Creative Writing 20 provides opportunities for students to refine their creative writing skills and abilities beyond those developed in the required English language arts courses. This course encourages students to see creative writing as a unique way of thinking, and as a means of constructing and conveying meaning.
Students in Creative Writing 20 are encouraged to explore and develop their own ideas. They are also encouraged to explore many different ways of conveying meaning through writing, and to see how methods and styles vary within cultures and time period
s. Through experiences in creative writing, students are encouraged to see connections between their own writing, the writing of others, and the broader world around them.
The aim of the Saskatchewan English language arts curriculum is to graduate articulate and literate citizens who will become confident users of language and versatile thinkers. Through the kindergarten to grade 12 program, students develop the ability to adapt language for learning, for expressing ideas with fluency and clarity, and for communicating effectively with others. Creative Writing 20, with its emphasis on the unique expression of ideas, enables students to progress toward this aim.
The general goals of the English language arts curriculum from kindergarten to grade 12 are:
The following principles and beliefs form a foundation for teaching Creative Writing 20:
1. Students learn language through experiences with language.
Creative Writing 20 is a "hands-on" course in which students experience literary genres and various types of language use through their own writing. Students learn about language processes, elements, and conventions as they read, write, and discuss their own and others' writing.
2. The focus of the creative writing program should be on ideas and meaning.
The relevance of creative writing to students is in the exploration and unique expression of their own ideas. Ideas can be expressed directly or indirectly (e.g., through the use of imagery). They can express the students’ opinion or point of view, pose a question or paradox, or explore language or form. The point is, writing and other art forms are about meaning, whether that meaning has to do with narrative, daily life, imagination, or language itself.
3. Discussion about the structure of writing genres and use of language should be on how meaning is constructed or revealed, rather than on rules or formulas.
There is no one method or formula for telling a story, no one way to use creative language correctly, and no rule that cannot be broken by a good writer. This is not to say that creative writing or any other artistic endeavour is a free-for-all of self-expression, or that a student can defend sloppy work by saying, "That's just how I write". Rather, the focus should be on what the student has done to develop and support meaning in his or her work.
Questions such as the following can be posed by the teacher:
4. Reading is essential to students' development as writers.
The connection between reading and writing cannot be overstated. Literature provides students with the language and tools to write. By examining the writing of others, students see the wide range of possibilities for creative and expressive language use. By finding writers who inspire them, students can come to understand their own reasons for writing, their own sense of aesthetics, and the value of writing to humankind.
|
Note: Teachers can do student writers a great service by introducing them to writers and writing from their own community and province. Through such writing students learn that their own lives and perspectives are worthy subject matter, that writers live everywhere in the world, and that the place where a writer lives has an impact on his or her content and form. By meeting writers, students learn that it is possible to become a writer as a career if they so choose, and are provided with the opportunity to ask questions of a professional in their field of interest. |
5. Teachers must provide latitude in allowing students to choose their own writing models.
The study of literature in Creative Writing 20 must be focused on the individual student, and the term "literature" must be broadly defined to include forms of particular interest to high school students (e.g., song lyrics, comic books, independent "zines", speculative fiction, etc.). In this course, literature needs to speak to and inspire individual students if it is to help them understand and grow in their own writing. Students must be seen as contemporary writers with their own cultures, inspired by forms and writing that may not appear in the canon with which the teacher is familiar. The teacher can and should act as a guide, leading students in new directions, but the starting point must be established by the student.
|
Note: If there is certain language or subject matter that is not acceptable in a particular classroom, the teacher and students can establish guidelines for works brought to school. |
6. Teachers must be sensitive to the variety of language use that exists within social and ethnic cultures.
How language is used to support subject matter and meaning is both culturally determined and intensely personal. Teachers and peers should remember that a writer might be doing something with language that makes perfect sense within a certain context. Students should not be steered routinely toward a homogenous use of language or method of structuring a piece of writing.
