Thou Shall Have Balance: The Ten Commandments of Teaching Creative Writing
With so many writers seeking the mfa credential, I wanted to take a look at how teachers and writing programs might balance the needs of so many within the demands of a professional program. Is it wrong to encourage those who clearly will have a difficult time achieveing any success? Is there a place in the $25,000 workshop for “writing for its own sake?” In giving this some thought, I realized that in my workshops, only careful attention to balance will reconcile my goals with those of my students.
The great divide: creative writing pedagogy now
The numbers certainly are impressive. Hundreds of graduate programs in creative writing in the United States are graduating thousands of students each year, credentialing each as a certified producer of literature for an audience that, depending on who you ask, is either blossoming or moribund. To receive this certification, students are investing one to three years of their lives and forking over anywhere from $15,000 to $50,000 for an experience that promises nothing in the way of employment, fame, or financial remuneration. Other terminal, professional degrees like the MBA, MSW or MAT, promise a quick and nearly certain return on investment, while the MFA is, for most writers, an experience one pays for, rather than an investment one makes. Despite the slim odds of obtaining a teaching position, and the even slimmer odds of publication, for the thousands of graduate students who enter such programs each year, it doesn’t seem to matter.
Such rapid and consistent growth has posed interesting challenges to creative writing programs, which must now come to terms with their storied histories, challenges to their identity, and the skepticism that comes from the publishing industry, university English departments, and even from one’s parents and friends. Nearly one hundred years after the birth of the workshop, the old question of, “Can you really teach creative writing?” is apparently still unanswered to the satisfaction of many.
And if criticism from outside isn’t enough, there are skirmishes brewing within the creative writing empire as well. Differences in pedagogy, focus, and structure abound, and while change is generally a good thing, it must appear to recent alumni of MFA programs that their elite degree is close to becoming as worthless as the paper it is printed on. Witness the current bar-raising by university English departments, who, after having accepted thousands of dollars from MFA students for a “terminal” degree, are now offering PhD programs in the field that will render the MFA useful for writers but useless for teaching. This wouldn’t be too bad were it not that teaching, which has for so long become a means of economic support to supplement the meager income most writers receive from their creative pursuits, is what enables many writers to keep writing in the first place.
There is a great divide in creative writing. Creative writing programs were born in a time when writers were looking for a fast track to publication, the workshop model serving as a proving ground where only the strong survived. The continued existence of this model, despite the cultural and pedagogical changes of the last fifty years, still echoes the harsh realities of publishing, where far more submissions are received than can be printed, and only the “strong” make it to print. But this model that was once based firmly in “tough love” has softened as the interest in creative writing programs has broadened and its participants come to it with vastly different goals and expectations. Some might say that the increase in programs has created a shallow talent pool, where students receive only feel-good feedback about their work that does nothing to improve its quality. Others would counter that quality is completely relative and thus should not be measured as a goal.
This great divide, rooted in history and widened by growth, is creating an identity crisis in the profession that leaves prospective teachers to wonder who they are teaching and why. Are these programs designed to turn out highly polished writers capable of producing literature that will stand, if not the test of time, then at least rise above the slush pile; or, are they designed to help individuals connect with their inner self, to foster a nurturing environment where each writer can find his own voice regardless of whether or not it will be of interest to an audience? Are these programs designed to produce writers who are capable of writing and also of teaching others how to write; or, are graduates being thrown into the classroom solely to meet burgeoning undergraduate demand, with no understanding of pedagogy or training in how to best teach the trade they have learned? Are these programs rooted in a mentor/apprentice relationship where students will learn from and model themselves on successful writers; or, are the teachers mainly shepherds who gather their flocks lovingly and move them along to the next pasture? One thing I have learned is that there are no real answers, only very provoking questions that we each need to confront in order to build an effective pedagogical practice. And if you’re wondering if all this negativity has snuffed out my desire to spend fifteen months and $13,770 to pursue this same worthless piece of paper, the answer is no. It has stoked it.
