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Writing from Life: A Conversational Pedagogy for Creative Writing

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The chapter seeks to address two questions: ‘How can I encourage creative writing in a way that honours the life of the young writers and helps them recognise their intelligence and creativity?’ ‘How can I listen in ways that demonstrates to the young writers that they have something worthwhile to say?’ The approach outlined here encourages young writers to engage in writing as an intellectual and imaginative endeavor, which has a personal meaning related to the exploration of their lives.

Keywords: conversation ; generative questions ; publication ; radical equality ; writing prompts ; young writers

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Writing from Life: A Conversational Pedagogy for Creative Writing
Intellect , 286 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835951286_18
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References

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References

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  2. Barrs, Myra (2019), ‘Teaching bad writing’, English in Education, 53:1, pp. 18–31, https://doi.org/10.1080/04250494.2018.1557858.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Biesta, Gert J. J. (1999), ‘Radical intersubjectivity: Reflections on the “different” foundation of education’, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 18, pp. 203–20.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Biesta, Gert J. J. (2010), ‘A new logic of emancipation: The methodology of Jacques Rancière’, Educational Theory, 60:1, pp. 39–59.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Biesta, Gert J. J. (2012), ‘No education without hesitation: Thinking differently about educational relations’, in C. W. Ruitenberg et al. (eds), Philosophy of Education, Urbana-Champaign, IL: PES, pp. 1–13.
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  6. Biesta, Gert J. J. (2017), The Rediscovery of Teaching, Abingdon: Routledge.
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  7. Bolton, Gillie (2008), ‘“Writing is a way of saying things I can't say” – Therapeutic creative writing: A qualitative study of its value to people with cancer cared for in cancer and palliative healthcare’, The Journal of Medical Humanities, 34, pp. 40–46.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Cremin, Teresa and Baker, Sally (2010), ‘Exploring teacher-writer identities in the classroom: Conceptualising the struggle’, English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 9:3, pp. 8–25.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Cremin, Teresa and Myhill, Debra (2011), Writing Voices: Creating Communities of Writers, London: Routledge.
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  10. Cremin, Teresa, Myhill, Debra, Eyres, Ian, Nash, Tricia, Wilson, Anthony and Oliver, Lucy (2018), Teachers as Writers Research Report, London: Arvon.
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  11. Curtis, Abi (2009), ‘Rethinking the unconscious in creative writing pedagogy’, New Writing, 6:2, pp. 105–16, https://doi.org/10.1080/14790720903215216.
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  12. Department of Education and Science (DES) (2005), DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools): An Action Plan for Educational Inclusion, Dublin: DEIS, www.gov.ie/en/collection/policy-and-education-reports/?referrer= http://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Policy-Reports/deis_action_plan_on_educational_inclusion.pdf. Accessed 15 September 2023.
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  14. Elbow, Peter (1998), Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process, New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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  15. Ellis, Carolyn, Adams, Tony E. and Bochner, Arthur P. (2011), ‘Autoethnography: An overview’, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12:1, Article 10, pp. 273–90, https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-12.1.1589.
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  16. Felman, Shoshana (1987), Jacques Lacan and the Adventure of Insight, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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  17. Galton, Maurice (2010), ‘Going with the flow or back to normal? The impact of creative practitioners in schools and classrooms’, Research Papers in Education, 25:4, pp. 355–75, https://doi.org/10.1080/02671520903082429.
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  18. Gibbons, Simon (2019), ‘“Death by PEEL?” The teaching of writing in the secondary English classroom in England’, English in Education, 53:1, pp. 36–45, https://doi.org/10.1080/04250494.2019.1568832.
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  19. Goodwyn, Andrew (2016), ‘Still growing after all these years? The resilience of the “personal growth model of English” in England and also internationally’, English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 15:1, pp. 7–21.
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  20. Habermas, Jürgen (1970), ‘Toward a theory of communicative competence’, in H. P. Dreitzel (ed.), Recent Sociology, vol. 2, New York: Macmillan, pp. 115–48.
