academy of Management, International Communication Association and the Society for Human Resources Management.

What is the assignment? 

Concept Paper: Project or Idea Pitch

Project overview: You can choose from one of two tracks for the assignment:

• Introduce a new product or
• Introduce an existing product to another country.

Track 1: Introduce a New Product

Students selecting this track will produce a concept paper and pitch that follow the requirements of the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition . By the end of the quarter, you’ll have a solid concept paper and pitch ready if you choose to compete.

Product selection, Track 1: The product must be a completely new product or a better version of an existing one that is affordable to most Americans. In addition,

• A new service or a digital product may not be used.
• If you’ve already submitted a concept paper for the New Venture Competition, you may not use the same idea or paper for MGMT 191W. However, we encourage you to use the original work you create for MGMT 191W for the competition.

Track 2: Introduce an Existing Product to Another Country

Students selecting this option will introduce an existing product to a country they are not familiar with. Here are the requirements for both the product and the country you choose.

Product selection, Track 2: The product must be an existing one that is affordable to the people in the country you’ll be introducing it to. In addition,

• It must be a consumer product ; that is, an item of common or daily use, typically bought by individuals for private consumption.
• It must be a product consumers can purchase in brick-and-mortar stores.
• Although the product you choose may already be available in the country, your goal is to find one that is not already easily available in the country .
• It cannot be a product consumers rent or that they must subscribe to, such as a meal service.
• It cannot be for commercial use only.

Country selection, Track 2 : The country you use for the report must be one you have never visited, are not from, do not have any cultural ties to, have any relatives from, or know very much about.

How does it work?

In just three pages, students must develop a complete pitch that’s designed to convince investors (Track 1) or their CEO (Track 2) to adopt their product or idea. They build a credible argument by using library resources and careful paragraph development. The paper requires them to carefully analyze the potential market characteristics as well as any competitors, and to use color to engage the reader. The skills they develop in this project are easily transportable to work assignments once they graduate.

What do students say?

“The Concept Paper was a very informative assignment. It was the combination of a research paper and a corporate pitch/report, which worked to mimic potential assignments I will have once I graduate and get a corporate job. I particularly liked that my research was catered towards a specific audience, which led to it being more refined and avoiding any unnecessary information.” – Student Response

Student Artifact: 

This paper, pitching a new product idea, engages the audience with color and in the first paragraph with an attention-getting opening. They use bullet points and numbered lists to draw the reader’s eye and to quickly summarize information. The analysis of the market potential establishes the reach of the product, backed by recent, credible research. In addition, the analysis of the product’s competitors focuses on the product’s advantages over others. The paper is concise, well-written, and well-researched.

Read the full paper here .

Why does this work?

By asking students to choose between two options for their concept paper – either introducing a new product or an old product to a new market – the assignment is essentially asking students to choose their purpose and their audience. This choice can prompt students to think about the relationship between purpose and audience and craft their writing accordingly.

Check out these resources for developing business writing assignments in your communication classes:

• Implementing Student Choice within an Assignment from University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Business Writing Handout from UNC to help students understand typical expectations for business writing
• This particular assignment asked students to use figures in their writing. Your students might find this resource from the CEWC helpful for using tables and figures.

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