In addressing these issues, it is vital that we consider who is asking the questions; before a highly individual educational philosophy can be reached, it is important to determine the audiences for whom we are reaching it and the expectations embedded in their desire to practice creative writing. At the risk of oversimplifying, I think audiences for creative writing instruction can be divided into three groups: the public at-large (not seeking academic credit), undergraduate students (including those majoring in English or creative writing), and professional and graduate students. Each brings to the discussion a unique set of needs and expectations, and while there is much overlap, I think the desires and expectations within each group are sufficiently similar. Furthermore, I believe that within each audience are individuals who have no higher goals for their writing than to produce work solely for themselves. While their desires are certainly legitimate, and while they can certainly learn from whatever instruction and feedback they receive, I’m not sure it is the place of a writing pedagogy to address these intrapersonal pursuits. Writing is certainly good therapy, I use it myself, but if therapy is the only aim, then a pedagogy addressing that is best left to art therapists and others who can contribute a psychological point of view. For my purposes, I am designing a pedagogy that is tailored to those who wish to improve their writing with the aim of sharing it with others, whether via national publication, blog, or family scrapbook.
These days, writers who seek instruction or feedback with no ties to academe have plenty of opportunities. From non-credit, online workshops with facilitation to virtual writing communities, the avenues for writers to pursue have expanded hand-in-hand with the explosion in computer technology and the Internet. While some of these writers might be seeking basic instruction, I feel more of them are seeking audiences for their work in the form of peer feedback, which they are as willing to provide as they are to receive. Thus, their expectations tend to be for “down and dirty” criticism, using the workshop more as a test audience than a learning classroom.
The needs and expectation of undergraduates run across boundaries, from the engineering student who enjoys writing poetry to the creative writing major who has known they wanted to be a writer since elementary school. In this context it is important to have a program that clearly identifies the goals for each course along the way, perhaps even going so far as to create different sections of the same course for students with different expectations. The generalist should have a welcoming environment where they can learn and develop their work in a safe haven, free from the kind of hyper aggressive feedback that might develop, say, in a class of creative writing majors. This segregation would largely be determined by the school and the scope of the program. Creative writing majors, many of whom will likely be headed for an MFA program, need a pedagogy that addresses their needs with more complexity and exposes them to the very difficult and competitive environments that might exist in MFA programs, along with helping them to determine which kind of MFA program might be right for them.
Professionals and graduate students I have lumped together, despite what I feel to be slightly different expectations. I define professional students as those who are already writers (perhaps journalists, copywriters, or technical editors) who want to begin or develop a creative writing practice as a way to balance their other writing obligations. Also included in this group are writers who have no desire to teach at all, but who want the rigor of an studio-based, academic program to help build their portfolio of work and lead them further along the path to publication. This group is likely seeking a more skilled and demanding audience than they would find outside the classroom, and will certainly be looking for the benefits of having a big name program exposing them to big name teachers, visiting writers, and agents and editors.
I tend to define graduate students as seeking a teaching credential first and publication second. Some may have entered the MFA program because, while they love to write, they know first and foremost that teaching writing is a slightly more attainable goal, although with record numbers of students receiving the MFA each year, that is certainly changing. As a side note for the teaching part of this audience, a well-developed course in pedagogy is urgently needed, and currently lacking, in many programs, especially given that many of them will teach undergraduates as part of their MFA financial package. As Kelly Ritter notes in her study of teacher training, even in creative writing PhD programs, where the emphasis on teaching should be even more pronounced, only 4 of 25 institutions require a course in pedagogy or teaching of creative writing specifically, while 23 of 25 require courses in the teaching of composition (218). This clearly demonstrates that the department administration believes that learning how to teach composition is similar to teaching creative writing, which, in my view, is completely misguided.
Even within these three audiences, we have not accounted for variations in talent, the level of education in reading and writing that students bring to the program, and a host of other concerns that teachers need to consider as they develop appropriate pedagogies. In a field with audiences as diverse as these-and I struggle to find any academic field that competes with this level of diversity-developing a single, fixed pedagogy is impossible and irresponsible. Instead, I believe we should develop a core set of beliefs that are flexible enough to balance these competing and complimentary audiences and expectations.
