Creative writing pedagogies for the twenty-first century

Purpose This paper aims to recommend that English educators engage preservice teachers (PSTs) in thinking and acting agentively in twenty-first century writing instruction by prompting them to examine and (re)construct discourses around identity, beliefs and teaching contexts. It explores metacognitive interventions that supported one PST to assume agency to implement twenty-first century writing pedagogies that challenged institutional and curricular norms. Design/methodology/approach A case study design was used to explore how one PST enacted agency in teaching twenty-first century writing during student teaching. Data were collected from five stimulated recall interviews that prompted metacognition over a four-month internship semester. Emerging themes were analyzed using content analysis. Findings During interviews, the PST constructed narratives about herself, her beliefs and her teaching context in ways that catalyzed her agency to enact twenty-first century writing pedagogies in planning for instruction, framing learning with her students and negotiating with her colleagues. The PST perceived metacognitive intervention as a supportive framework for activating her agency to both “see” and “sell” (Nowacek, 2011) possibilities for implementing twenty-first century writing instruction in her first teaching context. Originality/value While most existing literature on teacher agency focuses on practicing teachers, this paper focuses on activating agency during teacher preparation. It draws upon theories of regulative discourse (Mills, 2015), transfer (Nowacek, 2011) and metacognition as constructs for agency to identify how English educators can prepare PSTs as agents for change.

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Innovative Frameworks and Tested Lore for Teaching Creative Writing to Undergraduates in the Twenty-First Century

Pedagogy Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature Language Composition and Culture ◽

10.1215/15314200-2715796 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 435-454

Author(s):

K. Kostelnik

Keyword(s):

Creative Writing ◽

First Century ◽

Twenty First Century

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Uncreative Writing

10.1093/oso/9780198825418.003.0008 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Rebecca Roach

Keyword(s):

Creative Writing ◽

Toni Morrison ◽

Creative Expression ◽

First Century ◽

Creative Work ◽

Philip Roth ◽

Literary Representation ◽

Twenty First Century

This chapter demonstrates that, thanks to the heavy reliance of publishers’ marketing departments on author interviews as a means of promotion, today interviews are increasingly conceived through their opposition to creative writing. Drawing on the examples of Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, and J. M. Coetzee, the chapter demonstrates that interviews have become the quintessential example of uncreative, instrumental, authorial labour. However, in a time in which literature is frequently conceived in opposition to information, interviews also become a productive site for authors to reflect on the nature of literary representation and contemporary creative work. In their opposition to creative writing, interviews can also become an example of ‘uncreative writing’. As information surplus and networked digital computing make traditional, primarily print-based, norms of authorship, creativity, and inscription less tenable, for some of the authors discussed here the interview offers a generative site for exploring new modes of creative expression fit for the twenty-first century.

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