New to Teaching Creative Writing: Assessment & Feedback

JACKIE PIETERICK

UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON

“Can it be taught?” “Creative writing is a degree in the effective management of words and emotion and an understanding of how they relate, and yes, it can be taught. And if I might add, should be.”

--Faye Weldon THES (2 May 2013)

Warm-Up Activity: What do we value?

In small groups, write down some of the assessment criteria for creative pieces that you’ve used or are familiar with. These can be generic descriptors like “innovation” and “presentation”, or fit-for-purpose descriptors like “the poem’s word choice is deliberate, specific and effective”.

Assessment Benchmarks: What do we value?

NAWE Benchmark (2003) Artistic engagement–students will have the ability to produce artistically coherent, original and technically sophisticated creative work;

Examples of what we value(also see handout)

vividness;

discernment;

control of language;

avoidance of cliché;

particularised detail;

selectivity;

originality;

economy and coherence of structure;

voices that are convincingly and powerfully imitated;

persuasiveness;

eloquence;

writing that is moving;

integrity of voice;

authenticity;

subtle use of language

Warmed-up Activity: What we value Considering the criteria you did in the warm-up activity, as well as the examples I’ve provided, identify which ones you think we teach (or could teach).

What do we value? “Without an academic consensus about the intrinsic features of ‘good’ writing, creative writing tutors find themselves straddling an uneasy divide between ‘literary’ and ‘commercial’ values in their criteria, and that straddling gets even more uncomfortable when we bring in the issue of levels” (134).

--Boulter, Amanda (2004 ) Assessing the Criteria: An Argument for Creative Writing Theory. New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing. 1,2: 134-140.

Performance Criteria: What do we value? Working in teams, select one of the criteria you identified in the first warm-up activity, choose a specific writing task (e.g., students must compose a poem or short story etc.) and then attempt to develop performance descriptors for each grade level. BUT You must begin by describing the levels from lowest to highest.

Teachers are the books students read most closely

Jackie,

Two of your comments caught my eye though. One is during the fridge scene when the showman grabs the bottles. The comment reads "This reminds me of Stephen King’s mangler?" I'm confused as to what you want me to fix here. The other is about how I have a tendency to use too many adverbs and you call it my pattern. Any advice on breaking this habit?

XXX The first comment simply meant that your description of the refrigerator reminded me of King's story and the way he personifies the inanimate. I was just responding as a reader, making connections with other stories I’ve read in the genre. As a writer, you might want to think about whether these kinds of comments help you make decisions about generic conventions, reader expectations, aesthetics, originality, etc. Remember that not all of my comments are about “fixing” things in your stories, ok.

Go back to some of my marginal comments (esp. around pg 6) and note points where I've flagged up things like doors that open with "long, mournful wails" (descriptions like these can slow down the pace, which you don't want to do in the kind of suspense story you’re working on). In my marginalia, I ask you questions about your authorial choices and the effect you want them to have on your intended readership, as well as provide you with advice about how to spot writing patterns and strategies you can use to help you self-edit them.

Feedback Activity: What do we value?

Each of you was asked to bring along a piece of creative work that you commented on and marked. The purpose of this activity is to encourage you to think about the types of comments you make and how these may be understood by students.

1) Number each comment you made on the text. Include comments made in the margins, the body and at the end. End comments are counted as a single response.

◦ How many comments did you make?◦ How many are in the margins? Why do you think you have responded this way?

2) Now use the comment coding handout to help you identify and categorise the types of comments you made.

Wearing Different Hats: Purves’s Great 8

the common reader, the copy editor, the proof-reader, the reviewer, the gatekeeper, the critic, the linguist, the diagnostician.

From What We Value to What We Believe

Anson’s Belief-based Responders

Dualistic

Relativistic

Reflective

Tenets to Guide Responders

• Focus on what the writer wants to say--as if the text actually reflects the writer’s intention.

• Recognise that even inexperienced writers possess a sense of logic and purpose that guides their choices--although it may not appear in the text.

• See feedback as a process of negotiation--where writer and teacher cooperate to consider and improve, whenever possible, the relationship between intention and effect.

• Make the writer think about what he or she has said--rather than tell him or her what to do.

• Acknowledge the writer’s authority--give the student the right to make choices.