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How to Teach Creative Writing | 7 Steps to Get Students Wordsmithing

“I don’t have any ideas!”

“I can’t think of anything!”

While we see creative writing as a world of limitless imagination, our students often see an overwhelming desert of “no idea.”

But when you teach creative writing effectively, you’ll notice that every student is brimming over with ideas that just have to get out.

So what does teaching creative writing effectively look like?

We’ve outlined a seven-step method that will scaffold your students through each phase of the creative process from idea generation through to final edits.

7. Create inspiring and original prompts

Use the following formats to generate prompts that get students inspired:

personal memories (“Write about a person who taught you an important lesson”)
imaginative scenarios
prompts based on a familiar mentor text (e.g. “Write an alternative ending to your favorite book”). These are especially useful for giving struggling students an easy starting point.
lead-in sentences (“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”).
fascinating or thought-provoking images with a directive (“Who do you think lives in this mountain cabin? Tell their story”).

Don’t have the time or stuck for ideas? Check out our list of 100 student writing prompts

6. unpack the prompts together.

Explicitly teach your students how to dig deeper into the prompt for engaging and original ideas.

Probing questions are an effective strategy for digging into a prompt. Take this one for example:

“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”

Ask “What questions need answering here?” The first thing students will want to know is:

What happened overnight?

No doubt they’ll be able to come up with plenty of zany answers to that question, but there’s another one they could ask to make things much more interesting:

Who might “I” be?

In this way, you subtly push students to go beyond the obvious and into more original and thoughtful territory. It’s even more useful with a deep prompt:

“Write a story where the main character starts to question something they’ve always believed.”

Here students could ask:

What sorts of beliefs do people take for granted?
What might make us question those beliefs?
What happens when we question something we’ve always thought is true?
How do we feel when we discover that something isn’t true?

Try splitting students into groups, having each group come up with probing questions for a prompt, and then discussing potential “answers” to these questions as a class.

The most important lesson at this point should be that good ideas take time to generate. So don’t rush this step!

5. Warm-up for writing

A quick warm-up activity will:

allow students to see what their discussed ideas look like on paper
help fix the “I don’t know how to start” problem
warm up writing muscles quite literally (especially important for young learners who are still developing handwriting and fine motor skills).

Freewriting is a particularly effective warm-up. Give students 5–10 minutes to “dump” all their ideas for a prompt onto the page for without worrying about structure, spelling, or grammar.

After about five minutes you’ll notice them starting to get into the groove, and when you call time, they’ll have a better idea of what captures their interest.

Did you know? The Story Factory in Reading Eggs allows your students to write and publish their own storybooks using an easy step-by-step guide.

4. Start planning

Now it’s time for students to piece all these raw ideas together and generate a plan. This will synthesize disjointed ideas and give them a roadmap for the writing process.

Note: at this stage your strong writers might be more than ready to get started on a creative piece. If so, let them go for it – use planning for students who are still puzzling things out.

Here are four ideas for planning:

Graphic organisers

A graphic organiser will allow your students to plan out the overall structure of their writing. They’re also particularly useful in “chunking” the writing process, so students don’t see it as one big wall of text.

Storyboards and illustrations

These will engage your artistically-minded students and give greater depth to settings and characters. Just make sure that drawing doesn’t overshadow the writing process.

Voice recordings

If you have students who are hesitant to commit words to paper, tell them to think out loud and record it on their device. Often they’ll be surprised at how well their spoken words translate to the page.

Write a blurb

This takes a bit more explicit teaching, but it gets students to concisely summarize all their main ideas (without giving away spoilers). Look at some blurbs on the back of published books before getting them to write their own. Afterward they could test it out on a friend – based on the blurb, would they borrow it from the library?

3. Produce rough drafts

Warmed up and with a plan at the ready, your students are now ready to start wordsmithing. But before they start on a draft, remind them of what a draft is supposed to be:

a work in progress.

Remind them that if they wait for the perfect words to come, they’ll end up with blank pages .

Instead, it’s time to take some writing risks and get messy. Encourage this by:

demonstrating the writing process to students yourself
taking the focus off spelling and grammar (during the drafting stage)
providing meaningful and in-depth feedback (using words, not ticks!).

Reading Eggs also gives you access to an ever-expanding collection of over 3,500 online books!

2. share drafts for peer feedback.

Don’t saddle yourself with 30 drafts for marking. Peer assessment is a better (and less exhausting) way to ensure everyone receives the feedback they need.

Why? Because for something as personal as creative writing, feedback often translates better when it’s in the familiar and friendly language that only a peer can produce. Looking at each other’s work will also give students more ideas about how they can improve their own.

Scaffold peer feedback to ensure it’s constructive. The following methods work well:

Student rubrics

A simple rubric allows students to deliver more in-depth feedback than “It was pretty good.” The criteria will depend on what you are ultimately looking for, but students could assess each other’s:

use of language.

Whatever you opt for, just make sure the language you use in the rubric is student-friendly.

Two positives and a focus area

Have students identify two things their peer did well, and one area that they could focus on further, then turn this into written feedback. Model the process for creating specific comments so you get something more constructive than “It was pretty good.” It helps to use stems such as:

I really liked this character because…

I found this idea interesting because it made me think…

I was a bit confused by…

I wonder why you… Maybe you could… instead.

1. The editing stage

Now that students have a draft and feedback, here’s where we teachers often tell them to “go over it” or “give it some final touches.”

But our students don’t always know how to edit.

Scaffold the process with questions that encourage students to think critically about their writing, such as:

Are there any parts that would be confusing if I wasn’t there to explain them?
Are there any parts that seem irrelevant to the rest?
Which parts am I most uncertain about?
Does the whole thing flow together, or are there parts that seem out of place?
Are there places where I could have used a better word?
Are there any grammatical or spelling errors I notice?

Key to this process is getting students to read their creative writing from start to finish .

Important note: if your students are using a word processor, show them where the spell-check is and how to use it. Sounds obvious, but in the age of autocorrect, many students simply don’t know.

A final word on teaching creative writing

Remember that the best writers write regularly.

Incorporate them into your lessons as often as possible, and soon enough, you’ll have just as much fun marking your students’ creative writing as they do producing it.

Need more help supporting your students’ writing?

Read up on how to get reluctant writers writing , strategies for supporting struggling secondary writers , or check out our huge list of writing prompts for kids .

Watch your students get excited about writing and publishing their own storybooks in the Story Factory

Inspiring Ink: Expert Tips on How to Teach Creative Writing

The world of creative writing is as vast as it is rewarding. It’s a form of expression that allows the writer to explore different worlds, characters, and narratives – all within the power of their pen.

But what exactly is creative writing and why is it important? Let’s explore the value of creative writing and how to inspire young (or old!) minds to embark on the curious and exciting journey of writing creatively – it’s easier than you think!

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing, in its simplest form, is writing that goes beyond the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature.

It’s characterized by its emphasis on:

narrative craft
character development
the use of literary devices

From poetry to plays, scripts to sonnets, creative writing covers a wide range of genres . It’s about painting pictures with words, invoking emotions, and bringing ideas to life . It’s about crafting stories that are compelling, engaging, and thought-provoking.

Whether you’re penning a novel or jotting down a journal entry, creative writing encourages you to unleash your imagination and express your thoughts in a unique, artistic way. For a deeper dive into the realm of creative writing, you can visit our article on what is creative writing .

Benefits of Developing Creative Writing Skills

The benefits of creative writing extend beyond the page.

It’s not just about creating captivating stories or crafting beautiful prose. The skills developed through creative writing are invaluable in many aspects of life and work.

1. Creative writing fosters creativity and imagination.

It encourages you to think outside the box, broaden your perspective, and explore new ideas. It also enhances your ability to communicate effectively, as it involves conveying thoughts, emotions, and narratives in a clear and compelling manner.

2. Creative writing aids in improving critical thinking skills.

It prompts you to analyze characters, plotlines, and themes, and make connections between different ideas. This process activates different parts of the mind, drawing on personal experiences, the imagination, logical plot development, and emotional intelligence.

3. Creative writing is also a valuable tool for self-expression and personal growth.

It allows you to explore your feelings, experiences, and observations, providing an outlet for self-reflection and introspection. By both reading and writing about different characters in different situations, readers develop empathy in a gentle but effective way.

4. Creative writing skills can open up a host of career opportunities.

From authors and editors to content creators and copywriters, the demand for creative writers is vast and varied. You can learn more about potential career paths in our article on creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

In essence, creative writing is more than just an art—it’s a skill, a craft, and a powerful tool for communication and self-expression. Whether you’re teaching creative writing or learning it, understanding its value is the first step towards mastering the art.

The 3 Roles of a Creative Writing Teacher

Amongst the many facets of a creative writing teacher’s role, three vital aspects stand out: inspiring creativity , nurturing talent , and providing constructive criticism . These elements play a significant role in shaping budding writers and fostering their passion for the craft.

1. Inspiring Creativity

The primary function of a creative writing teacher is to inspire creativity.

They must foster an environment that encourages students to think outside the box and explore new possibilities . This includes presenting students with creative writing prompts that challenge their thinking, promoting lively discussions around various topics, and providing opportunities for students to engage in creative writing activities for kids .

Teachers should also expose students to a range of literary genres , styles, and techniques to broaden their understanding and appreciation of the craft. This exposure not only enhances their knowledge but also stimulates their creativity, encouraging them to experiment with different writing styles .

2. Nurturing Talent

Nurturing talent involves recognizing the unique abilities of each student and providing the necessary support and guidance to help them develop these skills. A creative writing teacher needs to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each student and tailor their approach accordingly.

This means:

offering personalized feedback
setting realistic yet challenging goals
providing opportunities for students to showcase their work

Encouraging students to participate in writing competitions or to publish their work can give them a confidence boost and motivate them to improve. Furthermore, teachers should educate students about various creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree . This knowledge can inspire students to pursue their passion for writing and explore career opportunities in the field.

3. Providing Constructive Criticism

Providing constructive criticism is a critical aspect of teaching creative writing. It involves assessing students’ work objectively and providing feedback that helps them improve .

Teachers should:

highlight the strengths of the work
address the areas that need improvement
suggest ways to make the piece better

Constructive criticism should be specific, actionable, and encouraging . It’s important to remember that the goal is to help the student improve, not to discourage them. Therefore, teachers need to communicate their feedback in a respectful and supportive manner.

In essence, a teacher’s role in teaching creative writing extends beyond mere instruction. They are mentors who inspire, nurture, and shape the minds of budding writers. By fostering a supportive and stimulating environment, they can help students unlock their creative potential and develop a lifelong love for writing.

3 Techniques for Teaching Creative Writing

When it comes to understanding how to teach creative writing, there are several effective techniques that can help inspire students and foster their writing skills.

1. Encouraging Free Writing Exercises

Free writing is a technique that encourages students to write continuously for a set amount of time without worrying about grammar, punctuation, or topic. This type of exercise can help unleash creativity, as it allows students to freely express their thoughts and ideas without judgment or constraint.

As a teacher, you can set a specific theme or provide creative writing prompts to guide the writing session. Alternatively, you can allow students to write about any topic that comes to mind. The key is to create an environment that encourages creative exploration and expression.

2. Exploring Different Genres

Another effective technique is to expose students to a wide range of writing genres. This can include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, fantasy, mystery, and more. By exploring different genres, students can discover their unique writing styles and interests. This variety also offers the chance to expand their writing skills and apply them to various writing formats.

To facilitate this exploration, you can assign writing projects in different genres, conduct genre-specific writing workshops, or invite guest speakers who specialize in different genres. You can also encourage students to critically analyze how different authors approach their work.

3. Analyzing Published Works

Analyzing published works is a powerful way to teach creative writing. This technique allows students to learn from established authors by studying their:

writing styles
narrative structures
use of language.

It also provides a practical context for understanding writing concepts and techniques.

As a teacher, you can select diverse pieces of literature for analysis , ranging from classic novels to contemporary short stories. Encourage students to identify elements they admire in these works and discuss how they can incorporate similar techniques into their own writing.

These techniques for teaching creative writing are effective ways to inspire creativity, encourage self-expression, and develop writing skills. As a teacher, your role is crucial in guiding students through their creative journey and helping them realize their potential as writers.

Creative Writing Workshops and Exercises

One effective method on how to teach creative writing is through the use of targeted workshops and exercises. These interactive sessions can stimulate creativity, foster character development , and help in understanding story structures .

Idea Generation Workshops

Idea generation is a crucial aspect of creative writing. It is the starting point that provides a springboard for writers to explore and develop their narratives. Idea generation workshops can be an interactive and fun way to help writers come up with fresh ideas.

Workshops can include brainstorming sessions , where writers are encouraged to think freely and note down all ideas, no matter how unconventional they may seem. Another method is the use of writing prompts , which can serve as a creative spark.

A prompt could be:

even an image

Editor’s Note : Encourage children to create a big scribble on a scrap piece of paper and then look for an image in it (like looking for pictures in the clouds). This can be a great creative writing prompt and students will love sharing their writing with each other! Expect lots of giggles and fun!

Character Development Exercises

Characters are the heart of any story. They drive the narrative and engage the readers. Character development exercises can help writers create well-rounded and relatable characters.

Such exercises can include character questionnaires , where writers answer a series of questions about their characters to gain a deeper understanding of their personalities, backgrounds, and motivations. Role-playing activities can also be useful, allowing writers to step into their characters’ shoes and explore their reactions in different scenarios.

Story Structure Workshops

Understanding story structure is vital for creating a compelling narrative. Story structure workshops can guide writers on how to effectively structure their stories to engage readers from start to finish .

These workshops can cover essential elements of story structures like:

rising action
falling action

In addition to understanding the basics, writers should be encouraged to experiment with different story structures to find what works best for their narrative style. An understanding of story structure can also help in analyzing and learning from published works .

Providing writers with the right tools and techniques, through workshops and exercises, can significantly improve their creative writing skills. It’s important to remember that creativity flourishes with practice and patience .

As a teacher, nurturing this process is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching creative writing. For more insights and tips on teaching creative writing, continue exploring our articles on creative writing .

Tips to Enhance Creative Writing Skills

The process of teaching creative writing is as much about honing one’s own skills as it is about imparting knowledge to others. Here are some key strategies that can help in enhancing your creative writing abilities and make your teaching methods more effective.

Regular Practice

Like any other skill, creative writing requires regular practice . Foster the habit of writing daily, even if it’s just a few lines. This will help you stay in touch with your creative side and continually improve your writing skills. Encourage your students to do the same.

Introduce them to various creative writing prompts to stimulate their imagination and make their writing practice more engaging.

Reading Widely

Reading is an essential part of becoming a better writer. By reading widely, you expose yourself to a variety of styles, tones, and genres . This not only broadens your literary horizons but also provides a wealth of ideas for your own writing.

Encourage your students to read extensively as well. Analyzing and discussing different works can be an excellent learning exercise and can spark creative ideas .

Exploring Various Writing Styles

The beauty of creative writing lies in its diversity. From poetic verses to gripping narratives, there’s a wide range of styles to explore. Encourage your students to try their hand at different forms of writing. This not only enhances their versatility but also helps them discover their unique voice as a writer.

To help them get started, you can introduce a variety of creative writing activities for kids . These tasks can be tailored to suit different age groups and proficiency levels. Remember, the goal is to foster a love for writing, so keep the activities fun and engaging .

Have Fun Teaching Creative Writing!

Enhancing creative writing skills is a continuous journey. It requires persistence, curiosity, and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone. As a teacher, your role is to guide your students on this journey, providing them with the tools and encouragement they need to flourish as writers – and most of all – enjoy the process!

For more insights on creative writing, be sure to explore our articles on what is creative writing and creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Brooks Manley

Creative Primer is a resource on all things journaling, creativity, and productivity. We’ll help you produce better ideas, get more done, and live a more effective life.

My name is Brooks. I do a ton of journaling, like to think I’m a creative (jury’s out), and spend a lot of time thinking about productivity. I hope these resources and product recommendations serve you well. Reach out if you ever want to chat or let me know about a journal I need to check out!

Here’s my favorite journal for 2024:

Gratitude Journal Prompts Mindfulness Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Anxiety Reflective Journal Prompts Healing Journal Prompts Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Journal Prompts Mental Health Journal Prompts ASMR Journal Prompts Manifestation Journal Prompts Self-Care Journal Prompts Morning Journal Prompts Evening Journal Prompts Self-Improvement Journal Prompts Creative Writing Journal Prompts Dream Journal Prompts Relationship Journal Prompts "What If" Journal Prompts New Year Journal Prompts Shadow Work Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Overcoming Fear Journal Prompts for Dealing with Loss Journal Prompts for Discerning and Decision Making Travel Journal Prompts Fun Journal Prompts

Enriching Creative Writing Activities for Kids

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Writing Techniques

How to Teach Creative Writing

Last Updated: March 13, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 117,359 times.

Creative writing is one of the most enjoyable types of writing for students. Not only does it allow students to explore their imaginations, but it helps them to structure their ideas and produce writing that they can be proud of. However, creative writing is a relatively difficult type of writing to teach and offers challenges to both new and seasoned teachers alike. Fortunately, though, with some work of their own, teachers can better develop their own abilities to teach creative writing.

Providing Students with the Fundamentals

Step 1 Introduce the important elements of storytelling.

Theme. The theme of a story is its message or the main idea behind it.
Setting. The setting of a story is the location or time it takes place in.
Plot. The plot is the overall story, narrative, or sequence of events.
Characterization. Characterization is how a character or person in a story is explained or presented to the reader.
Conflict and dramatic action. Conflict and dramatic action are the main events of focus in the story. These events are often tense or exciting and are used to lure the reader in. [1] X Research source

Step 2 Encourage students to engage the reader.

Explain how your students, as writers, can appeal to the humanity of their readers. One great way to do this is to ask them to explore character development. By developing the characters in their story, readers will become invested in the story.
Discuss the triggers that engage readers in an effective story. Most great stories start with a problem, which is solved with the resolution, or conclusion of the story. Encourage students to create an engaging problem that will hook the readers in the first few pages of a short story or novel. [2] X Research source

Step 3 Explain the importance of tone and atmosphere.

By setting the tone and atmosphere of a story, the author will establish his or her attitude to the subject and the feel of the story.
Tone can be positive, neutral, or negative. [3] X Research source
Atmosphere can be dark, happy, or neither.
Descriptive words like “darkness” or “sunshine” can help set both the tone and atmosphere. [4] X Research source

Active verbs are used to show action in the story.
Active verbs are very often a better alternative to passive voice, as it keeps your writing clear and concise for your readers. [5] X Research source
For example, instead of writing “The cat was chased by the dog” your student can write “The dog chased the cat.”

Guiding Students through the Process

Step 1 Allow students to pick their topic.

Tell your students to brainstorm about ideas they are truly interested in.
If you must restrict the general topic, make sure that your students have a good amount of wiggle room within the broad topic of the assignment.
Never assign specific topics and force students to write. This will undermine the entire process. [6] X Research source

Step 2 Have your students write a flexible outline.

Letting your students know that the outline is non-binding. They don’t have to follow it in later steps of the writing process.
Telling your students that the parts of their outline should be written very generally.
Recommending that your students create several outlines, or outlines that go in different directions (in terms of plot and other elements of storytelling). The more avenues your students explore, the better. [7] X Research source

Step 3 Avoid teaching a story “formula.”

Tell students that there is no “right” way to write a story.
Let students know that their imaginations should guide their way.
Show students examples of famous writing that breaks normal patterns, like the works of E.E. Cummings, William Faulkner, Charles Dickens, and William Shakespeare.
Ask students to forget about any expectations they think you have for how a story should be written. [8] X Research source

Step 4 Provide feedback on rough drafts.

Gather the first drafts and comment on the student's work. For first drafts, you want to check on the overall structure of the draft, proper word use, punctuation, spelling, and overall cohesion of the piece. [9] X Research source
Remind them that great writers usually wrote several drafts before they were happy with their stories.
Avoid grading drafts for anything other than completion.

Let students pair off to edit each others' papers.
Have your students join groups of 3 or 4 and ask them to go edit and provide feedback on each member’s story.
Provide guidance so students contribute constructively to the group discussion. [10] X Research source

Step 6 Evaluate your students based on their creativity.

Reward your students if they are innovative or do something unique and truly creative.
Avoid evaluating your students based on a formula.
Assess and review your own standards as often as you can. Remember that the point is to encourage your students' creativity. [11] X Research source

Spurring Creativity

Step 1 Inspire students with an appreciation of literature.

Teach your students about a variety of writers and genres.
Have your students read examples of different genres.
Promote a discussion within your class of the importance of studying literature.
Ask students to consider the many ways literature improves the world and asks individuals to think about their own lives. [12] X Research source

Step 2 Provide your students with a large number of resources.

Make sure your room is stocked with a wide variety of fiction stories.
Make sure your room is stocked with plenty of paper for your students to write on.
Line up other writing teachers or bring in writers from the community to talk to and encourage your students.

Step 3 Have your students write practice stories based on random photos or pictures you provide.

Cut out pictures and photographs from magazines, comic books, and newspapers.
Have your students cut out photographs and pictures and contribute them to your bank.
Consider having your students randomly draw a given number of photos and pictures and writing a short story based on what they draw.
This technique can help students overcome writer's block and inspire students who think that they're "not creative." [13] X Research source

Pair your students with students from another grade in your school.
Allow your students to write stories that younger students in your school would like to read.
Pair your students with another student in the class and have them evaluate each others' work. [14] X Research source

If you just have a typical classroom to work with, make sure to put inspirational posters or other pictures on the walls.
Open any curtains so students can see outside.
If you have the luxury of having an extra classroom or subdividing your own classroom, create a comfortable space with a lot of inspirational visuals.
Writing spaces can help break writer's block and inspire students who think that they're "not creative." [15] X Research source

Involve students in the printing process.
Publication does not have to be expensive or glossy.
Copies can be made in the school workroom if possible or each student might provide a copy for the others in the group.
A collection of the stories can be bound with a simple stapler or brads.
Seek out other opportunities for your students to publish their stories.

Expert Q&A

↑ https://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/courses/creative-writing-101
↑ https://kobowritinglife.com/2012/10/14/six-tips-for-engaging-readers-within-two-seconds-the-hook-in-fiction-and-memoir/
↑ https://www.dailywritingtips.com/in-writing-tone-is-the-author%E2%80%99s-attitude/
↑ http://ourenglishclass.net/class-notes/writing/the-writing-process/craft/tone-and-mood/
↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/02/
↑ http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/choices-children/
↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/7-steps-to-creating-a-flexible-outline-for-any-story
↑ http://thewritepractice.com/the-formula-to-write-a-novel/
↑ https://student.unsw.edu.au/editing-your-essay
↑ http://orelt.col.org/module/unit/5-promoting-creative-writing
↑ http://education.seattlepi.com/grade-creative-writing-paper-3698.html
↑ http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/educating-teenagers-emotions-through-literature/476790/
↑ http://www.wrightingwords.com/for-teachers/5-tips-for-teaching-creative-writing/

About This Article

To teach creative writing, start by introducing your students to the core elements of storytelling, like theme, setting, and plot, while reminding them that there’s no formula for combining these elements to create a story. Additionally, explain how important it is to use tone and atmosphere, along with active verbs, to write compelling stories that come alive. When your students have chosen their topics, have them create story outlines before they begin writing. Then, read their rough drafts and provide feedback to keep them on the right path to storytelling success. For tips from our English reviewer on how to spur creativity in your students, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Creativity and Innovation in the Writing Classroom

Learn more about how to teach creativity and innovation along with, and as an important part of, traditional writing and research skills.

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” —Maya Angelou

Creativity is fundamental to the teaching of writing. Although WR 153 focuses specifically on creativity and innovation, all WR courses ask students to approach their reading, viewing, writing, and research in creative ways. One important approach to creativity is “design thinking,” which emphasizes that creativity is a non-linear, iterative process. Design thinking is based on two foundational assumptions:

Everyone can be creative.
Creativity can be taught.

The principles of design thinking can be used in any WR course to teach students that creativity is a process of asking questions, using multiple strategies and approaches in answering those questions, taking risks in conceiving and executing original work, developing and refining ideas in response to feedback, and learning from productive failure. The metacognitive aspects of design thinking invite students to think about their own creative processes and identify factors that promote creativity.

Although WR 153 is structured by the steps of the design process (understand, empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, assess/reflect), all WR courses can benefit from incorporating elements of design thinking and an emphasis on creativity and innovation. Approaching writing instruction in this way can:

Increase student engagement by focusing on creative responses to problems that students care about;
Give students a sense of agency as a result of greater choice in what to write and how to write about it;
Encourage taking intellectual risks and reward productive failure as a means of learning;
Help students develop skills that are transferrable to other academic situations and their professional lives; and
Enhance students’ personal lives by allowing them to learn about themselves and their own creative potential.

Principles of Design Thinking

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative approach to creativity that involves between three and seven steps. Although it is based on theories of design practice that go back to the early twentieth century, it has most recently been popularized by the design firm IDEO and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, commonly known as the d.school. The process involves understanding the issues involved in a design project, empathizing with the audience for an end product, defining the scope of the project, generating ideas for and creating prototypes of the product, testing and assessing those ideas and prototypes, and revisiting the steps of the design process until a final product is created.

The complete set of seven steps can be applied to the writing process in a WR course:

Understand: Students develop a foundation for their work by exploring issues and approaches relevant to the course topic, as well as previous work in the field.

Empathize: Students practice empathy by demonstrating their awareness and understanding of the audience for whom they write or create.

Define: Based on their observations and insights, students articulate a problem or question that will motivate their work over the course of the semester.

Ideate: Students generate new ideas and possible solutions by challenging assumptions and engaging in a variety of creative activities.

Prototype: Students start to create solutions and implement their ideas into written, digital or other forms in order to capture ideas, but also redefine choices.

Test: Students share drafts with others in order to gain feedback and insight into improving final versions.

Assess/Reflect: Students reflect on and evaluate their peers’ and their own processes and final outcomes.

The steps of the design thinking process are not meant to be followed in a rigid way. They should be flexible and customizable to the particular project: students may need to define, ideate, and prototype multiple times and in various modes/genres before they are ready to create a final draft. The skills students gain in going though these steps should be transferrable to other projects and courses.

Learn more about design thinking:

“What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?” by Rikke Friis Dam and Teo Yu Siang provides an overview of design thinking.
David Kelly of IDEO explains the history of design thinking in “How to Design Breakthrough Inventions,” an interview with 60 Minutes .
“How to Solve Problems Like a Designer,” which includes an interview with Tim Brown of IDEO, explains the basic principles of design thinking.

Understand and Empathize

The first step of the design process asks students to understand not only the course material, but also the resources necessary for their particular project. Since this usually involves additional reading/viewing, the “understand” step is part of the research and information literacy component of WR15X. Assignments that focus on this step may include conducting library or online research, categorizing research material using BEAM/BEAT, and creating annotated bibliographies.

Define, Ideate, and Prototype

Before they begin the process of generating ideas, it is often useful for students to define, at least in a preliminary way, what question or problem their paper/project is addressing. Assignments that help students define their projects may include questionnaires that ask students to state what they intend to work on and why, as well as more formal paper/project proposals.

In the IDEO design process, the goal of ideation is to generate a multitude of ideas without rejecting those that may seem impractical or even silly. Ideas can be rejected later, after a sufficient number of ideas have been generated. The most common ideation assignment involves various forms of brainstorming, often in teams. Ideas should be written down in some way, such as on sticky notes or index cards. To encourage divergent thinking in the brainstorming process, consider posting some fundamental principles in the classroom, such as these from IDEO:

Defer judgment.
Encourage wild ideas.
Stay focused on the topic.
Build on the ideas of others .

In the IDEO design process, prototypes are models that can be easily revised and even discarded if necessary. Prototypes for writing courses might include outlines, storyboards, slide decks, oral or video presentations, and preliminary drafts. Prototypes should be tested and assessed in some way that allows for reconsideration and revision before students turn in their final products.

Learn more about brainstorming and prototyping:

“What is Brainstorming?” by Rikke Friis Dam and Teo Yu Siang provides helpful information and ideas for the ideation step of the design process.
This example of “Brainstorming at IDEO” shows one popular way of brainstorming with sticky notes.

Test and Assess/Reflect

The final steps of the design process, testing and assessing/reflecting, are not meant to be the final steps in completing a student’s paper/project. After testing and assessing a prototype, students will likely need to reconsider and revise their papers/projects, which will take them back to earlier steps—they may need to conduct further research, generate additional ideas, or refine their prototypes. The design process is meant to be iterative, with students returning to steps in the process as needed until they have completed a final draft.

Just as designers test their prototypes, students should test drafts of their papers/projects by sharing them with others. Assignments that focus on this step usually involve workshopping with one or more peers, but testing may also include making an oral or video presentation to the class, meeting with the professor or a writing tutor, or sharing the student’s work with any other reader/viewer capable of providing feedback. Students may also test their papers/projects using techniques such as reverse outlining to assess the strength and clarity of their arguments.

The final step in the design process, assessing the student’s work, may lead back to any earlier step as students come to understand what they still need to work on to complete their papers/projects. This step may also involve the broader metacognitive task of reflecting on the student’s creative process. Assignments that focus on this step may include a variety of reflective exercises, including a final reflection for the course.

A Note on Assessment

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” —Samuel Beckett

Because WR 153 courses can include such a wide range of papers and project, contract grading is recommended. Other WR courses that incorporate creativity and innovation may also wish to use contract grading, either for specific assignments or the course as a whole. More information on contract grading can be found here .

An important component of creativity and innovation is productive failure. We learn to create new things or develop new skills by failing and trying again until we succeed. Productive failure is failure that leads to new knowledge, insight, or innovation. Courses that focus on creativity can encourage productive failure by requiring prototypes that will be reconsidered and revised extensively, asking students to share examples of failure as valuable learning experiences, and assigning reflective work on how students have grown through failure over the course of the semester.

Learn more about productive failure:

Both readings below argue for the importance of productive failure. The Burger article contains specific examples of how to validate and reward productive failure in the classroom.

“Next Time, Fail Better” by Paula M. Krebs, The Chronicle of Higher Education , May 11, 2012.

How to Teach Writing

Welcome, fellow writing teachers! Here, you'll find ideas for how to teach writing, including topics, worksheets and lesson plans for fiction and poetry classes. If you're teaching adults and want to incorporate a workshop component in your classroom, you can find suggestions for how to run a critique here.

Join our email group for creative writing teachers.

Topics for Teaching Fiction Writing

Reading fiction
Character development
Conflict and plot structure
Narrative point of view
Showing versus telling
Summary versus scene
Descriptive detail
Story beginnings
Story middles
Story endings
Types of stories and genres
Setting and world-building
Revising fiction

Click here for activity ideas.

Topics for Teaching Poetry Writing

Reading poetry
Subject and theme
Specificity
Sensory details
Figurative language
Lines and stanzas
Meter and scansion
Rhyme and rhyme schemes
Fixed forms
Voice and tone
Patterns and repetition
Visual aspects of poetry
Revising poetry

Poetry Class Activities

Haiku Students write a haiku, a short unrhymed poem with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second line, and five in the third line. Read more

Found poem Students write a poem using language borrowed from non-poetic sources. Read more

Fairy-tale poem Students write a poem inspired by a fairy tale or folk tale.

Animal Poem Students write a poem about an animal. Click here for examples and ideas

Epistolary Poem Students write a poem in the form of a letter or email to someone real or imaginary.

Prose Poem Click here to get our Prose Poetry Kit.

Persona poem Students write a poem in the voice of someone else, such as a fictional character, historical figure, or animal.

Blank verse Students write a poem in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Read more

Sonnet Click here for instructions and prompts.

Music Poem You can play music in the classroom and ask students to write poetry inspired by the sounds they hear and the imagery it brings to mind.

Golden shovel poem Students take a line from a poem they admire and use each word from that line as the end word of a line in their new poem. Read more

Cut-up poem Students write a poem by cutting up a piece of text and rearranging the words or phrases to form something new.

Sestina Click here for instructions, examples, and ideas.

Ekphrastic Poem Students write a poem inspired by a piece of visual art.

Five Senses Poem Students write a poem that describes its subject using details from all five senses.

Anaphora Poem Students write a poem that uses the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of each line or stanza for emphasis. Read more

Acrostic Students write a poem where the first letter of each line spells out a word or message vertically. Read more

Concrete Poem Students write a poem where the arrangement of the words on the page forms a visual image related to the poem's theme. Click here to get a worksheet with examples.

Nature walk poem Students take a walk, paying attention to sights, sounds, smells, and other sensations. Then they write a poem inspired by their observations.

Pantoum Click here to get our Pantoum Poetry Kit.

Limerick Click here for instructions, examples, and ideas.

Poetic translation Students can use AI tools and online translators to explore the meaning of a poem written in a foreign language. Then, they use their poetic skills to craft a translation that reads as a successful poem in English.

Riddle poem Students write a poem that describes something without naming it. Example here

Erasure Poem: Students write a poem by erasing words from an existing text and leaving behind words that form a new poem. Here's an example created from the Miranda Warning.

Lesson Plans for Teaching Fiction Writing

Character development - teaching ideas.

Character Development
How to Show Your Character's Thoughts

Group activity:

Create a character as a class using a picture of a person as a starting point. First, have the students suggest a name for the character. Then, discuss and decide on the character's age and occupation. Continue to develop the character by answering the questions in this character profile questionnaire . To start students thinking about how character profiles can lead to story ideas, ask them the following questions: What problems does this character face? What does this character want more than anything What obstacles could get in the way of the character's desires? In what situation would this character react in an interesting way?

Invent a character with two conflicting personality traits or desires. For example, the character might be exceedingly disorganized yet a perfectionist, or a pacifist with a quick temper, or a rebel who craves parental approval. Imagine a situation where these contradictory aspects come into direct conflict. Write the story.

Worksheets:

Character Profile Questionnaire
160 Characters for Your Stories

Conflict and Plot Structure - Teaching Ideas

Story Conflict
Plot Structure
Story Climax

Present students with one of the following situations:

Maria goes on vacation to Hawaii.
David's about to get married.
Sandra just moved into a new house.

Ask students to suggest ideas for adding conflict to the situation you've presented. What could go wrong for the character?

Choose one of the conflict ideas and ask students to discuss what actions the character might take to try to overcome the story problem. What might happen as a result of the character's actions? How might the character react to that ?

You can use this exercise as an introduction to conflict and the way it moves a story forward.

Write about a job interview, family dinner, celebration, or vacation where something goes terribly wrong. Your character attempts to fix the situation, but their initial efforts only make things worse...

Plot Templates

Narrators and Narrative Point of View - Teaching Ideas

Types of Narrators and How to Choose

1) Give students this ten-minute writing task: Write about a first date from the perspective of a character who perceives the date as a disaster. 2) Pair up the students and give them ten minutes to rewrite their partners' scenes from the viewpoint of the other character on the date. This character should view the date as a great success.

Rewrite a fairy tale from the point of view of a character other than the traditional hero. Ideas: "Cinderella" from the point of view of one of the stepsisters, "Little Red Riding Hood" from the point of view of the wolf.

More exercises here

Dialogue - Teaching Ideas

How to Write Dialogue

Discussion:

Have students read and discuss Hemingway's “ Hills Like White Elephants ” as an example of dialogue where neither character is speaking sincerely. This is a story about a man trying to convince a woman to have an abortion. The man is insincere because he's trying to persuade the woman, and the woman is insincere because she's afraid of losing the man if she refuses to do what he wants. Students can discuss:

How they know the characters are talking about an abortion, even though abortion is never mentioned specifically.
How they can tell what each character is feeling, even though it doesn't match what the characters say.

1) The story takes place on a long bus ride between two cities. Two strangers are sharing a seat. Each one secretly hopes to get something from the other. For example, one of them wants a job, money, or a place to stay in the city where they're headed. The other one wants love or a one-night stand. Neither of them mentions directly what they want. They pretend to make casual small talk, but each one is actually trying to manipulate the conversation to achieve their secret goal. Write the conversation. 2) This story takes place at a restaurant. Three acquaintances have gone out to dinner together. Person A has just left their spouse and family. Person B supports this decision. Person C thinks this was criminally irresponsible. Write the conversation. (Suggestion: try giving each character the voice of a different person you actually know. For example, Person A might talk like one of your coworkers, and Person B might talk like your brother or sister. Choose people who are very different from each other. Then try to express each one's unique voice so clearly that you don't need to tell the reader which character said which sentence; the reader can "hear" the difference between who says what.)

Showing Versus Telling, and Summary Versus Scene - Teaching Ideas

The Truth About "Show, Don't Tell"

Present students with "telling" statements, such as:

Julie's angry at Tim.
Lorena is shy.
The house is creepy.

Ask students to suggest ways of showing these things instead. Use this to start a discussion the difference between showing and telling, and when it might be better to do one or the other.

1) Your character and their spouse are looking at a house they're thinking of buying. Write a scene which shows (without telling) the following:

The character doesn't really want to buy a house.
The character's spouse desperately wants to buy a house.
The real estate agent is trying to hide something about the house.

2) Two old friends get together for dinner after a long time apart. One of them is secretly in love with the other one. Show this, don't tell it.

Descriptive Detail - Teaching Ideas

Descriptive details

Group activities:

For an in-person class: if possible, take students somewhere outdoors.

First, have them take notes on visual details they observe.
Next, have them spend a few minutes paying attention to, and taking notes on, what they hear.
Then, have them take notes on smells.
After that, have them take notes on temperature, textures, and tactile sensations.
Finally, have students compare notes to discover additional details they might not have noticed.

For an online class, you can conduct a similar activity. Ask students to take notes on their surroundings, starting with visual details, then moving on to sounds, smells, and tactile sensations. Afterwards, have students describe their surroundings to the class.

1) Have students keep a journal, where they take notes on sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations they observe or experience. 2) Prompt: Your character has to leave their hotel in the middle of the night (you decide why; e.g., to catch an early flight, for a clandestine meeting, to avoid paying for the room, etc.). Right when your character is opening the door of their room, all of the lights in the building go out. Your character is determined to leave anyway, even though they can't see a thing. At some point, your character realizes they've lost their way and are in a part of the building they never intended to go. Write the scene, using descriptive details from senses other than sight; i.e., sound, touch, etc.

Story Beginnings - Teaching Ideas

Great Story Beginnings

Give the students some story beginnings to read, and discuss:

What expectations are set by each one?
Which beginnings make them want to read more, and why?

Take a story you've previously written and see if you can improve the beginning.

Try beginning later in the story to see if that works better. Experiment with starting the story in different places.

Experiment with beginning with dialogue, action or something that will provoke the reader's curiosity.

Revision Techniques - Teaching Ideas

Novel Revision Checklist

For an adult creative writing class, you could offer students the chance to workshop their pieces. It's important to manage the workshops to maintain a positive tone and prevent students from getting discouraged, especially if you are teaching beginning writers.

1) Pretend you're a reader coming to your story for the first time. Read the story from beginning to end. What are your overall impressions?

2) Go through this checklist and see if it gives you ideas for anything you might improve.

3) Experiment with revising or changing different aspects of your story to see if you can make it better. Keep a copy of your original version so that you always have the option to go back to it. That way you can revise without fear, knowing that none of your experiments need to be permanent.

4) Once you have a version you're happy with, go through it again and look for everything you can cut—unnecessary scenes, paragraphs, sentences, or words.

5) Read through your manuscript out loud to look for places where you can smooth or polish the language.

How to Run a Writing Workshop

In most workshops, students read an author's piece ahead of time to prepare for classroom discussion. It's important to keep the discussion encouraging and respectful. Here are two possible workshop formats. Workshop for an advanced class:

The author should try not to talk during the critique except to ask clarifying questions.
First, students discuss what they think the piece is about and what it is trying to achieve. At this stage, they are not judging the piece or offering suggestions. This discussion helps the author understand how well the group has grasped the piece.
Second, students talk about what they think works well in the piece and what caught their interest. Starting with positive feedback makes it easier for the author to listen to criticism later without becoming defensive or discouraged.
Third, students give constructive criticism. Ensure that criticism is respectful and delivered in a way that helps the author make specific improvements. Keep comments as specific as possible and clearly focused on the piece, rather than on the author.

Workshop for other groups: What is most helpful for beginning writers is often experimentation and practice. The first priority is to help these writers build their confidence and stay motivated. I have found "positive feedback only" workshops to be useful both for beginners and more advanced writers. In these workshops, the authors share their work, and group discussion is limited to the following question:

"What caught your attention about this piece, or what did you think was working well?"

How to Teach Writing - Next Steps

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Why the teaching of creative writing matters

Lecturer in Creative Writing, University of Bolton

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Simon Holloway lectures in Creative Writing at The University of Bolton

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For the last 30 years or so the rise of creative writing programmes in universities has been met with seemingly unending howls of derision from all quarters. Hanif Kureishi, novelist, screenwriter – and professor of creative writing at Kingston University – described them as a “waste of time”. But universities around the world beg to differ, as the increasing number of courses and students testify.

The recent Sunday Times league tables for universities ranked the quality of teaching in creative writing at The University of Bolton as the best in the country. The programme there also boasts the highest ranking in terms of student experience.

Given that I am the only full-time lecturer in creative writing at Bolton – and also led the programme for two of the three years the recent figures cover – I should be able easily to explain our success, and why our students rate our teaching so highly. I say “should”, because I’m not sure of the answer.

There are easy ways to get students to rate teaching highly. We can tailor the classes to their personal needs and wants, and give them all high marks. Or we can teach them at a lower level than we should so that they feel a greater sense of achievement. But at Bolton we do none of these. So what’s the secret?

The measure of a mark

How you actually go about judging the quality of teaching – particularly with a subject like creative writing – is tricky. There are the normal ways that universities use: peer-assessment, student feedback, the evaluation of staff by professionals who specialise in methods of teaching and learning and staff development programmes. And as Bolton is a teaching intensive, research informed university we do a lot of these things, and I think we do them very well.

But I wonder whether what is being measured or evaluated in these assessments is more the style of the teacher, rather than the content. Most assessors are experts in teaching methods and practices – and it’s unreasonable to expect them to have detailed knowledge of every subject.

As non-specialists they are able to measure the levels of student engagement, of academic challenge, of whether the “learning outcomes” which plague university teaching in creative writing are being met. And if you measure it this way, then it’s quite possible that detractors such as Kureishi are right.

A place for play

Except that the teaching of creative writing, when done well, is about more than the skills and craft and technique, important as these things are. And as the writer and lecturer Liam Murray Bell describes, writers must find and use a consistency of tone, style and voice.

It’s also about encouraging students to play, to move beyond their normal styles and subjects of writing, beyond their use of traditional structural, narrative and poetic forms – and to ask them to see what happens. In this sense university is a place for play . Teacher and game designer Eric Zimmerman has defined play as:

The free space of movement within a more rigid structure. Play exists both because of and also despite the more rigid structures of a system.

If students are not actively encouraged to play then we are simply encouraging them to remain as static as they were when they entered higher education – even if they are more adept at using “writerly” skills and techniques.

The secret of success

To me it seems there is no “secret” to good teaching. You do the basics, and you do them as well as you possibly can. You limit class numbers. You give student-writers the individual attention they crave. You make sure that your teachers are good writers and that your writers are good teachers, so that expertise can be shared effectively.

And you make students read widely. They should read the classics, I suppose, but they should also read the “non-classics” – what many academics see as trash fiction. And they should read their peers and contemporaries too.

Importantly, they should read things such as advertising billboards and street signs, the shapes of buildings, the colour of the pavement, the weather, the look in people’s faces. Writers need to breathe in so that they can breathe out their own individual reactions and responses. At Bolton we spend time reading and breathing, and that helps students find voices and interactions which can blend with the craft of writing to produce work which means something to them.

Very few students will earn a living as a writer. But writing is about more than that, and the ability to communicate effectively is a rare and precious thing. Good teaching should not be measured in the texts which students produce, then, but in the knowledge gained through the actions of writing – knowledge which lasts forever.

In the end, if students enjoy their studies, and believe that they’re gaining skills which are transferable in the workplace and will last them well beyond university, then perhaps that is what they see as ‘good teaching’. And perhaps too they’re the best ones to judge.

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4 strategies for teaching creative writing

Tip 1: Crossing out

Tip 2: explicitly teach sentence stems, tip 3: build a planning routine, tip 4: go big or go home.

A blank page can be a fearful thing. As I sit typing this (cocooned in the corner of a bustling coffee shop), it seems a fearful thing to me, too. One by one, words tentatively appear, and yet the whiteness of the page dominates and suffocates the lettered blackness.

It can be an especially fearful thing for our students. Surrounded by the silence of an examination hall, pens scratching cold paper, they sit and stare at the mountainous alps of their booklet. The summit stretches out a great distance away, with so little time to plot and navigate their way.

This is often most keenly felt in creative writing. Being creative on demand is no easy task. The blankness of the paper is only compounded by the apparent blankness of ideas. And still, the clock ticks. In this article, I’ll share four top tips for helping students get better at creative writing, ensuring they always have something ready to fill the whiteness of the page.

One of the biggest conceptual shifts I’ve made in my teaching of creative writing is to focus on crossing out . When we—or our students— cross something out in their writing, what does it imply? It invariably implies a moment of thought and consideration. Is this the best word the gesture suggests, or should I use a different one?

Encouraging students to adopt a crossing-out mentality can be hugely powerful. As we write, I’ll often remind students to look for any words they could cross out, modelling this in my own writing. As I write, I cross out, always being sure to narrate why I’ve crossed something out and what is replacing it .

Of course, in and of itself, crossing out does not guarantee progress. It is a proxy, but a helpful one. Crossing out becomes a concrete and easily understood analogy for the kind of deliberate, sustained crafting that so often characterises the best writing. We don’t just want students to fill up their blank pages; we want them to fill them up with excellent writing .

Teacher teaching creating writing skills.

In order to cross out, students need something to cross out in the first place. This is where repeatable and recyclable sentence stems come into their own. They provide students with snippets of excellent writing they can drag and drop into their response, adapting as necessary.

Students often complain—rightly so—that creative writing can be bereft of content to revise. Sentence stems give them something tangible to rehearse. Teach them in advance, show students how to manipulate them, and get students to experiment on their own.

If the sentence occupies the micro, then students also need a sharp and cohesive macro structure in order to succeed. This is where planning becomes essential.

To help students with this, I explicitly teach and model a particular planning routine that can be adapted and adopted at the start of an examination. This helps students make sure they’re asking the best questions as well as get them into the zone.

This routine always looks the same, sketched out on a single side of A4, and goes like this:

POV: Students decide the narrative point of view they wish to adopt, which is especially valuable if responding to an image, like many questions require.
Happy or sad: Students now consider if their point of view is happy or sad. I purposely keep this question very broad, but they may wish to be a little more nuanced in their emotional choice. The key is that they’re thinking about an emotional groove for their piece.
Why? Now, students can reflect on why their point of view is happy or sad, beginning to build some kind of backstory or narrative thrust to their writing.

Female student practising her creative writing skills.

At this point, and with some basics covered, students can sketch out an overall structure for their response. At the most basic level possible, I like: First, Next, Next, And Then . What happens first, and then next, and then next, and then how does it end?

Finally, I ask students to consider a big idea they would like to convey within their writing.

With all of this mapped out, students can now begin to write.

Let’s pause for a moment on this idea of a ‘big idea’. It is easy to imagine what this means when teaching a literature text, and we probably spend a lot of time considering it with our classes.

What is Shakespeare trying to accomplish in Macbeth, we might explore? Interwoven with our discussion of the play, we consider Shakespeare’s depiction of power and the way it corrupts, as well as his depiction of kingship or femininity. These are some of the play’s big ideas.

A consideration of the ‘big’ is just as important for a student’s own writing as it is for the literature they study. What is it that they wish to show or explore in their writing? What do they want to do? Helping students to appreciate they can have something to say within their own writing can be truly empowering and liberating.

In my own modelling, I like to return to the concept of time . This unlocks so many interesting directions: transience, time passing, memory, recapturing youth. But it also provides a wealth of imagery for students to leverage. Wrinkled hands, a faded wedding ring, a scratched and crumpled photograph, an item of clothing lovingly stored away at the back of a wardrobe, gathering dust.

This block is currently empty. Please add some content.

A blank page can be a fearful thing, it’s true. But one filled with scribbled writing, well, that can be joyful.

These four strategies will hopefully help your students make sure they turn their blank pages into a piece of writing they can be truly proud of.

Andrew Atherton

Andrew Atherton is an English teacher at a school in Berkshire. He runs the popular blog site Codexterous , which includes a wealth of posts outlining strategies for teaching English Literature and English Language as well as lots of resources.

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Creative Writing Skills: 6 Lessons You Need To Teach Today

So, you’re going to teach Creative Writing. Congratulations! Now comes the hard part–what exactly does that mean? What should you be teaching? What skills should your students be learning? In this post, I’m going to share some essential Creative Writing skills you should be teaching in your high school Creative Writing class.

If you’re looking for more tips to teach Creative Writing, check out this post . And if you need help planning the Creative Writing semester, this post should help .

(Looking to skip the planning entirely? Grab all of my Creative Writing skills lessons right here! )

"Creative Writing Skills: 6 Lessons You Need to Teach Today" It's Lit Teaching blog post Pinterest pin

Creative Writing Skills #1: Show. Don’t Tell.

The advice to “show, don’t tell” is some of the oldest and most consistent advice given to young writers. And it’s for a good reason–they really struggle with it!

About half of my students come into Creative Writing with these big elaborate stories they want to tell. But when they actually get into writing, their stories feel more like a list of events that happened.

I’ve seen months of plot happen in just a paragraph of my students’ writing. Students need to learn to slow down and create an experience for their readers. It’s how a story unfolds, after all, that makes it worthwhile–not the events themselves.

Tips for Teaching “Show. Don’t Tell”

Cover of It's Lit Teaching Product: Creative Writing Workshop and Mini Lesson for Showing, Not Telling in Writing

Like all creative writing skills, you’ll want to show your students some really good mentor texts first . Find some excerpts from books with really juicy descriptions. Share these with your students.

After they have some examples, give students time to try “telling” an event, description, or emotion instead of “showing” it.

I do this by giving each student a “telling sentence” and asking them to turn it into a “showing” paragraph. A student might get a sentence that says something like, “Billy felt angry.” Then, they’ll have to write a whole paragraph that implies Billy is angry without actually saying it bluntly.

If you want to save yourself some time (and the mental anguish of brainstorming a bunch of bland sentences), you can get my “Show. Don’t Tell” Mini-Lesson right here. It includes a slideshow, student worksheets, and those telling sentences.

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Creative Writing Skills #2: Precise and Concise Language Choice

Now that your students are learning to slow down and offer descriptions in their writing, it’s time to help them focus on their word choice.

Diction is immensely important to a writer–especially when storytelling gets more advanced. A lot of our students want to write down the first words that come to their minds and then “be done.”

But we know great writing doesn’t happen like that. We have to teach our students to find the best word, not the first word–without abusing a thesaurus.

Tips for Teaching Better Word Choice

First, you’ll want to show your students some examples of really great concise and precise word choice. You’ll also want to show some not-so-great examples. The comparison should be eye-opening for your students.

Now, the best way to become more precise in your diction is to improve your vocabulary. We probably can’t make great strides in improving our students’ vocabulary in just a quarter or semester of Creative Writing.

But we can show them how to improve some of the most commonly used vague language . One great example of this is the word “got.”

It’s pretty rare that “got” is the best verb for a situation, but we–and our students–use it all the time. If we can teach students that “got” is a red flag for vague language, that’s a huge step!

We can also teach our students to avoid filler words.

If you need help putting this all together in a lesson, I have a no-prep Precise and Concise Langauge Mini-Lesson right here for you . Included is a slideshow, students worksheets, and a reference handout for students they can use every day.

Creative Writing Skills #3: Dialogue

Your students are starting to put words on a page and–hey–they’re not bad!

But at some point, your students are going to have their characters talk to each other. And this can be when stories get really, really bad.

Early on in your Creative Writing class, encourage your students to start listening to the way others speak. Where do they pause? What slang do they use? When do they use complete sentences and when don’t they? You can even ask students to jot down conversations they overhear.

A great writer has an ear for dialogue, and this skill begins when students become aware of speech around them. Encouraging them to eavesdrop will help them write realistic dialogue later. Just remind them to be respectful. Eavesdropping in the cafeteria is one thing. Listening outside someone’s bedroom door is another.

Our students not only struggle with mimicking real, authentic speech, but they also struggle with punctuating it. Depending on the skill level of your students, you may have to pick your battles here. Cheesy speech might be worth ignoring if there’s no quotation mark in sight.

Tips for Teaching Dialogue Writing

First, and foremost, I like to cover punctuating dialogue first. For one reason, it’s because punctuating dialogue is either right or wrong. It’s easier to learn something that is objective.

For another reason, I, personally, can’t stand reading poorly punctuated dialogue. My English teacher’s eyes just can’t see past it.

Only once the quotation marks, commas, and periods are at least close to the right spot do I focus on trying to improve the content of students’ dialogue.

Students’ dialogue writing is only going to get better through practice and observing real-life speech. However, you can give them some tips for writing dialogue better.

For example, remind your students not to have characters talk too much . I’ve seen stories with pages and pages of dialogue. Each character’s every little “hi,” “‘sup?” and “‘nothin’ much” gets recorded. Let your students know they can skip anything that doesn’t add value to the story.

If you need help planning this lesson, I have a done-for-you Dialogue Mini-lesson right here. It includes a slideshow lesson, worksheets for focusing on both punctuation and craft, and a writing exercise. Get it here.

Creative Writing Skills #4: Mood

If you can only teach your students the above Creative Writing skills, you will no doubt improve their writing tremendously. But if you want to take your students’ writing up a notch, encourage them to think about the mood in their poetry and stories.

Students will no doubt have heard this literary term from their regular English classes, but it’s always worth reviewing first. Plus, they’ve probably read for mood, but creating it is a totally different game.

Tips for Teaching Mood

There are so many ways you can teach your students to create mood. It’s a pretty fun topic!

You might want to begin with some brainstorming. Like, what kind of mood might a horror story have? A comedy? You want students to understand why, as a writer, mastering mood is important to them.

Then, like always, you’ll want to share some solid mentor texts. I love horror stories for showcasing well-written mood, but love poems are also good for this.

Whenever possible in Creative Writing, I like to mix up the media, so I have students first analyze the mood of various classic paintings. As an English teacher, it tickles me to show students that these literary terms apply to art of all kind. Film clips would work really well, too.

Then, challenge students to write a scene and evoke a specific mood. You could randomly assign the mood or let students pick.

In my Mood Mini-Lesson , I have students analyze the mood in painting first. Then, I have them choose a card. Each card has a different mood written on it. Then, students must describe a setting that evokes that mood. You can get this mood lesson for yourself here.

Creative Writing Skills #5: Tone

Well, if you’re going to teach mood, then tone is the likely next skill, right?

Teaching tone and mood is important because their differences are subtle, but important. Until students study tone, they might mistake it for mood and mix the two together.

I never expect my students to master tone. It’s difficult and something that even professional writers polish over the course of many drafts. But it doesn’t hurt to get students thinking about the impact of their word choice.

Don’t forget to remind students of the importance of choosing those precise and concise words. With tone, it’s truly what makes a difference.

Tips for Teaching Tone

After defining tone and showing great examples of it to your students, give them some space to practice identifying it.

Cover for It's Lit Teaching product: Creative Writing Mini Lesson and Workshop Tone

I like to cover informal and formal tones–not just emotional tones. Identifying whether a piece of writing is formal or informal is a great first step for students. It’s a little easier but an important skill and might give your students a bit of confidence in their tone-identifying skills.

Once they know what tone looks like, they can try to create it themselves.

The activity I do involves having students write a short scene.

I randomly give my students a tone to use. I also randomly give them a situation. So, a student may have to describe “eating lunch in the cafeteria” with a “romantic” tone. The results can be pretty entertaining!

If that sounds like a lesson you’d like, you can get my Tone Mini-Lesson right here . Includes are a slideshow, students worksheets, and the slips for tones and situations.

And, if you’re teaching mood and tone, I have a FREE Mood and Tone Handout right here!

Creative Writing Skills #6: Voice

I put voice last in this blog post, but it could just as easily have been first. Voice is difficult to define for students, but it’s something they should be working on crafting throughout your whole Creative Writing class.

Even if your students never quite master their literary voice (who does?), it’s a good skill to discuss with them. If students understand the concept of literary voice, it will make them better writers and more analytical readers.

Tips for Teaching Literary Voice

You’ll first have to define voice for your students. This can be challenging. It might be easier to focus on a few aspects of voice–like diction or syntax–in order to explain the concept.

Discuss with students their favorite authors. What does their “voice” sound like? What about the authors you’ve read and studied together?

Give students examples of strong voice to examine (the stronger the better). Have them discuss the techniques and style of each mentor text.

To drive this home, I do a fun activity with my students. I take three very different poems by authors with very different voices. Then, I cut them up, line by line, and mix the three poems together. My students are then tasked with putting the poems back together!

To do this successfully, they’ll have to look for styles that match. Rhyming may be part of one author’s voice, but not another. One author may create a dark mood while another uses humor consistently. It’s a great way to drive home how voice can be an author’s calling card.

This activity and some additional practice are included in my Voice Mini-lesson . Also included is a slideshow to introduce the concept. You can save yourself some time and get the lesson here.

These are some skills that I think are essential for any Creative Writing class. There’s no one right way to teach any of these skills, and teaching from multiple angles is best.

Whenever possible, I like to make my Creative Writing lessons hands-on. Even the most die-hard students get sick of writing every minute of every class.

If you, too, would like some hands-on lessons and short activities that cover these essential skills, check out my Creative Writing Workshops Bundle . Each lesson includes everything you need to teach, model, and help your students master these skills one at a time.

Cover for It's Lit Teaching Product: Creative Writing Workshops Mini Lessons Bundle

Teaching Creative Writing

© 2012
Heather Beck 0

Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

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Part of the book series: Teaching the New English (TENEEN)

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About this book

A Diverse Approach to Teaching Creative Writing

Creative Writing for Professional Writing Majors

How to Teach Creatively

creative writing
critical theory

Table of contents (25 chapters)

Front matter, introduction.

Heather Beck

A Short History of Creative Writing in British Universities

Graeme Harper

A Short History of Creative Writing in America

DeWitt Henry

On the Reform of Creative Writing

David G. Myers

Creative Writing and Creative Reading in the Poetry Workshop

Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Jena Osman

The Irrational Element in the Undergraduate Poetry Workshop: Beyond Craft

Gary Hawkins

The Creative Writing Workshop: a Survival Kit

Michelene Wandor

Undergraduate Creative Writing

Undergraduate creative writing provision in the uk: origins, trends and student views, undergraduate creative writing in the united states: buying in isn’t selling out, hidden purposes of undergraduate creative writing: power, self and knowledge.

Hans Ostrom

No Factories, Please — We’re Writers

Maureen Freely

Postgraduate Creative Writing

Teaching creative writing at postgraduate levels: the sheffield hallam experience.

Steven Earnshaw

Creative Writing and Ph.D. Research

A critique of postgraduate workshops and a case for low-residency mfas.

Robin Hemley

Reflective Activities

Authors and affiliations, about the author, bibliographic information.

Book Title : Teaching Creative Writing

Authors : Heather Beck

Series Title : Teaching the New English

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137284464

Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan London

eBook Packages : Palgrave Literature Collection , Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

Hardcover ISBN : 978-0-230-24007-0 Published: 21 October 2012

Softcover ISBN : 978-0-230-24008-7 Published: 21 October 2012

eBook ISBN : 978-1-137-28446-4 Published: 18 October 2012

Series ISSN : 1754-9728

Series E-ISSN : 2947-9266

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XIV, 198

Topics : Teaching and Teacher Education , Literary Theory , Cultural Theory , Literature, general , Creative Writing , Creativity and Arts Education

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Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

Four Strategies for Effective Writing Instruction

(This is the first post in a two-part series.)

The new question-of-the-week is:

What is the single most effective instructional strategy you have used to teach writing?

Teaching and learning good writing can be a challenge to educators and students alike.

The topic is no stranger to this column—you can see many previous related posts at Writing Instruction .

But I don’t think any of us can get too much good instructional advice in this area.

Today, Jenny Vo, Michele Morgan, and Joy Hamm share wisdom gained from their teaching experience.

Before I turn over the column to them, though, I’d like to share my favorite tool(s).

Graphic organizers, including writing frames (which are basically more expansive sentence starters) and writing structures (which function more as guides and less as “fill-in-the-blanks”) are critical elements of my writing instruction.

You can see an example of how I incorporate them in my seven-week story-writing unit and in the adaptations I made in it for concurrent teaching.

You might also be interested in The Best Scaffolded Writing Frames For Students .

Now, to today’s guests:

‘Shared Writing’

Jenny Vo earned her B.A. in English from Rice University and her M.Ed. in educational leadership from Lamar University. She has worked with English-learners during all of her 24 years in education and is currently an ESL ISST in Katy ISD in Katy, Texas. Jenny is the president-elect of TexTESOL IV and works to advocate for all ELs:

The single most effective instructional strategy that I have used to teach writing is shared writing. Shared writing is when the teacher and students write collaboratively. In shared writing, the teacher is the primary holder of the pen, even though the process is a collaborative one. The teacher serves as the scribe, while also questioning and prompting the students.

The students engage in discussions with the teacher and their peers on what should be included in the text. Shared writing can be done with the whole class or as a small-group activity.

There are two reasons why I love using shared writing. One, it is a great opportunity for the teacher to model the structures and functions of different types of writing while also weaving in lessons on spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

It is a perfect activity to do at the beginning of the unit for a new genre. Use shared writing to introduce the students to the purpose of the genre. Model the writing process from beginning to end, taking the students from idea generation to planning to drafting to revising to publishing. As you are writing, make sure you refrain from making errors, as you want your finished product to serve as a high-quality model for the students to refer back to as they write independently.

Another reason why I love using shared writing is that it connects the writing process with oral language. As the students co-construct the writing piece with the teacher, they are orally expressing their ideas and listening to the ideas of their classmates. It gives them the opportunity to practice rehearsing what they are going to say before it is written down on paper. Shared writing gives the teacher many opportunities to encourage their quieter or more reluctant students to engage in the discussion with the types of questions the teacher asks.

Writing well is a skill that is developed over time with much practice. Shared writing allows students to engage in the writing process while observing the construction of a high-quality sample. It is a very effective instructional strategy used to teach writing.

‘Four Square’

Michele Morgan has been writing IEPs and behavior plans to help students be more successful for 17 years. She is a national-board-certified teacher, Utah Teacher Fellow with Hope Street Group, and a special education elementary new-teacher specialist with the Granite school district. Follow her @MicheleTMorgan1:

For many students, writing is the most dreaded part of the school day. Writing involves many complex processes that students have to engage in before they produce a product—they must determine what they will write about, they must organize their thoughts into a logical sequence, and they must do the actual writing, whether on a computer or by hand. Still they are not done—they must edit their writing and revise mistakes. With all of that, it’s no wonder that students struggle with writing assignments.

In my years working with elementary special education students, I have found that writing is the most difficult subject to teach. Not only do my students struggle with the writing process, but they often have the added difficulties of not knowing how to spell words and not understanding how to use punctuation correctly. That is why the single most effective strategy I use when teaching writing is the Four Square graphic organizer.

The Four Square instructional strategy was developed in 1999 by Judith S. Gould and Evan Jay Gould. When I first started teaching, a colleague allowed me to borrow the Goulds’ book about using the Four Square method, and I have used it ever since. The Four Square is a graphic organizer that students can make themselves when given a blank sheet of paper. They fold it into four squares and draw a box in the middle of the page. The genius of this instructional strategy is that it can be used by any student, in any grade level, for any writing assignment. These are some of the ways I have used this strategy successfully with my students:

* Writing sentences: Students can write the topic for the sentence in the middle box, and in each square, they can draw pictures of details they want to add to their writing.

* Writing paragraphs: Students write the topic sentence in the middle box. They write a sentence containing a supporting detail in three of the squares and they write a concluding sentence in the last square.

* Writing short essays: Students write what information goes in the topic paragraph in the middle box, then list details to include in supporting paragraphs in the squares.

When I gave students writing assignments, the first thing I had them do was create a Four Square. We did this so often that it became automatic. After filling in the Four Square, they wrote rough drafts by copying their work off of the graphic organizer and into the correct format, either on lined paper or in a Word document. This worked for all of my special education students!

I was able to modify tasks using the Four Square so that all of my students could participate, regardless of their disabilities. Even if they did not know what to write about, they knew how to start the assignment (which is often the hardest part of getting it done!) and they grew to be more confident in their writing abilities.

In addition, when it was time to take the high-stakes state writing tests at the end of the year, this was a strategy my students could use to help them do well on the tests. I was able to give them a sheet of blank paper, and they knew what to do with it. I have used many different curriculum materials and programs to teach writing in the last 16 years, but the Four Square is the one strategy that I have used with every writing assignment, no matter the grade level, because it is so effective.

‘Swift Structures’

Joy Hamm has taught 11 years in a variety of English-language settings, ranging from kindergarten to adult learners. The last few years working with middle and high school Newcomers and completing her M.Ed in TESOL have fostered stronger advocacy in her district and beyond:

A majority of secondary content assessments include open-ended essay questions. Many students falter (not just ELs) because they are unaware of how to quickly organize their thoughts into a cohesive argument. In fact, the WIDA CAN DO Descriptors list level 5 writing proficiency as “organizing details logically and cohesively.” Thus, the most effective cross-curricular secondary writing strategy I use with my intermediate LTELs (long-term English-learners) is what I call “Swift Structures.” This term simply means reading a prompt across any content area and quickly jotting down an outline to organize a strong response.

To implement Swift Structures, begin by displaying a prompt and modeling how to swiftly create a bubble map or outline beginning with a thesis/opinion, then connecting the three main topics, which are each supported by at least three details. Emphasize this is NOT the time for complete sentences, just bulleted words or phrases.

Once the outline is completed, show your ELs how easy it is to plug in transitions, expand the bullets into detailed sentences, and add a brief introduction and conclusion. After modeling and guided practice, set a 5-10 minute timer and have students practice independently. Swift Structures is one of my weekly bell ringers, so students build confidence and skill over time. It is best to start with easy prompts where students have preformed opinions and knowledge in order to focus their attention on the thesis-topics-supporting-details outline, not struggling with the rigor of a content prompt.

Here is one easy prompt example: “Should students be allowed to use their cellphones in class?”

Swift Structure outline:

Thesis - Students should be allowed to use cellphones because (1) higher engagement (2) learning tools/apps (3) gain 21st-century skills

Topic 1. Cellphones create higher engagement in students...

Details A. interactive (Flipgrid, Kahoot)

B. less tempted by distractions

C. teaches responsibility

Topic 2. Furthermore,...access to learning tools...

A. Google Translate description

B. language practice (Duolingo)

C. content tutorials (Kahn Academy)

Topic 3. In addition,...practice 21st-century skills…

Details A. prep for workforce

B. access to information

C. time-management support

This bare-bones outline is like the frame of a house. Get the structure right, and it’s easier to fill in the interior decorating (style, grammar), roof (introduction) and driveway (conclusion). Without the frame, the roof and walls will fall apart, and the reader is left confused by circuitous rubble.

Once LTELs have mastered creating simple Swift Structures in less than 10 minutes, it is time to introduce complex questions similar to prompts found on content assessments or essays. Students need to gain assurance that they can quickly and logically explain and justify their opinions on multiple content essays without freezing under pressure.

Thanks to Jenny, Michele, and Joy for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

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Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching Creative Writing

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The Director's Welcome

Calling writers who teach, teachers who write, and those interested in applying creative writing (or its theory) within their professional field!

The Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching Creative Writing is structured around 3 modules that are designed with a focus on a different area of teaching creative writing. By the end of the course you will have an enhanced knowledge of relevant existing pedagogical theory, acquired new practical skills for teaching, assessment and planning and you will have developed reflective awareness and innovation in your own teaching practice.

We will be running a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching Creative Writing Information Session on 15th February at 18:30 GMT as part of our Postgraduate Open Day 2024. Book now .

Watch the recording from our Open Morning on 10 February 2023.

Who is the course designed for ?

The course is aimed at:

published writers who wish to teach or offer writing workshops;
existing creative writing tutors who want to improve or develop a more cohesive and defined pedagogy;
graduates of postgraduate level Creative Writing programmes who wish to become teachers of creative writing;.
Healthcare or industry professionals who wish to offer creative writing classes;
professional development for qualified teachers interested in exploring the theory of teaching creative writing or who include creative exercises as part of their teaching of core subjects (eg. History or English).

Aims of the programme

The programme aims to enable participants to:

• develop their skills as a teacher of creative writing and strategies for their intended teaching contexts;

• develop and or extend their knowledge of the theories and practices of the teaching of creative writing;

• develop their repertoire of teaching, course design and assessment methods appropriate to creative writing in their context;

• develop a reflexive and critical awareness of their own teaching practice and to transmit what they have learned from their own experience of being a writer into a classroom setting.

Teaching and Learning

The course is taught over three modules, each of which students must attend. A Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) offers learning support to students while they are on the programme, including learning resources and peer-to-peer and student-to-tutor discussion between modules to build a virtual community of practice.

Module 1: The Philosophy and Context of Teaching Creative Writing

04 - 06 October 2024

This module will introduce students to the Postgraduate Certificate and will address:

the background and history of teaching creative writing;
the concept of ‘creativity’ and the arguments surrounding whether or not creative writing can be taught;
the methodologies surrounding teaching creative writing;
how teaching creative writing may vary within different settings such as schools, higher education and prisons.

Module 2: Designing a Creative Writing Course

17 - 19 January 2025

This module will address:

different models of creative writing courses and the advantages and challenges of each;
the pedagogical theories behind different types of courses;
the use of close reading in different settings and what makes a good extract;
the quality assurance aspects of designing a creative writing course;
the emotional and psychological impact of teaching creative writing for tutors and students.

Module 3: Assessment and Feedback in a Creative Writing Course

04 - 06 April 2025

different ways of providing feedback in different contexts;
the pedagogical theories behind different types of feedback;
the challenges of providing written feedback to a range of students;
the historical roots of the workshop and its appropriateness in different settings.

You will be awarded a course grade on the basis of a portfolio of three summative assignments totalling 10,000 words.

Please note that this course does not lead to a formal teaching qualification.

Find out more

If you have any questions about this course, would like an informal discussion on academic matters before making your application, or would like to know more about the admissions process, please complete this enquiry form with your questions .

Applicants should hold a good undergraduate degree (good 2.1 or overseas equivalent) and would need to be competent in the English language. There is provision to accept non-standard applicants who do not satisfy the standard academic criterion. Such applicants must produce evidence of relevant and equivalent experience and their suitability for the course.

Language requirement

IELTS Academic: Overall band score of 7.5 (with a minimum of 7.0 in each individual component)
CAE: Grade A or B (with at least 193 in each individual element) plus a language centre assessment
CPE: Grade A, B, or C (with at least 200 in each individual element)
TOEFL iBT: Overall score of at least 110 with no element below 25

Applicants might come from an existing teaching environment, (primary, secondary or tertiary), be practising writers or postgraduate students who wish to develop the skills to lead workshops, those looking to improve or develop a more cohesive or defined creative writing pedagogy, or professionals in other industries who would like to explore using creative writing as a development tool within their field.

International Students : If you are not a UK resident please visit our international students' page to read about visas for part-time students. Please make sure you have investigated your visa requirements in advance of booking as we cannot offer a refund if you find you are unable to take up the place due to visa constraints after you have booked your place on the course.

The fee will be £4,750.00 for Home and for EU/Overseas students the fee is £8,240.00. Students will be expected to cover the application fee (£50 online), accommodation whilst in Cambridge and any costs of travel to Cambridge.

You can pay in one of two ways:

In full on enrolment (by cheque payable to the University of Cambridge or by credit or debit card)
in four instalments (credit/debit card only)

ICE fees and refunds policy

First story - Institute of Continuing Education Tuition Fee Bursary Scheme

The University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education (ICE) and the creative writing charity First Story have collaborated to provide four partial tuition fee bursaries for this course. The First Story - Institute of Continuing Education Tuition Fee Bursary Scheme will enable teachers, librarians or other literary professionals working in deprived and/or disadvantaged settings to enrol on the part-time University of Cambridge Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching Creative Writing .

These bursaries, which will cover up to £2000 of the course fee, are intended to support applicants who work in state funded settings such as state schools, public libraries, local authorities, the NHS or HM Prisons Service and will be interested in using creative writing as a development tool within their field. We will also consider applicants from third-sector organisations and not-for-profit organisations. (If you are awarded a bursary you would be responsible for paying the remaining tuition fee.).

How to apply for a bursary

Step one: Apply for a place on the course. Applicants can only apply for a bursary after making an application for the Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching Creative Writing course through the online application portal.

Step two: Complete this online Bursary Application Form . You will be required to provide your course application payment reference number, a personal statement about how you will benefit from the course and bursary, and a copy of your CV.

First Story - Institute of Continuing Education Tuition Fee Bursary Scheme Terms and Conditions .

The deadline for bursary applications is 6 June 2024.

Other sources of funding

Sources of government funding and financial support - including Professional and Career Development Loans.

This course will require a minimum number of students in order to run. Applicants for this course will be notified by September 2024 if the course is not going to be running at which point students will be offered a refund of the fees they have paid so far (please see our Cancellation policy) .

Applications close on the 6th June 2024 and interviews for shortlisted candidates will be held in July. Interviews will take place either in person or by remote software if candidates are unable to attend in person. Candidates will be contacted to arrange convenient times during the previous week.”

Applicants will be required to apply online and will need to provide a CV and a personal statement of around 500 words in addition to:

Copies of relevant qualification certificates and transcripts
Language proficiency if required
Contact details of two referees who will be contacted on your behalf

We welcome learners of all backgrounds and abilities at the Institute of Continuing Education (ICE), and for this reason we have robust learning support in place for any student who needs it.

The Accessibility & Disability Resource Centre (ADRC) provides advice, guidance, and resources to disabled students on ICE award-bearing undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

If you have a disability or medical condition including a mental health condition, then please indicate this on your application form so we can work with you on supporting your studies. If you would like to access support from the ADRC please complete their online Student Information Form as soon as possible. If you are able to, please upload your evidence (written in English) within the Student Information Form where prompted. The following links to guidance on medical evidence or diagnostic evidence will help to answer any questions you may have.

If you have any questions concerning disability support then please contact the ADRC NMS team via [email protected] or view their website via https://www.disability.admin.cam.ac.uk/non-matriculated-students

You can also disclose a disability at any time during your course by contacting either the ADRC NMS team, or ICE’s Student Support team via [email protected]

Student wellbeing is a key priority at ICE, and we have a dedicated Student Support team who can provide wellbeing support and guidance. Please contact the team via [email protected]

How often does the Postgraduate Certificate run? The Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching Creative Writing course currently has an annual intake.

Is the course taught online, or is it possible to complete the course by distance-learning? This is not a distance-learning course. You will be required to attend teaching sessions in Cambridge.

Are there any sources of funding available? Please view the "Fees and Funding" tab for further details.

How many references are required? We require two references. References need to be submitted from professional e-mail addresses, so please ensure that you enter the relevant details into the online application form.

What kind of references should I provide? We prefer academic references from people who, if at all possible, are able to comment on your writing skills and experience, and your ability to study at Master’s level.

What happens if I am not able to provide academic references? We can accept professional references.

Can I nominate an ICE tutor as my referee? Yes, you may nominate an ICE tutor to act as your referee.

How long should the Personal Statement be? As a guide, we suggest that the Personal Statement is about 500 words in length.

Course dates

Course duration.

Academic Directors, Course Directors and Tutors are subject to change, when necessary.

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Institute of Continuing Education Madingley Hall Madingley Cambridge CB23 8AQ

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Creative Composing: A Lesson Plan for Students, Teachers, and Teacher-Writers

Peitho Volume 26 Issue 1, Fall 2023

Author(s): Meg Scott-Copses

Meg Scott-Copses specializes in creative writing, composition, and an embodied pedagogy that fuses the two. She earned her Ph.D. in poetry from Florida State with a dissertation on service learning in at-risk environments such as prisons and youth shelters. At her home institution, the College of Charleston, she specializes in composition and writing studies, and is the Director of the First-Year Writing program. In 2020, she won the University’s Distinguished Teaching Award, in part based on her research into experiential and embodied teaching practices. She challenges students to explore the intuitive connection between experiential observation and analysis, and between creative and critical thinking.

Introduction

This lesson plan focuses specifically on Wendy Bishop’s chapter “When All Writing is Creative and Student Writing is Literature,” from The Subject is Writing , 2nd edition. Like so much of Bishop’s work, her style and structure serve as direct evidence for her primary argument. She “creatively composes” this chapter, demonstrating the natural overlap between creative and academic pursuits and between student writing and the literature we teach. While Bishop’s work predates the subject we now call rhetorical feminism, she offers a clear example of its key tenets—inclusivity, community, and equity. She privileges dialogue over monologue, inviting students to draw on their own experiences as they develop an empowered and growth-oriented writing practice.

It was long after my graduate training at Florida State that I found language for the re-orientation that Wendy instilled in me. In reading Carolyn Shrewsbury’s “What is Feminist Pedagogy?” and later Cheryl Glenn’s “Remapping Rhetorical Territory,” I came to recognize that my teaching practice moved in these same directions and that I had been guided by Wendy to radically alter the power dynamics and the communication opportunities in my writing classroom. In Shrewsbury’s words, I had created, somewhat unconsciously, a “liberatory environment,” which she describes as:

A classroom characterized as persons connected in a net of relationships…in which we, teacher-student and student-teacher, act as subjects, not objects. Feminist pedagogy is engaged teaching/learning—engaged with self in continuing reflective process; engaged actively with the material being studied; engaged with others in a struggle to get beyond destructive hatreds and to work together to enhance our knowledge; engaged with the community and with movements for social change (166).

Reading any of Wendy’s work reveals these same values as she challenges us to re-orient our understanding of what an academic article is and does. Her chapter “When All Writing is Literature and Student Writing is Creative” offers a clear example of what we might call a “flipped article” (again Wendy’s pedagogy and scholarship was well before the term flipped classroom came into popularity). Readers are immediately inside the experience of her pedagogy, as she places her students’ writing alongside her own. She fuses pedagogical research with lived experience, insisting on a more embodied approach. As for methodology in both creative writing and composition classrooms, she suggests:

Writing always involves the study of exemplary or expert writing in the forms you hope to learn. But you also need the opportunity to write against and experiment with those forms. You have to try it to do it (Bishop 197).

The following lesson plan grows out of this “Try-It” spirit, both for students and for teachers. Recently a colleague asked me about building rapport; he lamented that the buzzwords all sound good in theory—“experiential” “embodied” “hands-on,” “active.” His question: but how do you actually do it? My answer: Not unlike writing, teaching is also about trying it. You have to try it to do it.

Background and Audience

This lesson is appropriate for any of the following courses: Introduction to Academic Writing, First-Year Seminar, Freshman Composition I or II, Introduction to Creative Writing, Introduction to Literary or English Studies, Advanced Composition, Theories of Teaching Writing, Graduate Teaching in English or English Education. Students should come to class having read the article “When All Writing is Creative and Student Writing is Literature,” but even if they haven’t prepared as thoroughly as we’d like, this assignment is designed to experientially teach the key findings of the article and to generate helpful discussions about thinking and writing.

To understand existing distinctions between disciplinary fields of creative writing, literature, and composition.
To generate new, experience-based definitions of creative writing, analytical writing, professional writing, and academic writing
To consider what separates student writing from literature
To study our own writing preferences, beliefs, and practices
To discuss helpful teaching and learning strategies for writing

Discussion and Mapping 10-15 minutes

Create binaries on a whiteboard, smartboard, or overhead using the terms Creative Writing vs. Academic Writing and Student Writing vs. Literature. Ask the class to generate key words and associations that typically fall under each heading, as seen below:

Creative Writing /Academic Writing Student Writing / Literature

Discuss areas of overlap between these divisions. For example, both student writing and literature might be published. Both creative writing and academic writing may involve research. Consider what Bishop’s article adds to this discussion. For example, both creative and academic writing are process-based. Both student writing and literature involve an understanding of generic conventions. In Bishop’s view, risk-taking and engagement apply equally to creative and critical thinking.

Two Writing Prompts 20-25 minutes

Divide the class into two groups, A and B, and assign two different quotations (below), both of which are lines from Bishop’s article. Students should begin with this line. Note: students aren’t quoting Bishop (or Bishop’s students); they are acting as though this is their own opening line.

Group A opening line: Is creative writing stuff that you do for fun and composition stuff that your teacher makes you do? That’s how it felt in elementary school.
Group B opening line: Creativity involves risk taking. It’s likely that in your past, you were not praised for taking risks.

Subdivide these two groups further so that:

Group A-Academic will use opening line A to write an academic/analytical piece .
Group A-Creative will use opening line A to write a creative piece .
Group B-Academic will use opening line B to write an academic/analytical piece.
Group B-Creative will use opening line B to write a creative piece.

Allow 7-10 minutes for this first writing prompt. Make sure students understand that this is an exercise, a first try, and that they may not be finished when time is called. The purpose is to see what we know intuitively about these genres and to notice our own thinking and writing process as we try it out.

After time is called for Prompt 1, explain that students will now use the same opening line, but this time to write in the other genre. For example, students who first worked on a creative piece will now use the same line to write something more academic or analytically driven. Allow 7-10 minutes for the other genre.

Partner Work and Class Discussion 20 minutes

Pair students with a partner to discuss this experiment. Ideally, a student from A-Academic should pair with a student from B-Creative. This will offer students a chance to learn more about the opening line they weren’t assigned. It will also control for variables such as which genre they worked on first or second. Students should trade their writing or read what they’ve written aloud, then discuss their process. Which piece felt more successful? Which one surprised you the most? Students might also identify new ideas or emerging definitions for the thinking processes used in each. It’s unlikely that this discussion will need much prompting. In my experience, this portion of class is extremely lively.

Finish class by returning to the charts made at the beginning. What new ideas have developed as a result of this experiential lesson? Assign a reflective follow-up to be completed as homework. Students may post to an online discussion board or bring their reflections to the next class.

Teacher Reflection and Follow-Up Instructions:

As I hinted above, this lesson was a big hit. I knew it would be interactive and hoped it would help students grasp the article, but it far exceeded these expectations. Students were completely engaged in what Bishop describes as the “messy, generative, exciting process of writing” (194). For whatever reason, this particular line has stayed with me years beyond graduate school. I’ve even used this quote on syllabi and assignments, and it came to me again—almost in a chill-bumps way—while watching my students so completely immersed in the act of discovery. The messy, generative, exciting process of writing . Yes!

As good as I felt about the class, I was even more impressed with students’ follow-up posts, which they submitted a few days later. Reflecting on this distilled experience proved to be as important for them as the experience itself. I will insert, here, the prompt I used. In keeping with my earlier theft of Wendy’s lines, please feel free to steal:

In Thursday’s class, we used the same prompt to write two entries—one creative, one analytical. What did you discover about your own writing through this experience? What takeaways did you glean from your partner in follow-up discussion? Describe your relative comfort with one style over (or in tandem with) another and consider Bishop’s claim that “all writing is creative.”
After processing your experience, think about what these ideas mean in the context of teaching writing. What’s the role of “the creative” in composition classes? What’s the benefit of considering “student writing” alongside “literature?”

Student Writing

It seems only fitting to focus now on student responses as valuable testimonials and direct evidence for Wendy Bishop’s vision. More than anything else I learned from her, it’s that teaching writing really means writing alongside your students , reading them, letting them read you, learning from them as equally as they learn from you. When I think about recent discussions I’ve had with colleagues and students about the advent of ChatGPT, I take comfort in writing that feels authentic, metacognitive, collaborative, and instructive.

Below, I’ve excerpted passages from students (used with permission) that have given me plenty to think about. These students will be delighted to learn that their writing—not unlike literature—was published, and that their words are worthy of study.

From the unlikely English major:

Bishop’s article discusses the problem of students believing that they aren’t worthy to be named a “writer,” that what they write is so much less than “literature.” The constraints students often face when interacting with academic writing, such as research papers and essays, disregard writing as a creative process. This resonated personally with me as I would’ve never guessed in a million years I would be an English major. Growing up, I enjoyed reading and writing, but never excelled in school. I wasn’t a great essay writer, and I never did anything that deserved praise. I accepted my place outside of the discipline. But I finally had a teacher who encouraged us to take risks and encouraged us to lean into the discomfort we felt and do some exploring. He treated us as if we were all equably capable of producing publishable work. I started reading more, writing more, and caring more, and here I am. —Eliza

From a self-professed analytical writer:

In Thursday’s class, I came to the realization that I really need to get out of my comfort zone when it comes to writing. I naturally gravitate towards writing in a manner that seems academically correct—always. I was assigned to write creatively first, which I really struggled with. Without realizing, I wrote the creative prompt in a more analytical manner. Honestly, I don’t think I wrote creatively at all. And then afterward, when writing analytically, I just used more professional verbiage and somehow making things even more structured than before. Am I really this boring? When discussing with my partner, I noticed that she took a more anecdotal approach, which I think made her text seem less analytical and created a distinction between the two styles. Her writing was fun, personable, and relatable. I noticed that my writing seemed to only answer the prompt. I learned a lot about potential areas for growth. —Chelsea

From an unabashed creative writer:

Reading my creative piece and then moving to my analysis is a bit funny, honestly. It’s like I turned around, put a suit and tie on, slicked my hair back, and turned back to face the audience, ready to lay out some facts and cite some quotes. Lewie and I had a blast conversing and focused mostly on how similar we are in our inability to hush our creativity, humor, and emotion under any circumstances. We never actually read our analyses to each other because we were too busy laughing about how we both wrote intensely dramatic, poetic pieces about risk-taking and creative writing itself. Needless to say, we were both fully immersed —Luca

From students who cultivate the merging of these styles, or who use one genre to think strategically about the other:

From Thursday’s class I learned that I have become a better analytical writer than a creative writer. It was kind of sad to realize this, since I fell in love with writing through the creative writing I did in elementary school. In middle and high school, I still loved creating stories and new approaches with the prompts I was given, and I realize now that this made me a better analytical writer because I would look at these boring papers and still try finding a way to be creative! I think that if students at any level were allowed to release some sort of inner creativity, or allowed their own spin, that both their creative and analytical writing would improve. —Elizabeth

This exercise got me thinking that creative writing and academic writing have a systematic relationship, not a hierarchical one. When we colloquially talk of creative versus academic, we are more speaking about the Inspirational Process versus the Mechanical Process of writing, both in the actual crafting of language and in the crafting of ideas: the fundamental systems employed by the writer. The Inspirational/Mechanical Processes are more akin to energy sources than anything else, and the writer bounces between them whether writing a post, a school essay, a poem, or a novel. The writer uses the Mechanical Process while integrating quotes but may draw on the Inspirational Process when their integration becomes ineffective or repetitive: they dive into the creative energy to find a new, more unexpected way to craft the language and ideas surrounding this quote. When the movement between these two processes is unconscious and fluid, we feel in the zone. When it’s not fluid, we become conscious of the discrepancy and may feel writer’s block. —Jacob

The exercise we did in Thursday’s class was a surprising challenge. I noticed that writing in separate styles forced me to look at the same topic from more than one angle and with different audiences in mind. In talking to Hailey about this experience, we agreed that it was difficult to mentally switch between the analyzing and creative parts of our minds. I can see that this is a skill writers need to practice in order to weave the two aspects together in a singular piece of writing. This experience showed me that academic writing and creative writing really shouldn’t be taught as completely separate entities. It would be a disservice to student writers to not be allowed to start experimenting with the mixture of analysis and creativity before they get to the college level. It would be like parents who don’t let their children cook or try out spicing their own food and exploring flavors. They wonder why kids end up only cooking bland dishes once they move out of the house. Bishop mentions that “creativity involves risk-taking.” What better place for student writers to take risks and try new things with their writing than the classroom? What is a teacher really doing for their students if they don’t foster a safe environment for that? How can a student confidently mix ingredients in new ways if their work keeps coming back to them covered in scolding remarks about criteria and convention errors? —Vaccarella

From students who plan to teach:

I want to be a teacher who praises/encourages students to take risks! I remember what it felt like once when a teacher told me I clearly didn’t get it, and that I should “try something easier.” I had an idea, and though it wasn’t perfect, all ideas deserve attention in a writing class, even if you end up throwing it out because that is part of the writing process too. —Sarah

Rather than thinking of the two as separate categories, Bishop believes one should come before the other: “If you are creative before you are careful, you will be more likely to gain an understanding of the writing process of professionals.” I think this shows the importance of maintaining “the creative” in composition when teaching writing to students. When students are taught to write in a strict, rubric-driven way, they’re being shielded from taking the risks that could make them really grow as writers and invest in the process itself, which most of them come to dread. This activity felt empowering, and I was energized by knowing that it was up to me to feel what was working. I want my future students to use their own instincts. —Ariel

So in teaching writing, maybe teachers should stop giving out super in-depth rubrics and prompts. Let the student read the prompt and use their writing to give the prompt some shape and depth. That way, the teacher may get a new insight instead of receiving what they already know, what they expect, the answers teachers are looking for. —Kennedy

From a rule-breaker:

Ummm…through my experience with responding to the same prompt creatively and analytically, I discovered I need to read prompts more closely. But no matter my oversight, I discovered that I will make any writing prompt my own. Even when I realized I was supposed to be writing something analytical and then something creative, both of my responses took the same form. They failed to be either specifically creative or specifically analytical and became instead what I wanted to write. I even struggled to stay on the topic of creativity, instead finding myself connecting the prompt to some recent experiences. Neither struck me as easier, considering I found it impossible to meet the criteria of both! The other day I saw a TikTok about how at 5 years old 98% of children met the requirements of being a “creative genius.” By age 10, only about 30% did and by adulthood it was less than 5% (or something.) I think the role of creativity in teaching writing should be fostered. There are also many reasons to consider student writing as literature beyond the fact that they are far more similar than they are different. The most compelling to me is building the confidence of students. Regardless of what a teacher may say to their students, their underlying beliefs come through, and if it’s clear that a teacher doesn’t take their students’ writing seriously, students won’t take their own writing seriously either. —Mo

From a student with big questions about academic voice:

It was easier to get into a state of flow when writing creatively. I got nearly three times more words out in the first write-up compared to the second (which I would attribute to the need I felt to incorporate evidence in the academic writing style). It’s interesting that I naturally associate academic writing with evidence-based style and creative writing with a more intuitive style. If I dig further, I realize that the academic voice that I attempted is neither natural or captivating, and it is certainly not a voice that I ever see myself utilizing outside of academia. Why do I use it? Who has shaped my understanding of this academic style… one that I think is both boring and impractical? If you take another step, one must wonder: why do we teach students to write with this voice? I don’t even think this is done intentionally, but I also think this is a bigger question than it appears to be on the surface.—Ryan

Even if you only browsed a few of these student samples, it’s easy to detect their level of engagement. These writers are asking interesting questions and courageously posing solutions for themselves, as well as for the educational systems they are a part of. It’s worth noting that these Discussion Posts are entirely credit-based; students receive a 100 for completion if they meet a 250-word count. All students easily wrote much more than this, not simply checking a box to receive a grade. They continued to mention the impact of this assignment all semester long, even referencing it in final projects and on course-instructor evaluations.

Thank you, Ryan, Mo, Kennedy, Ariel, Sarah, Vaccarella, Jacob, Sarah, Elizabeth, Chelsea, Eliza, Luca, and Mo for giving us new ideas about Wendy Bishop’s work and the larger practice of engaged teaching and writing.

Works Cited

Bishop, Wendy. “When All Writing is Creative and Student Writing is Literature.” The Subject Is Writing , 2nd ed. Edited by Wendy Bishop, Heinemann Educational Books, 1999, pp.192-201.

Glenn, Cheryl. “Remapping Rhetorical Territory.” Rhetoric Review , vol. 13, no. 2, 1995, pp. 287–303.

Shrewsbury, Carolyn M. “What Is Feminist Pedagogy?” Women’s Studies Quarterly , vol. 15, no. 3/4, 1987, pp. 6–14.

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Creative Writing Program Marks Three Decades of Growth, Diversity

Black and white photo shows old American seaside town with title 'Barely South Review'

By Luisa A. Igloria

2024: a milestone year which marks the 30 th anniversary of Old Dominion University’s MFA Creative Writing Program. Its origins can be said to go back to April 1978, when the English Department’s (now Professor Emeritus, retired) Phil Raisor organized the first “Poetry Jam,” in collaboration with Pulitzer prize-winning poet W.D. Snodgrass (then a visiting poet at ODU). Raisor describes this period as “ a heady time .” Not many realize that from 1978 to 1994, ODU was also the home of AWP (the Association of Writers and Writing Programs) until it moved to George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

The two-day celebration that was “Poetry Jam” has evolved into the annual ODU Literary Festival, a week-long affair at the beginning of October bringing writers of local, national, and international reputation to campus. The ODU Literary Festival is among the longest continuously running literary festivals nationwide. It has featured Rita Dove, Maxine Hong Kingston, Susan Sontag, Edward Albee, John McPhee, Tim O’Brien, Joy Harjo, Dorothy Allison, Billy Collins, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sabina Murray, Jane Hirshfield, Brian Turner, S.A. Cosby, Nicole Sealey, Franny Choi, Ross Gay, Adrian Matejka, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Ilya Kaminsky, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Jose Olivarez, and Ocean Vuong, among a roster of other luminaries. MFA alumni who have gone on to publish books have also regularly been invited to read.

From an initial cohort of 12 students and three creative writing professors, ODU’s MFA Creative Writing Program has grown to anywhere between 25 to 33 talented students per year. Currently they work with a five-member core faculty (Kent Wascom, John McManus, and Jane Alberdeston in fiction; and Luisa A. Igloria and Marianne L. Chan in poetry). Award-winning writers who made up part of original teaching faculty along with Raisor (but are now also either retired or relocated) are legends in their own right—Toi Derricotte, Tony Ardizzone, Janet Peery, Scott Cairns, Sheri Reynolds, Tim Seibles, and Michael Pearson. Other faculty that ODU’s MFA Creative Writing Program was privileged to briefly have in its ranks include Molly McCully Brown and Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley.

"What we’ve also found to be consistently true is how collegial this program is — with a lively and supportive cohort, and friendships that last beyond time spent here." — Luisa A. Igloria, Louis I. Jaffe Endowed Professor & University Professor of English and Creative Writing at Old Dominion University

Our student body is diverse — from all over the country as well as from closer by. Over the last ten years, we’ve also seen an increase in the number of international students who are drawn to what our program has to offer: an exciting three-year curriculum of workshops, literature, literary publishing, and critical studies; as well as opportunities to teach in the classroom, tutor in the University’s Writing Center, coordinate the student reading series and the Writers in Community outreach program, and produce the student-led literary journal Barely South Review . The third year gives our students more time to immerse themselves in the completion of a book-ready creative thesis. And our students’ successes have been nothing but amazing. They’ve published with some of the best (many while still in the program), won important prizes, moved into tenured academic positions, and been published in global languages. What we’ve also found to be consistently true is how collegial this program is — with a lively and supportive cohort, and friendships that last beyond time spent here.

Our themed studio workshops are now offered as hybrid/cross genre experiences. My colleagues teach workshops in horror, speculative and experimental fiction, poetry of place, poetry and the archive — these give our students so many more options for honing their skills. And we continue to explore ways to collaborate with other programs and units of the university. One of my cornerstone projects during my term as 20 th Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth was the creation of a Virginia Poets Database, which is not only supported by the University through the Perry Library’s Digital Commons, but also by the MFA Program in the form of an assistantship for one of our students. With the awareness of ODU’s new integration with Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) and its impact on other programs, I was inspired to design and pilot a new 700-level seminar on “Writing the Body Fantastic: Exploring Metaphors of Human Corporeality.” In the fall of 2024, I look forward to a themed graduate workshop on “Writing (in) the Anthropocene,” where my students and I will explore the subject of climate precarity and how we can respond in our own work.

Even as the University and wider community go through shifts and change through time, the MFA program has grown with resilience and grace. Once, during the six years (2009-15) that I directed the MFA Program, a State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) university-wide review amended the guidelines for what kind of graduate student would be allowed to teach classes (only those who had already earned 18 or more graduate credits). Thus, two of our first-year MFA students at that time had to be given another assignment for their Teaching Assistantships. I thought of AWP’s hallmarks of an effective MFA program , which lists the provision of editorial and publishing experience to its students through an affiliated magazine or press — and immediately sought department and upper administration support for creating a literary journal. This is what led to the creation of our biannual Barely South Review in 2009.

In 2010, HuffPost and Poets & Writers listed us among “ The Top 25 Underrated Creative Writing MFA Programs ” (better underrated than overrated, right?) — and while our MFA Creative Writing Program might be smaller than others, we do grow good writers here. When I joined the faculty in 1998, I was excited by the high caliber of both faculty and students. Twenty-five years later, I remain just as if not more excited, and look forward to all the that awaits us in our continued growth.

This essay was originally published in the Spring 2024 edition of Barely South Review , ODU’s student-led literary journal. The University’s growing MFA in Creative Writing program connects students with a seven-member creative writing faculty in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.

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If you don’t have a degree and aren’t ready to commit to a bachelor’s – Liberty’s online Associate of Arts in Creative Writing gives you an entry point into creative writing. Designed as a halfway step to a bachelor’s degree, our A.A. in Creative Writing will cover foundational courses and training that can help you get started while opening the door to a more in-depth Bachelor of Science in English and Writing – Creative Writing after you graduate.
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Creative Writing: Describing a setting

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Teaching and Learning

Professors try ‘restrained ai’ approach to help teach writing, can chatgpt make human writing more efficient, or is writing an inherently time-consuming process best handled without ai tools, by jeffrey r. young may 23, 2024.

Phonlamai Photo / Shutterstock

When ChatGPT emerged a year and half ago, many professors immediately worried that their students would use it as a substitute for doing their own written assignments — that they’d click a button on a chatbot instead of doing the thinking involved in responding to an essay prompt themselves.

But two English professors at Carnegie Mellon University had a different first reaction: They saw in this new technology a way to show students how to improve their writing skills.

To be clear, these professors — Suguru Ishizaki and David Kaufer — did also worry that generative AI tools could easily be abused by students. And it’s still a concern.

They had an idea, though, for how they could set up a unique set of guardrails that would make a new kind of teaching tool that could help students get more of their ideas into their assignments and spend less time thinking about formatting sentences.

“When everyone else was afraid that AI was going to hijack writing from students,” remembers Kaufer, “We said, ‘Well if we can restrain AI, then AI can reduce many of the remedial tasks of writing that keep students from really [looking] to see what’s going on with their writing.”

The professors call their approach “restrained generative AI,” and they’ve already built a prototype software tool to try it in classrooms — called myScribe — that is being piloted in 10 courses at the university this semester.

Kaufer and Ishizaki were uniquely positioned. They have been building tools together to help teach writing for decades. A previous system they built, DocuScope , uses algorithms to spot patterns in student writing and visually show those patterns to students.

A key feature of their new tool is called “Notes to Prose,” which can take loose bullet points or stray thoughts typed by a student and turn them into sentences or draft paragraphs, thanks to an interface to ChatGPT.

“A bottleneck of writing is sentence generation — getting ideas into sentences,” Ishizaki says. “That is a big task. That part is really costly in terms of cognitive load.”