Balancing the great divide: the Ten Commandments of teaching creative writing
So how are we to develop a pedagogy that satisfies our own sense of what is needed, as well as the expectations placed on us by so many different factors, such as the challenges of history and theory, and the diversity of audiences and expectations? I believe the answers lie in balance and flexibility. In my life, a strong sense of balance has been central to my personal development and professional growth. I have come to find that both intellectually and spiritually, taking the middle path and practicing moderation whenever possible are central to my success and survival. So it stands to reason that the most important concept in the development of my personal creative writing pedagogy is this notion of balance. Between theory and practice, between writing for self and writing for others, between vision and revision, between planning and improvisation, between freedom and restraint, between absolutes and relatives, between craft and criticism, between art and life, between leading and guiding, between pragmatism and dream, all must be taught and explored in a manner jointly determined by the goals of the group and the goals of the program. But with changing paradigms in the field, and such a diversity of audiences and expectations, flexibility in one’s beliefs is just as important. So while the original Ten Commandments were cast in stone, I prefer to etch these in sand, a nod towards impermanence and constant change.
I. Thou shall teach both theory and practice
I find it impossible to fathom that writer and longtime teacher Madison Smartt Bell once said, “…for writers to get more involved with theoretical criticism [is] wrong” (Neubauer 11). The workshop, and creative writing programs in general, function as a sort of testing ground for new works, which by definition, means evaluating and critically examining those works along the line of the author’s intent. And while I realize that today’s contemporary critical theory as practiced by the rest of the English department is concerned with just the opposite-divorcing reading from writing altogether-there are certainly ways to meld it into our workshops, and we have a responsibility to do so.
At first glance, it may seem that teaching contemporary literary theory is completely incongruous with teaching creative writing, but as Jay Parini suggests, there are plenty of opportunities to use theory to open up new avenues and develop new voices, especially through the study of rhetoric, where “literary theory and creative writing should and can meet [to gain] knowledge of the most productive ways of ‘making’ language, of creating meaning and eliciting responses within the bounds of predictability” (130). In addition to the study of rhetoric, where writers and critics may have the most to gain from each other, I have personally found studies in poetics, prosody, linguistics, structuralism, post-structuralist narratology, and reader-response theory to be extremely interesting and useful in my work as a writer.
But beyond the usefulness of theory as applied to generating or evaluating work, we should teach our students theory simply on the grounds that if they ever expect to work in higher education, they will come face-to-face with it. In some cases, they will have to defend themselves from it, in others they may actually find themselves teaching it. Theory is an important component in discussing literature today, and it would be negligent of us to send prospective teachers into the classroom without an understanding of both sides of the theory debate. In fact, for English majors headed towards advanced study in literature, as opposed to creative writing, creative writing instructors may provide the only exposure to theory from a writer’s perspective that they ever encounter.
II. Thou shall teach students to neither mistake, nor suppress, themselves for their audience
George Garrett, writer and esteemed teacher both at Hollins College and at the University of Virginia, believes “it’s not necessarily the chief purpose and function of a writing course to produce writers. [The goal] is to satisfy a need felt by these people” (Neubauer 114). While the marketing professional in me would agree, the writer in me would counter that at some point, the writer needs to sail on or jump ship, especially within the confines of a workshop or program in an academic setting.
In order not to silence the creative space in the classroom, we must give our students the complete freedom and flexibility to experiment and write about whatever interests them. Still, they must also come to understand that not everyone, perhaps not anyone, will share their interest in a particular topic or their presentation of a particular work. How then to balance the need for self-expression, with the idea that most writing, certainly the kind being produced in a advanced undergraduate or graduate courses, is designed to be read by somebody other than the writer himself. Inherent in this idea is the notion that as we evaluate writing in the workshop, we must continually ask, who are you writing for?
This pursuit of the writing life is a very solitary and personal journey, and most of the writing we do will be seen by our eyes only. But if we aspire to publication of any kind, we must keep in mind the idea of audience, not just the individual readers, but also the individual editors and publisher who are the gatekeepers to the reading public. It is thus important to maintain a balance between writing for ourselves and writing for others, and we must help the writer develop the instinct to know which writing to present at what time.
Most would agree that we need to create a space where students feel comfortable baring their naked aesthetic for all to see, but as Jane Smiley writes, students must also discover how to “become teachable, that is, to become receptive” (244). Within this paradox, we need to give students the freedom to create, but also enable them also to learn from the feedback than helps them to grow as writers.
Writing guru Natalie Goldberg says, “I don’t think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die” (xii). The challenge for us, as teachers, is to coax those stories out and to help the writer decide for herself where those stories might be best heard.
III. Thou shall articulate the difference between vision and revision
The exercises and encouragement we provide for visioning (i.e. creating the initial draft or first thoughts) must be different from what we offer to those in the process of revision, (i.e. seeing again). Rules, guidelines and qualitative expectations will hinder the process that is needed to create new material and to get those wild thoughts down on paper for the first time. If, as Teresa Amabile’s studies suggest “increased productivity may be our most accessible means of engendering creativity,” then I believe we must provide encouragement that is measured in quantity not quality, and is concerned more with process than product (Sarbo 141).
I am a strong advocate for Goldberg’s notion of writing practice, where “the aim is to burn through to first thoughts, to the place where energy is unobstructed by social politeness or the internal censor, to the place where you are writing what your mind actually sees and feels, not what it thinks it should see or feel” (9).
As Goldberg suggests, too many times we write with the end in mind, with a particular audience or publication goal in sight. When we do, we do not allow enough time for the work to develop naturally; we do not maximize the good raw material available from which to choose. Editing and marketing are important, but as Haake suggests, “these (professional and institutional) concerns are most properly addressed after, not before the writing” (72). By measuring student productivity in raw material rather than finished product, we encourage them to write without internal censors. By teaching different tactics for vision and revision we help set reasonable and more targeted expectations for student work.
Particularly in introductory level workshops, I would implement Goldberg’s timed-exercise practice, which entails writing within a basic set of rules for a set time-limit. The rules are simple and include: keep your hand moving; don’t cross out; don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar, staying within the margins or the lines on the page; lose control; don’t think; don’t get logical; go for the jugular; explore “scary” or naked” thoughts (Goldberg 8).
While I strongly believe in the usefulness of guided writing and free journaling as means of generating raw material, the process of revision, rather, is something that each writer must discover for himself. There is something to be said for listening to the workshop and another for determining their voice and what it is that they want to say, receiving feedback openly and without prejudice, but being brave enough to stay true to themselves. T. Coraghessan (Tom) Boyle, award-winning writer and teacher in the writing program at the University of Southern California, still believes in the bubble approach as the best means for beginning the revision process. “What’s relevant is for the author to discover what intelligent people think he or she meant, then they can go from there” (Neubauer 25).
I agree that it is beneficial for the writer to be exposed to this kind of feedback between the vision and re-vision stages. And while sensitivity in the workshop is important, it is also important, particularly at the advanced undergraduate and graduate level, to balance this sensitivity with tough, constructive criticism. As Boyle also says, “I’ve been in workshops [where] everyone [is] so supportive, loving each other. Great. But what’s accomplished? Nothing. I’m very tough line-to-line. This is professional” (Neubauer 25). This kind of professional feedback will help develop the writer’s ability to determine what feedback to accept and what to throw away, which may be the single most important component of a writer’s learning process.
IV. Thou shall create a plan and be prepared to improvise
As amorphous as the nature of writing instruction continues to be, we must not develop pedagogies that are fixed. We must be prepared to adapt our methods, and maybe even our core beliefs to match the goals of the program, the class, and the individual student. This does not mean that we should sacrifice our own beliefs for some other that we may not agree with, but we have to understand that students and programs change in response to market conditions, and that we, as facilitators and service providers, need to adapt as well. Some programs will clearly require teachers who have a strong classroom presence. Imagine how one might teach in a hyper competitive program like Iowa, where students expect and deserve strong leadership and hard work. Such an approach might not work in a junior college environment or in a classroom of undergraduates, yet we might find ourselves being asked to teach in one environment one semester and another environment the next. We must adapt if we are to be successful, and such adaptation requires us to have a plan within which we have the freedom to improvise.
I think it is important to see our workshops as part of the whole. One cannot create the framework for a class without understanding the personality of that class and the needs of the course. Likewise, one cannot develop a course without examining how the course serves the larger program and how the program serves the university and the students. We as teachers must remember that our role is to lead, but also to serve. One way to stay nimble is to remain connected to the larger field of pedagogical studies, both in creative writing and also in composition, so that we can benefit from what others have experienced in different educational contexts. Moreover, unless I’ve missed it, our profession desperately needs a journal dedicated both to pedagogical questions and to practical concerns in teaching creative writing.