7. Writing activities should be planned around students' interests and student-selected topics.
Student learning in creative writing is facilitated when students have opportunities to apply the elements of language in meaningful situations, and when their writing fulfils purposes which are determined by and understood by them. It is crucial to students’ learning that they be allowed to handle topics in their own way. The freedom to choose topics and explore them in their own way greatly influences students' attitudes toward writing.
When the teacher introduces pre-writing activities, he or she must allow a degree of choice within a broad frame. The teacher must be prepared for any student to reject a topic completely after discussion, if it is not about what the student would like to write.
8. Creative writing should be seen as a product of the imagination.
The imagination is one of the most valuable gifts a human being can have. The imagination allows people to create, to experience the joy and satisfaction of invention, to predict and hypothesize, and to empathize with others. When a person reads a novel and believes in the characters in that novel, it is because the writer has "imagined" the story into existence in a way that allows the reader to do the same.
When students create a piece of writing, they are creating something that did not exist before--they are imagining it into existence. By using language for creative writing, students make a representational world for themselves and their readers. They learn to understand the ability of language to stand for experience, to endure limitations, and to reshape familiar forms and elements into new relationships.
9. Creative writing should be seen as a "way of knowing" about the world and humanity.
From the earliest of times, humankind has expressed its way of knowing about the world through the arts. Ancient legends, for example, document historical events, provide explanations for natural occurrences, and describe codes of behaviour and the consequences of breaking them.
The process of writing is a process of thinking. As students write, they make comparisons, inferences, and deductions. They discover relationships; they ponder and reflect about the organization of words, images, and thoughts. As students work their way through an idea by writing, they explore points of view, think about "what if", and synthesize their thoughts about the world, humanity, language, and personal aesthetics.
10. The organic nature of the writing process must be recognized.
An organic process is one that evolves as it progresses. Teachers and students must understand that, although each individual will have a different method for developing a piece of writing, the meaning of a piece of writing is usually revealed through the process of writing. Often a writer will begin from a general idea, but will be unable to state what the piece is about until he or she has completed several drafts. A story writer might, for example, begin with a rough plot idea. When the writer has a draft, he or she might ask, "What is this story about?" (theme) and "How can I revise the story so that meaning is revealed through what the characters say or do?" It is reassuring for students to know that professional writers work this way. Learning what they are writing about is all part of the process; this knowledge is the outcome of the work they do on a piece of writing.
11. There should be an abundance of discussion about writing in the creative writing classroom.
Productive discussion about writing helps students develop an awareness of the relevance and importance of writing. It also provides an opportunity for students to learn from the ideas of others and to explore in more depth what they have read (e.g.,through book talks and literature circles).
It is also important for students to discuss their own and other students' work. They can respond to one another's work before, during, and after a piece of writing is created. They can respond in small groups and pairs. Productive discussion encourages thinking and subsequent revision, and that is the spirit in which it should take place.
12. The teacher should write along with students in the classroom.
The participation of the teacher as a writer forms a necessary part of a successful creative writing program. The blank page should be just as much of a challenge to the teacher as to the student. When time permits, the teacher should participate in free writing, journal writing, and drafting in order to model writing activity. Periodically, the teacher should submit a piece of writing which he or she is struggling with, and get student responses to it, similar to how the students are preparing their writing for peer response and for teacher response.
Personal writing allows the teacher to gain insight into the difficulties students might be having. The teacher also gains a sense of the part played by conscious and unconscious processes in creative writing. The teacher comes to recognize more fully the nature of a personal response--that it is unique and represents the imagination of one individual.
The Common Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts (draft, 1998) was developed by the Ministries of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories, and Yukon Territory in co-operation with teachers and other educators from these provinces and territories. This collaborative effort resulted in the identification of common educational goals and student learning outcomes designed to prepare students for present and future language requirements. The Common Curriculum Framework articulates a shared vision and provides a basis for curriculum development in the respective jurisdictions.
The process of developing common goals and outcomes allowed those involved to explore contemporary thought on specific language arts areas and topics. Among these was the area of personal or creative writing. As a result, recent thinking about creative writing is embodied in the five general outcomes that were derived for English language arts.
Students will listen, speak, read, write, view, and represent to: