~a bright new future...

Excerpt from an emergency meeting held on a planet somewhere in the Milky Way...

My fellow Zahanans, as you know, I have just returned from an interesting expedition to Earth to learn how the creative writing teachers help to mold their students into such great writers. We all know that our programs have lacked motivation for some time. We know that our students cannot seem to break into the publishing market like the Earth writers. I believe I have figured out why!

I managed to convince my contact at the University of Literary Artists to show me their best kept secrets, which fuel their program. I was able to watch Finding Forester and Wonder Boys. I learned many things from these training videos, and I am prepared today to teach you what I have learned.

The most important aspect of being a writer, and to truly create the works of art that all Earth writers produce is to be reclusive, shutting out all those outside the writing world and to some extent, fellow writers. We must teach our students to drink, a lot, and it might be a good idea to introduce them to certain illegal drugs so they can create the best possible writing, which will help them compete in today’s expanding market.

I also propose that we import from Earth the writers ‘red pen’. These special tools will ensure that our students are able to see our comments about their work on top of their own words. It will also help them to develop a deeper reclusive behavior that comes naturally to Earth writers.

My final point for today’s meeting is that we need to step out from behind our podiums and become mentors. Earth professors are so familiar with their students that the females are comfortable walking around in nothing but t-shirts in front of their male professors whom they rent rooms from while in school. The male students are just as comfortable driving around with their professors with dead dogs in the trunk of the car, smoking, drinking, and sleeping with their professors’ editors. We must become more available to our students.

Although these changes will call for some of us to feel uncomfortable, we must think of our students. Earth teachers feel that to create the next generation of writers, they must pass on the knowledge they have, to those who are talented and to those who not so talented. We must mold them into copies of our own writing habits, techniques, and lifestyles. We must show them friendship and compassion all while keeping a thin line between them and us.

I hope that you will all join me, as we embark on a bright new future in teaching creative writing, and as we prepare our students to compete with the Earth writers in today’s growing universal market. Thank you.

Back on earth...

I agree that we should pass on our knowledge about the creative writing process. I agree that we should show our students how and where to find the information they need to become better writers. I do not agree that we should teach the stereotypes that are presented in these two movies, but that we should make our students aware of them.

that's just Hollywood...

I will never forget the moment I finally told members of my extended family that I was writing a book. I received mixed reactions. My parents were supportive from the start, almost too supportive. I remember my mother working on a short story when I was younger, and how she sent it off to some magazine seeking publication. A few months later, she received her first and only rejection letter. She gave up. So when I told her my news, she jumped immediately saying things like, “You’re going to be rejected but don’t let that stop you.” Now going on five years later, my mother is worried I will give up on my dream because she has this preconceived belief about the publishing industry. The process from writer to publisher to print is as fast as the movie industry depicts.

I also received the typical reaction, “How are you going to make money at that?” and “Shouldn’t you be working towards a degree with more opportunity?” My brother’s only question was, “So when you going to start drinking, smoking pot, and divorce your husband? There are many state parks and cabins you could hole up in while your life disappears.” Now my brother was joking. Jamie has always supported me just as I have supported him, but when he said these things, other family members were quick to back his comments.

Reading this week’s assignment, Box Office Poison by Wendy Bishop and Stephen Armstrong, forced me to examine not only all the movies I have watched based on writers but these comments as well, and I saw for the first time how they influenced my own life as a writer. We all know that Hollywood romanticizes certain occupations. When I see a writer portrayed in a movie now, I find some of them laughable. Hollywood’s betrayal of how easy it is for a writer to reach publication and the speed in which their book hits the market, is one reason people, who are not writers, think that taking several years to write a book is plan lazy.

The article asks how we can change these Hollywood depicted images of our craft. I agree that it needs to start in writing programs. The learned writer must pass to the novice the images they have discovered about writers, but the novice must be willing to accept these new ideas. However, will this erase the Hollywood images of the public, the outsiders to our profession? That will take much longer to change. In a way, those writers who are household names in our society feed into these images.

The public only see these writers after the books are written, after the countless hours of revisions, after all the hoops they had to jump through to satisfy the publishing house, and at the book signings and television interviews. In a way, the same Hollywood images that blind the public and potentially hurt novice writers are fed into by the writing community. We helped birth the monster and need to help in its taming. We have to be the first in our society to change our self-image. Only then can we reasonably expect Hollywood to change.

evaluations: better ideas...

Chapter 8 in Released into Language, was interesting not only in that the ideas presented were practical, but I now see why all the professors I have taken in this program require the portfolio. Before reading this, I thought the reason behind the portfolios were to take the place of the traditional final tests other classes have at the end of the semester. I now know the portfolio not only serves the professors in evaluating our development as writers, but in teaching the students how to critique their own work and the work of their peers.

As for the evaluation process itself, I have set in class with peers who can tell horror stories about teachers they had growing up, who bled red ink onto their papers. In the Writing Center, we see how these teachers have ultimately affected those students by causing them to self-diagnose themselves as poor or bad writers. I work with students in the Elementary School Writing Center who are on their way to thinking the same.

I like the suggestions in this chapter, which discuss what an evaluation should be. On page 160, there is a list, which shows what the conventional form of evaluation includes, but on page 161, there is also a list, which shows how different a good evaluation should look.

I also liked how the recommendations made to teachers, are giving with the idea that the individual educator should choose what fits their particular classroom’s needs. Something that I found interesting was the idea that teachers should remove themselves from the center of attention, becoming the mentor rather than taking on a more traditional role as teacher. This was a point discussed in last week’s readings, and to have it stressed again, shows how important this decision can be for the writing classroom.

~swing batter batter...

The reading our class did for this week’s blog discussion came from Released Into Language: Options for Teaching Creative Writing by Wendy Bishop in which we read the first three chapters. I have to say there was so much material that my brain is now saturated, and I am dripping knowledge, about teaching creative writing workshops and classes, all over my desk.

Chapter one talks about the expectations of creative writing classes, the teachers, and the students and how these expectations have developed through the years. One of the students discussed, John, talks about his experience in a high school creative writing class. In this class he had a teacher who focused not only on the text, but also on allowing the students the freedom to write responses using creative writing techniques (4). For example, John and his friend were allowed to create a mock newspaper to show what they had learned from the text (4).

I thought back on my own experience, in my tenth grade high school creative writing class, in which we were not allowed such freedom. My classmates and I were not given the option to explore techniques that interested us. Instead, we were told what and how to write. I can see a huge difference in my abilities as a writer now verses then. I tend to agree with Bishop’s research that the writing classroom should be a place where writers of all levels should be guided to discover their strengths and weaknesses, a place were the teacher is just as much a student as the students (1-14).

Chapter two was a bit harder to summarize, but the one point that grabbed my attention, above all the other information, was the idea of asking your students to define or explain what their writing process is like. The four that Bishop brings up is actually from Barbara Tomlinson: ‘writing is cooking’, ‘writing is mining’, ‘writing is gardening’, and ‘writing is hunting or fishing’ (24).

This list got me to thinking about my own method of writing, and I decided that right now mine would be ‘writing is playing softball/baseball’. Every fundamental element that I practice on a daily basis, such as plot, characterizations, world building, scene development, and the mechanics like grammar, sentence structure, and point of view, come into play when I put pen to paper. The elements that I practice, study about, and practice some more, help me to hit the ball, run the bases, and eventually score. Just like my husband and I tell our kids. If you want to get better at something, you have to put in the work, time, and practice to reach your goal.

Chapter three talks about the different types of class modes on page 44. What I found interesting as I read about these, was that every creative writing class I have taken in college has had some variation of these built into their structure. A creative writing teacher does not only have to use one type. They can mix it up based on how their classes responded to each mode. I like this because it allows freedom of choice. Without the freedom to customize the class structure, you run the risk of losing some of your students.

I am probably a bit bias, about the last point I would like to make, but I feel it is important. I noticed throughout the reading that references were made about students going to their college Writing Centers. I feel that this is an important step in the writing process that seems to be overlooked by writers of all levels. We not only need to workshop our pieces with our peers in class, but we have peers in the Writing Center, fellow Creative Writing/Writing Majors and Minors, who can help us develop our material before it ever gets to the classroom workshop.

transformations...

I start a new semester in seven days, and I would be lying if I said I was ready. I took summer classes this year, the first summer since going back to college in 2006. I didn't get the full summer of rest I am used to, so this fall and the fifteen hours I am attempting, is going to be tough. By doing this, I will only have to take two classes this Spring. Graduation is coming up too fast.

When I started back to college, after a ten year absence, I had no way of knowing what transformation my life would take. As a wife of ten years and mother of two children, I had accepted the believe that my time for college had passed.

What I found half way through that first semester, was that I had a chance to make our lives better and rise above the ceiling my lack of higher education had placed above me. I also found something for myself. I woke up a long lost friend that I thought had died with my childhood. I found my craft. My Writing.

Now four years later, with the pursuit of a double major (creative writing and linguistics) and graduation nine months away, I am a stronger woman. As women, we are told from childhood that we must wear many hats, but I ask why? Why can't I wear just one? The one hat that encompasses everything that I am: wife, mother, sister, daughter, granddaughter, college student, writing center tutor, friend, writer, etc. (because we all know there are many other titles). Why can't I wear that one hat, that is just me?

I am grateful for the experiences and lessons I have gleaned from the classes I have taken, the people I now call friends, and the professors whose wisdom has built the foundation I will use to create my future. Am I afraid of not getting a job? No, anything will be and pay better then where I was four years ago. Am I afraid I will not make it as a writer? No.

Writing is the breath that keeps me sane. To stop writing as I did for ten years, before coming back to college, would be to deny apart of who I am. It would negatively impact my family because it would negatively impact me. Yes, I want to be published. Yes, I will pursue publication. If for some reason I never see my work on a book shelf or an e-reader, I will know I tried. I will know that I traveled well, leaving nothing behind.