V. Thou shall encourage and practice freedom with restraint
We as writers have the freedom of speech guaranteed to us by the constitution, but with this freedom comes the responsibility to be accurate, truthful and respectful, both in our writings, and particularly in the criticism of the writings of others. This freedom is one of the blessings of western democracy, there are many writers in this world who do not have it, and it is for their sake and in their honor that we must understand the value of ours and fight to keep it.
This notion of freedom and restraint must also apply to how we treat others in the workshop, how we prejudge and respond to literature created outside our own culture, how we understand and conceive of approaches to literary study, and how we alter our pedagogies to reflect cultural and theoretical shifts. In the past twenty years, great changes have been made to the “canon” through the hard work of young faculty who insist that the works and voices of women and underrepresented groups be heard in literature and writing classrooms. I applaud this effort and am glad to see young students exposed to such a wide and diverse group of voices, a diversity which, deservedly so, matches that of the students themselves and one from which I never benefitted as a young student. But this redefining of the canon has created an environment where works of literary quality and pedagogical value are being forsaken simply on the basis of their connection to the “old” canon. In this way we are not broadening the canon to reflect our diversity, but rather narrowing it by a process of swapping out one culture’s works for another, as if the size must remain constant. So while we must be grateful to finally have the freedom to teach more representative works, we must also continue to have respect for works which, rightly or wrongly, have an intertextual connection that is central to the development of western literature.
VI. Thou shall boldly state absolutes in the realm of the relative
Permit me this one digression. This is a pet peeve of mine and perhaps a knee-jerk reaction to postmodernism, but relativism doesn’t work for everyone. In some ways, the notion that everything is relative, while philosophically true, is intellectually false. It conveys that, for some, even feces can taste like fudge. If one strongly identifies with a certain belief, provided they recognize that it may not be so for everyone (acknowledge its relativity) we must acknowledge that for them (in their mind, their reality) it is an absolute truth.
Particularly in upper level programs, writers need to hear when something they’ve tried doesn’t work, and if it doesn’t work for anyone in the room, despite the fact that this reaction is relative, it might be considered to be absolutely a bad idea to leave it as-is. If, as teachers, we are to speak in absolutes, however, it is important to remember our role and responsibility. As David Huddle at the University of Vermont and Middlebury College writes, “It is not my duty to tailor my teaching to each individual student; it is not my duty to attempt to make writers of my students. It is my duty to be a certain kind of a teacher, to try to be consistent in the values that I try to convey to my students, and to let them use me as they will [...]” (75). This consistency helps reinforce that there are absolutes in the world of the relative, and relatives in the world of the absolute.
VII. Thou shall teach reading and writing, and the importance of both
Eve Shelnutt, poet, writer and former teacher at Ohio University, maintains “Many writers choose to write without having done the necessary preparation, and that is: to become readers. There is a kind of arrogance we have given young writers that lets them assume that ignorance is not something to be critical of” (Neubauer 206).
In this current age of teaching for the test in high schools, most new undergraduates are far too under-read to approach creative writing with any of the necessary prerequisites. While once considered the domain of literature classrooms, teaching reading through the eyes of craft is central to the writer’s understanding of how language works and how meaning manifests. However, in the critical revolution of the last 30 years, the focus on craft analysis in literature classrooms has all but disappeared, leaving it to creative writing instructors to pick apart the text with an eye towards how it was assembled.
If I were to be hired to design a creative writing program, graduate or undergraduate, I think I would ascribe to the model currently in use at the Bennington Writer’s workshops, which is summed up in their new advertising slogan: “Read 100 books, Write 1″. I would like to implement a system where the program selects 50 books and the student chooses the other 50, half of which are subject to approval from the chair. As these books are read, writers would be challenged to respond to them in writing, to examine their own views of how the texts worked on them, and to determine what lessons they might take away to be used in their own work.
VIII. Thou shall coach students to strive for art but be prepared for life
Creative writers, like most artists, need to be in it for the long run. As Natalie Goldberg writes, “Art lives in the Big World. One poem or story doesn’t matter one way or the other. It is the process of writing and life that matters” (12).
Oscar Wilde’s claim that “all art is quite useless” never rang more true than in today’s market of reality television, shortened attention spans, and the general decline of reading for pleasure, as noted in reports like Reading at Risk from the National Endowment for the Arts. So then why do we write, and furthermore, why do we strive to write something that has as its goal, something higher than commonality?
One reason is our own judgment system (an absolute in the realm of the relative), which tells us that some things are simply better than others, so we strive to write at that level. Still, writing is more than product; it is process. As Eve Shelnutt writes, “…creative writing is not just another course. It is a profound question that’s being asked. I feel that I have to have students understand the questions that art poses to them, in terms of a way to live, a focus of their minds in study and the rewards that it can contain” (Neubauer 197).
So as we work hard to produce “art” we should be prepared to enjoy what else writing brings to us: the ability to get our innermost thoughts and dreams down on paper; the encouragement to express ourselves in a way that differs markedly from what we speak and how we act; and the pure desire to leave our imprint on the world. But the skills we learn in creative writing are just as applicable to “real life” as to art. Students gain an understanding of literature and enjoyment of language, and those skills increase our appreciation of everything we read and improve our ability to compose writing of all kinds. Within the writing life we also build a sense of community of likeminded people, a group that shares our appreciation for what is, inherently, a lonely, almost futile, pursuit. It’s good to have someone else along for the journey.
I agree with Chris Green, who writes, “Life as a writer in the social world means more than just writing poems…it means negotiating the vast, complex, nebulous, tyrannical, ever present, varied structures and institutions of publication, education, readings, employment, community, politics and family. For teachers of creative writing, the trick is to make these lessons apparent to the student” (155).
IX. Thou shall lead as an equal
Famed creative writing teacher Wallace Stegner says it best: “How can anyone ‘teach’ writing, when he himself, as a writer, is never sure what he is doing?” (9). I see our job as facilitating learning, and if we are to create a forum for the improvement of writing that also encourages the freedom to take risks, then the feedback we provide, especially as the facilitator, needs to provoke the student writer’s own sense of discovery. Rather than prescribe solutions or recite gospel, we can ask the writer questions that she may not be able to ask herself. We can help guide the students to their own conclusions by presenting the workshop as a hired test audience for our work, a group of individuals whose varied backgrounds and abilities mirror those of the other readers in the marketplace. It’s a focus group, not a jury,
Katherine Haake writes that every student “is capable of surprising both me and her- or himself, and … my job as a teacher is to create the structure within which surprise can occur” (64). I believe surprises occur where suggestions overtake demands and guidance supplants prescription. Monk Shunryu Suzuki expresses a Zen proverb that I often fail to heed: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few” (21). By keeping our own mind in this state, we can provide our students with endless opportunities and avenues to pursue. By diminishing the role and expectations of us as the “experts,” we encourage them to write without fear.
Not all our students will publish, or even want to, so we need to demonstrate , as Haake writes, the principle that “Writing is an act of faith, yes, but it is just as much a way of life that provides an organizing structure for the way we are in this world” (76). For many of us, to learn to write is to learn how to live.
We also need to lead by example, that is, to write along with our students and to share our works with them in a spirit of open dialogue. David Huddle, who submits his own creative work for his students to review, feels “I’m a better writer for having submitted my writing to the workshop for scrutiny, and I hope my workshops are more nourishing communities as a result of my having brought my work into them” (79). So while, it is certainly risky to show the leader’s weaknesses in draft form, the long term benefits to the students will most certainly outweigh the short term pain to the teacher!
X. Thou shall temper the dream with pragmatism
Eve Shelnut remarks, “I suppose a lot of my work…is in helping [students] answer the question, ‘Why would anyone spend an entire lifetime producing art?’” (Neubauer (207).
