Rethinking Creative Writing in Higher Education


Book Description

In this passionate, iconoclastic, survey of Creative Writing as an academic discipline, Stephanie Vanderslice provides a provocative critique of existing practice. She challenges enduring myths surrounding creative writing - not least, that writers learn most from workshops. Through case studies of best practice from America and elsewhere, Vanderslice provides a vision of change, showing how undergraduate and postgraduate programs can be reformed to re-engage with contemporary culture.




We’re Losing Our Minds


Book Description

America is being held back by the quality and quantity of learning in college. Many graduates cannot think critically, write effectively, solve problems, understand complex issues, or meet employers' expectations. The only solution - making learning the highest priority in college - demands fundamental change throughout higher education.




Reframing and Rethinking Collaboration in Higher Education and Beyond


Book Description

Reframing and Rethinking Collaboration in Higher Education and Beyond delves deep into a Taxonomy of Collaboration underpinned by mindful choices – being present, aware, non-judgemental, curious and open – while also considering your and others’ strengths. In looking at how higher degree research students and early career researchers can approach collaboration, this book unpacks what collaboration is and points to the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with achieving collaborative advantage. Covering a range of issues in a variety of contexts, this book: Helps you understand the meaning and value of working collaboratively. Prepares you for success in collaborative academic and postgraduate career activities. Invites you to use models, including the Taxonomy of Collaboration, to plan your collaborative projects. Explains options for different situations through realistic examples of commonly experienced collaborative issues or problems. Encourages you to think about collaboration from a strengths-based approach. Offers practical strategies for you can use to plan, organise and participate in collaborative activities, including ways to deal with problems and resolve conflicts. Full of practical tips, case studies, real life situations and lived experiences, this book offers strategies that can be used in online or hybrid collaborations and is ideal reading for anyone interested in finding out how to make collaborative practice work for them. The 'Insider Guides to Success in Academia' offers support and practical advice to doctoral students and early-career researchers. Covering the topics that really matter, but which often get overlooked, this indispensable series provides practical and realistic guidance to address many of the needs and challenges of trying to operate, and remain, in academia. These neat pocket guides fill specific and significant gaps in current literature. Each book offers insider perspectives on the often implicit rules of the game - the things you need to know but usually aren't told by institutional postgraduate support, researcher development units, or supervisors - and will address a practical topic that is key to career progression. They are essential reading for doctoral students, early-career researchers, supervisors, mentors, or anyone looking to launch or maintain their career in academia.




Rethinking Creative Writing in Higher Education


Book Description

In this scholarly monograph Stephanie Vanderslice surveys the discipline of creative writing, critiques existing practice, and provides a vision of change based on contemporary best practice.




Can Creative Writing Really Be Taught?


Book Description

Revised and updated throughout, this 10th-anniversary edition of Can Creative Writing Really Be Taught? is a significantly expanded guide to key issues and practices in creative writing teaching today. Challenging the myths of creative writing teaching, experienced and up-and-coming teachers explore what works in the classroom and workshop and what does not. Now brought up-to-date with new issues that have emerged with the explosion of creative writing courses in higher education, the new edition includes: · Guides to and case studies of workshop practice · Discussions on grading and the myth of “the easy A” · Explorations of the relationship between reading and writing · A new chapter on creative writing research · A new chapter on games, fan-fiction and genre writing · New chapters on identity and activism Can Creative Writing Really Be Taught? is supported by a companion website at www.bloomsbury.com, including extensive links to online resources, teaching case studies and lesson plans.




Points of Departure


Book Description

Points of Departure encourages a return to empirical research about writing, presenting a wealth of transparent, reproducible studies of student sources. The volume shows how to develop methods for coding and characterizing student texts, their choice of source material, and the resources used to teach information literacy. In so doing, the volume advances our understanding of how students actually write. The contributors offer methodologies, techniques, and suggestions for research that move beyond decontextualized guides to grapple with the messiness of research-in-process, as well as design, development, and expansion. Serviss and Jamieson’s model of RAD writing studies research is transcontextual and based on hybridized or mixed methods. Among these methods are citation context analysis, research-aloud protocols, textual and genre analysis, surveys, interviews, and focus groups, with an emphasis on process and knowledge as contingent. Chapters report on research projects at different stages and across institution types—from pilot to multi-site, from community college to research university—focusing on the methods and artifacts employed. A rich mosaic of research about research, Points of Departure advances knowledge about student writing and serves as a guide for both new and experienced researchers in writing studies. Contributors: Crystal Benedicks, Katt Blackwell-Starnes, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Kristi Murray Costello, Anne Diekema, Rebecca Moore Howard, Sandra Jamieson, Elizabeth Kleinfeld, Brian N. Larson, Karen J. Lunsford, M. Whitney Olsen, Tricia Serviss, Janice R. Walker




Against Creative Writing


Book Description

The rise of Creative Writing has been accompanied from the start by two questions: can it be taught, and should it be taught? This scepticism is sometimes shared even by those who teach it, who often find themselves split between two contradictory identities: the artistic and the academic. Against Creative Writing explores the difference between ‘writing’, which is what writers do, and Creative Writing, which is the instrumentalisation of what writers do. Beginning with the question of whether writing can or ought to be taught, it looks in turn at the justifications for BA, MA, and PhD courses, and concludes with the divided role of the writer who teaches. It argues in favour of Creative Writing as a form of hands-on literary education at undergraduate level and a form of literary apprenticeship at graduate level, especially in widening access to new voices. It argues against those forms of Creative Writing that lose sight of literary values – as seen in the proliferation of curricular couplings with non-literary subjects, or the increasing emphasis on developing skills for future employment. Against Creative Writing, written by a writer, is addressed to other writers, inside or outside the academy, at undergraduate or graduate level, whether ‘creative’ or ‘critical’.




Rethinking High School


Book Description

Organized around eleven fundamental choices that all secondary schools must make, this book serves as a checklist, an agenda, and a study guide for high school reform.




Creative Writing Pedagogies for the Twenty-First Century


Book Description

The creative writing workshop: beloved by some, dreaded by others, and ubiquitous in writing programs across the nation. For decades, the workshop has been entrenched as the primary pedagogy of creative writing. While the field of creative writing studies has sometimes myopically focused on this single method, the related discipline of composition studies has made use of numerous pedagogical models. In Creative Writing Pedagogies for the Twenty-First Century, editors Alexandria Peary and Tom C. Hunley gather experts from both creative writing and composition studies to offer innovative alternatives to the traditional creative writing workshop. Drawing primarily from the field of composition studies—a discipline rich with a wide range of established pedagogies—the contributors in this volume build on previous models to present fresh and inventive methods for the teaching of creative writing. Each chapter offers both a theoretical and a historical background for its respective pedagogical ideas, as well as practical applications for use in the classroom. This myriad of methods can be used either as a supplement to the customary workshop model or as stand-alone roadmaps to engage and reinvigorate the creative process for both students and teachers alike. A fresh and inspiring collection of teaching methods, Creative Writing Pedagogies for the Twenty-First Century combines both conventional and cutting-edge techniques to expand the pedagogical possibilities in creative writing studies.




Rethinking Columbus


Book Description

Provides resources for teaching elementary and secondary school students about Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America.