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  21. Hodgson, John (2017), ‘A conversation with John Dixon’, English in Education, 51:3, pp. 238–54, https://doi.org/10.1111/eie.12151.
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  22. Holman Jones, Stacy (2005), ‘Autoethnography: Making the personal political’, in N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 763–91.
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  23. Howe, Lori (2016), ‘A review of creative writing workshop pedagogy in educational research: Methodological challenges and affordances’, Journal of Poetry Therapy, 29:4, pp. 195–206, https://doi.org/10.1080/08893675.2016.1215379.
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  24. JCSP (2019), We Write What We Like, 2018, Dublin: JCSP Demonstration Library Project.
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  25. Johnson, Peter (2013), ‘The geographies of heterotopia’, Geography Compass, 7:11, pp. 790–803.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Kearns, Rosalie Morales (2009), ‘Voice of authority: Theorizing creative writing pedagogy’, College Composition and Communication, 60:4, pp. 790–807.
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  27. Kiely, Bernadette, Cassidy, Aideen and Bentley, Margaret (2005), Room for Reading, Dublin: The Junior Certificate School Programme, http://www.pdst.ie/sites/default/files/7389_Room_for__Reading__Aug2005.pdf. Accessed 29 October 2019.
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  29. McDermott, Kevin (2018), Mary's Shadow, Dublin: JCSP Library Project/Little Island Books.
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  30. McDermott, Kevin (2019), ‘The writer as teacher: Reflections from the margins’, English in Education, 53:1, pp. 91–105, https://doi.org/10.1080/04250494.2018.1559696.
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  31. McDermott, Kevin (2020), Rollercoaster, Dublin: JCSP Library Project/Little Island Books.
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  32. McNiff, Jean (2017), Action Research: All You Need to Know, London: Sage Publications.301
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  33. Morgan, Denise N. (2010), ‘Preservice teachers as writers’, Literacy Research and Instruction, 49, pp. 352–65, https://doi.org/10.1080/19388070903296411.
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  34. Murphy, Caroline (n.d.), Writing the Game: Evaluation 2013–2015, London: Arvon, https://www.arvon.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Writing-the-Game-Evaluation-Report-2013-15.pdf. Accessed 18 Septemer 2024.
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  36. Polanyi, Michael (1958), Personal Knowledge, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
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  37. Rancière, Jacques (1991), The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
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  38. Soja, Edward. W. (1996), Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places, Oxford: Blackwell.
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  39. Strang, Susann, Henoch, Ingela, Danielson, Ella, Browall, Maria and Melin-Johansson, Christina (2014), ‘Communication about existential issues with patients close to death: Nurses’ reflections on content, process and meaning’, Psycho-Oncology, 23:5, pp. 562–68.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Sund, Louise, Quennerstedt, Michael and Öhman, Marie (2019), ‘The embodied social studies classroom: Repositioning the body in the social sciences in school’, Cogent Education, 6:1, Article 1569350.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Tarpey, Paul (2017), ‘Disrupting continuities: Re-thinking conceptions of “growth” in English teaching’, English in Education, 51:2, pp. 157–69, https://doi.org/10.1111/eie.12129.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Thomas, Helena (2019), ‘English teaching and imagination: A case for revisiting the value of imagination in teaching writing’, English in Education, 53:1, pp. 49–60, https://doi.org/10.1080/04250494.2018.1557856.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Vadeboncoeur, Jennifer A. (2009), ‘Spaces of difference: The contradictions of alternative educational programs’, Educational Studies, 45:3, pp. 280–99, https://doi.org/10.1080/00131940902910974.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Vidler, Anthony, Foucault, Michel and Johnston, Pamela (2014), Heterotopias, AA Files, 69, pp. 18–22, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43202545. Accessed 18 September 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Watson, Renée (2017), Piecing Me Together, New York: Bloomsbury.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Whitehead, Jack (1989), ‘Creating a living educational theory from questions of the kind, “How do I improve my practice?”’ Cambridge Journal of Education, 19:1, pp. 137–53, https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764890190106.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Winter, Philip (2011), ‘Coming into the world, uniqueness, and the beautiful risk of education: An interview with Gert Biesta’, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 30:5, pp. 537–42.
     [Google Scholar]

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