Many of those who enroll in graduate creative writing courses do so for the goal of publication. They write because they love to write, and they hope to one day achieve some sort of recognition for their efforts. Many of them know the odds they are facing, and some would argue that it is not the business of teachers to squash their dream of making a living with their creative writing. But I would argue that anyone getting into this profession should be aware of the business side of writing and the risks it entails. Not only should we be taught how to submit for publication, understand what the specific markets and opportunities are, and be exposed to publishers and editors who can share insights about the publishing process, but also we should be exposed to other ways that we might pay off the significant educational loans we have incurred as a result.
The skills taught in creative writing are useful in professional writing of various kinds. Journalism, advertising, fundraising are just a few of the fields where I have been able to get paid for my writing talents, and while the works weren’t always poetic or fictional, they were always creative. In some ways, one might argue for a course that focuses specifically on creative nonfiction, which has the largest degree of applicability to other forms of professional writing. I believe we owe it to the students to allow them the space to pursue their dream, but to also expose them to the pragmatic acts of the writer’s existence that may be what enables them to pursue that dream in the first place.
The idea of tempering the dream must also be broached through the necessary evils of grading and evaluating student work. In what is seen as purely subjective, in what is touted as a world of relativism, in an environment where we are supposed to encourage safety and freedom, how can we fairly, and in good conscience, rank anything? Here I tend to embrace three ideas that make me feel at least comfortable doing so.
First, on evaluation, I believe a term’s worth of student work should be evaluated based on the portfolio method, which looks at improvement over time and takes into account, responsiveness, participation, timeliness, and engagement with the subject matter and assignments. Simply put, this is a writing class, so please write and get better as you go.
Second, on grading, I believe in the British model of Excellent, Satisfactory, and Failing, or in an American context, A, B, F. Everyone who meets the requirements gets a B; some small percentage, perhaps never more than ten or twenty, get an A; and the F is reserved for those who for one reason or another, simply fail to meet the basic requirements of the course.
Third, I would encourage one-on-one meetings throughout the course where students can receive frank and open feedback about how I feel their work is going. This private meeting enables me to judge just how serious the student is about writing and ask them what level of feedback they would like. So on a one-to-one level, if they want me to be tough, so be it. If on the other hand they show no real affinity for writing as a career or cannot placate their emotions enough to receive tough feedback, then perhaps I could offer more gentle encouragement. In this way I can measure their desires and expectations and meet them outside of the rubrics and confines of university grading or workshop evaluation environments.
Bridging the great divide: flexibility and understanding
So, despite my offering these perspectives as the voice of God, I’ll reiterate again that I see these commandments as set in sand, not stone. The decision of how to balance these individual guidelines, both within each juxtaposition I have presented, and in relation to each other within the course or program as a whole, must lie with the department, the teacher, and the individual students. It is, therefore, important to strive for balance within balance, like the ancient Zen monks who occasionally got roaring drunk as a way of demonstrating moderation in moderation. Every now and again, it must be OK to weigh more heavily on one side or the other.
Nicholas Delbanco, writer and faculty member in the University of Michigan writing program, states his own commandments thus:
The only way to learn one’s art is through back-breaking labor that must not seem like work. After the seeming-impossible has become difficult, the difficult habitual, and the habitual easy, true mastery begins. We must listen to the verdict of the judge-whether it be praise, dispraise, or the most likely, a suspended sentence-then appeal. We must work through derivation toward the original voice-remembering that “originality” is likely to be a compound of influence so multiform and various it cannot be assessed. We need to know an oxymoron from chiasmus to know freedom within limits as the root and force of syntax. Our certainties will turn to doubt, our rote learning grow improvisational (40).
It is my hope that through developing, practicing, and altering my commandments, that I might develop a means to balance the acrimony between factions both within the English departments and within creative writing programs. I find it painfully ironic that, in the academic world where relativism reigns, individuals are so set in their own views and ways that they fail to see the benefits of what we can learn from each other. We should all be free to evolve, to discover, and perhaps with greater compassion, to practice what we teach.
Works Cited
Delbanco Nicholas. “Judgment: An Essay.” Writers on Writing. Eds. Pack, Robert and Jay Parini. Hanover, NH: Middlebury College Press, 1991. 29-40.
Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones. Boston: Shambhala, 1986.
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December 9th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
I enjoyed–and I agree with–the ten commandments very much. Well done. Thanks.
December 11th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Coming from you this means a great deal to me. Best regards.