The writing teacher: rethinking assessment and transformative learning in the creative writing classroom

ABSTRACT

In this paper, the writing teacher is a teacher who writes and thinks of writing in a verbal sense, as a performance and not the object that is the written. The paper explores differences between writing as a rhetorical function and writing as an act of creativity, questioning pedagogical practices and assessment of student work based on literary models that is common in educational structures. It seeks to explore a different way of thinking about writing as subject, and therefore writers as students and teachers, and the modes upon which we assess students’ performances as writers and the opportunities of transformative learning that it presents. Exploring an example of assessment and suggesting a way in which assessment for creative writing might be redirected to how we write rather than what we write, it concludes with a recommendation to rethink how we teach and assess creative writing, especially in high schools, but also in undergraduate programs, by refocusing the current emphasis on literary practices towards creative and thinking practices with the goal of producing transformative learning experiences students can use to expand their understanding of how to engage with the practice of writing.

KEYWORDS:

• Pedagogy
• writing
• creative writing in high school
• English and creative writing
• creative writing
• assessment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Kevin Price is a novelist and PhD researcher in Creative Writing at Murdoch University. Between 2005 and 2015 he taught creative writing in more than 20 primary and high schools, and now provides professional development to help teachers explore effective creative writing pedagogy. His first novel, Kumakana: A Gronups Tale, was published by Crotchet Quaver in 2017.

Notes

1 This has also been evident in professional development feedback from the Born Storytellers Creative Writing PD Masterclass for ATAR English Teachers, where teachers frequently express the joy and freedom they feel just to be able to write during the course. A key component of the course is to encourage teachers to write with their students. See https://bornstorytellers.net/testimonials/.