In other words, especially for beginning writers, it’s difficult to both think of new ideas and keep in mind all the rules of crafting a sentence at the same time, just as it’s difficult for a beginning driver to keep track of both the road surroundings and the mechanics of driving.

“We thought, ‘Can we really lighten that load with generative AI?” he says.

Kaufer adds that novice writers often shift too early in the writing process into making fragments of ideas they put down into carefully crafted sentences, when they might just end up later deleting those sentences because the ideas may not fit into their final argument or essay.

“They start really polishing way too early,” Kaufer says. “And so what we’re trying to do is with AI, now you have a tool to rapidly prototype your language when you are prototyping the quality of your thinking.”

He says the concept is based on writing research from the 1980s that shows that experienced writers spend about 80 percent of their early writing time thinking about whole-text plans and organization and not about sentences.

Taming the Chatbot

Building their “notes to prose” feature took some doing, the professors say.

In their early experiments with ChatGPT, when they put in a few fragments and asked it to make sentences, “what we found is it starts to add a lot of new ideas into the text,” says Ishizaki. In other words, the tool tended to go even further in completing an essay by adding in other information from its vast stores of training data.

“So we just came up with a really lengthy set of prompts to make sure that there are no new ideas or new concepts,” Ishizaki adds.

The technique is different from other attempts to focus the use of AI for education, in that the only source the myScribe bot draws from is the student’s notes rather than a wider dataset.

Stacie Rohrbach, an associate professor and director of graduate studies in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon, sees potential in tools like those her colleagues created.

“We’ve long encouraged students to always do a robust outline and say, ‘What are you trying to say in each sentence?” she says, and she hopes that “restrained AI” approaches could help that effort.

And she says she already sees student writers misuse ChatGPT and therefore believes some restraint is needed.

“This is the first year that I saw lots of AI-generated text,” she says. “And the ideas get lost. The sentences are framed correctly, but it ends up being gibberish.”

John Warner, an author and education consultant who is writing a book about AI and writing, says he wondered whether the myScribe tool would be able to fully prevent “hallucinations” by the AI chatbot, or instances where tools insert erroneous information.

“The folks that I talk to think that that’s probably not possible,” he says. “Hallucination is a feature of how large language models work. The large language model is absent judgment. You may not be able to get away from it making something up. Because what does it know?”

Kaufer says that their tests so far have been working. In an email follow-up interview he wrote: “It's important to note that ‘notes to prose’ operates within the confines of a paragraph unit. This means that if it were to exceed the boundaries of the notes (or 'hallucinate', as you put it), it would be readily apparent and easy to identify. The worry about AI hallucinating would expand if we were talking about larger discourse units.”

Ishizaki, though, acknowledged that it may not be possible to completely eliminate AI hallucinations in their tool. “But we are hoping that we can restrain or guide AI enough to minimize ‘hallucinations’ or inaccurate or unintended information so that writers can correct them during the review/revision process.”

He described their tool as a “vision” for how they hope the technology will develop, not just a one-off system. “We are setting the goal toward where writing technology should progress,” he says. “In other words, the concept of notes to prose is integral to our vision of the future of writing.”

Even as a vision, though, Warner says he has different dreams for the future of writing.

One tech writer, he says, recently noted that ChatGPT is like having 1,000 interns.

“On one hand, ‘Awesome,’” Warner says. “On the other hand, 1,000 interns are going to make a lot of mistakes. Interns early on cost you more time than they save, but the goal is over time that person makes less and less supervision, they learn.” But with AI, he says, “the oversight doesn’t necessarily improve the underlying product.”

In that way, he argues, AI chatbots end up being “a very powerful tool that requires enormous human oversight.”

And he argues that turning notes into text is in fact the important human process of writing that should be preserved.

“A lot of these tools want to make a process efficient that has no need to be efficient,” he says. “A huge thing happens when I go from my notes to a draft. It’s not just a translation — that these are my ideas and I want them on a page. It’s more like — these are my ideas, and my ideas take shape while I’m writing.”

Kaufer is sympathetic to that argument. “The point is, AI is here to stay and it’s not going to disappear,” he says. “There’s going to be a battle over how it’s going to be used. We’re fighting for responsible uses.”

Jeffrey R. Young ( @jryoung ) is an editor and reporter at EdSurge and host of the EdSurge Podcast . He can be reached at jeff [at] edsurge [dot] com

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Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning

Jonathan Lambert

A close-up of a woman's hand writing in a notebook.

If you're like many digitally savvy Americans, it has likely been a while since you've spent much time writing by hand.

The laborious process of tracing out our thoughts, letter by letter, on the page is becoming a relic of the past in our screen-dominated world, where text messages and thumb-typed grocery lists have replaced handwritten letters and sticky notes. Electronic keyboards offer obvious efficiency benefits that have undoubtedly boosted our productivity — imagine having to write all your emails longhand.

To keep up, many schools are introducing computers as early as preschool, meaning some kids may learn the basics of typing before writing by hand.

But giving up this slower, more tactile way of expressing ourselves may come at a significant cost, according to a growing body of research that's uncovering the surprising cognitive benefits of taking pen to paper, or even stylus to iPad — for both children and adults.

Is this some kind of joke? A school facing shortages starts teaching standup comedy

In kids, studies show that tracing out ABCs, as opposed to typing them, leads to better and longer-lasting recognition and understanding of letters. Writing by hand also improves memory and recall of words, laying down the foundations of literacy and learning. In adults, taking notes by hand during a lecture, instead of typing, can lead to better conceptual understanding of material.

"There's actually some very important things going on during the embodied experience of writing by hand," says Ramesh Balasubramaniam , a neuroscientist at the University of California, Merced. "It has important cognitive benefits."

While those benefits have long been recognized by some (for instance, many authors, including Jennifer Egan and Neil Gaiman , draft their stories by hand to stoke creativity), scientists have only recently started investigating why writing by hand has these effects.

A slew of recent brain imaging research suggests handwriting's power stems from the relative complexity of the process and how it forces different brain systems to work together to reproduce the shapes of letters in our heads onto the page.

Your brain on handwriting

Both handwriting and typing involve moving our hands and fingers to create words on a page. But handwriting, it turns out, requires a lot more fine-tuned coordination between the motor and visual systems. This seems to more deeply engage the brain in ways that support learning.

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"Handwriting is probably among the most complex motor skills that the brain is capable of," says Marieke Longcamp , a cognitive neuroscientist at Aix-Marseille Université.

Gripping a pen nimbly enough to write is a complicated task, as it requires your brain to continuously monitor the pressure that each finger exerts on the pen. Then, your motor system has to delicately modify that pressure to re-create each letter of the words in your head on the page.

"Your fingers have to each do something different to produce a recognizable letter," says Sophia Vinci-Booher , an educational neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University. Adding to the complexity, your visual system must continuously process that letter as it's formed. With each stroke, your brain compares the unfolding script with mental models of the letters and words, making adjustments to fingers in real time to create the letters' shapes, says Vinci-Booher.

That's not true for typing.

To type "tap" your fingers don't have to trace out the form of the letters — they just make three relatively simple and uniform movements. In comparison, it takes a lot more brainpower, as well as cross-talk between brain areas, to write than type.

Recent brain imaging studies bolster this idea. A study published in January found that when students write by hand, brain areas involved in motor and visual information processing " sync up " with areas crucial to memory formation, firing at frequencies associated with learning.

"We don't see that [synchronized activity] in typewriting at all," says Audrey van der Meer , a psychologist and study co-author at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She suggests that writing by hand is a neurobiologically richer process and that this richness may confer some cognitive benefits.

Other experts agree. "There seems to be something fundamental about engaging your body to produce these shapes," says Robert Wiley , a cognitive psychologist at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. "It lets you make associations between your body and what you're seeing and hearing," he says, which might give the mind more footholds for accessing a given concept or idea.

Those extra footholds are especially important for learning in kids, but they may give adults a leg up too. Wiley and others worry that ditching handwriting for typing could have serious consequences for how we all learn and think.

What might be lost as handwriting wanes

The clearest consequence of screens and keyboards replacing pen and paper might be on kids' ability to learn the building blocks of literacy — letters.

"Letter recognition in early childhood is actually one of the best predictors of later reading and math attainment," says Vinci-Booher. Her work suggests the process of learning to write letters by hand is crucial for learning to read them.

"When kids write letters, they're just messy," she says. As kids practice writing "A," each iteration is different, and that variability helps solidify their conceptual understanding of the letter.

Research suggests kids learn to recognize letters better when seeing variable handwritten examples, compared with uniform typed examples.

This helps develop areas of the brain used during reading in older children and adults, Vinci-Booher found.

"This could be one of the ways that early experiences actually translate to long-term life outcomes," she says. "These visually demanding, fine motor actions bake in neural communication patterns that are really important for learning later on."

Ditching handwriting instruction could mean that those skills don't get developed as well, which could impair kids' ability to learn down the road.

"If young children are not receiving any handwriting training, which is very good brain stimulation, then their brains simply won't reach their full potential," says van der Meer. "It's scary to think of the potential consequences."

Many states are trying to avoid these risks by mandating cursive instruction. This year, California started requiring elementary school students to learn cursive , and similar bills are moving through state legislatures in several states, including Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina and Wisconsin. (So far, evidence suggests that it's the writing by hand that matters, not whether it's print or cursive.)

Slowing down and processing information

For adults, one of the main benefits of writing by hand is that it simply forces us to slow down.

During a meeting or lecture, it's possible to type what you're hearing verbatim. But often, "you're not actually processing that information — you're just typing in the blind," says van der Meer. "If you take notes by hand, you can't write everything down," she says.

The relative slowness of the medium forces you to process the information, writing key words or phrases and using drawing or arrows to work through ideas, she says. "You make the information your own," she says, which helps it stick in the brain.

Such connections and integration are still possible when typing, but they need to be made more intentionally. And sometimes, efficiency wins out. "When you're writing a long essay, it's obviously much more practical to use a keyboard," says van der Meer.

Still, given our long history of using our hands to mark meaning in the world, some scientists worry about the more diffuse consequences of offloading our thinking to computers.

"We're foisting a lot of our knowledge, extending our cognition, to other devices, so it's only natural that we've started using these other agents to do our writing for us," says Balasubramaniam.

It's possible that this might free up our minds to do other kinds of hard thinking, he says. Or we might be sacrificing a fundamental process that's crucial for the kinds of immersive cognitive experiences that enable us to learn and think at our full potential.

Balasubramaniam stresses, however, that we don't have to ditch digital tools to harness the power of handwriting. So far, research suggests that scribbling with a stylus on a screen activates the same brain pathways as etching ink on paper. It's the movement that counts, he says, not its final form.

Jonathan Lambert is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance journalist who covers science, health and policy.

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What Creative Arts Therapies Teach Us About DBT Skills Training

Bridging dbt with the arts for deeper understanding..

Posted April 15, 2024 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

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Research supports the effectiveness of combining DBT with creative arts to improve outcomes.
Facilitators can teach wise-mind skills through drama therapy techniques.
Action-based DBT utilizes storytelling and role-play to make skill learning more accessible and impactful.

In the ever-evolving realm of mental health, therapists are always exploring new and innovative methods to enhance traditional treatments. Creative arts therapists have led the way in utilizing art-based interventions to teach DBT skills.

Creative arts therapy combines visual arts, movement, drama, music, writing, and other creative processes to support clients in their healing process. Many mental health clinicians have embraced creative arts therapy interventions to improve their clients' health and wellness.

There is a growing body of research that indicates that therapists can utilize creative interventions to help clients learn and generalize DBT skills. In this post, I will provide a brief literature review of therapists who have been doing this integrative work and provide an example of how drama therapy can be utilized to teach the DBT skill of wise mind.

DBT and Art Therapy

Research indicates that integrating art therapy into established psychotherapy forms, such as cognitive-behavioral therapies, can have significant positive effects on client well-being. For example, a study by Monti et al. (2012) demonstrated the potential of mindfulness -based art therapy (MBAT) in alleviating emotional distress, highlighting the power of combining art therapy with the core feature of mindfulness in DBT. Though this study did not specifically discuss DBT, it demonstrated that implementing mindfulness, a core component of DBT, can assist individuals who are facing significant physical and emotional stressors.

Building on research that examined mindfulness and art therapy, several practitioners have contributed articles that specifically address the integration of DBT and art therapy within clinical populations. For example, researchers Huckvale and Learmonth (2009) led the charge by developing a new and innovative art therapy approach grounded in DBT for patients facing mental health challenges. Furthermore, Heckwolf, Bergland, and Mouratidis (2014) demonstrated how visual art and integrative treatments could help clients access DBT, resulting in stronger generalization and implementation of these skills outside of the session. The clinicians concluded that this integrative approach to treatment could reinforce skills, contribute to interdisciplinary team synergy, and enact bilateral integration.

Other notable examples from art therapists include Susan Clark’s (2017) DBT-informed art therapy, a strategic approach to treatment that incorporates creative visual exercises to explore, practice, and generalize DBT concepts and skills.

Expanding Beyond Visual Art Therapy

DBT has now been integrated with other expressive art therapies, including drama and music. Art therapists Karin von Daler and Lori Schwanbeck (2014) were instrumental in this expansion when they developed Creative Mindfulness, an approach to therapy integrating various expressive arts therapies with DBT. Creative Mindfulness “suggests a way of working therapeutically that is as containing and structured as DBT and as creative, embodied, and multi-sensory as expressive arts” (p. 235). These clinicians incorporated improvisation into their work, a tool that can be simultaneously playful, experiential, and grounding, ultimately producing substantial new insights for clients.

Moreover, music and drama therapists have recognized the benefits of multisensory skill teaching, expanding the creative techniques used to teach DBT skills ( Deborah Spiegel, 2020 ; Nicky Morris, 2018 , and Roohan and Trottier, 2021 ).

My Own Experience Integrating Drama Therapy and DBT

Personally, I am a big advocate of both dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and drama therapy. In fact, I love these modalities so much that I dedicated not only my master's thesis but also my dissertation to better understanding how to reinforce DBT skills through dramatic techniques. In the process, I developed a new approach called Action-Based DBT that uses dramatic interventions like storytelling, embodiment, and role-playing to create a supportive environment for participants to learn skills in a more personalized and embodied way. An expert panel review demonstrated that this format can effectively support skill learning, especially for clients who struggle with the standard format of DBT skills training. Additionally, mental health clinicians found the program easily adaptable across populations in both individual and group settings.

Embodying the Mind States

To illustrate this approach and its effectiveness, the following is an example of how drama therapy methods can teach the DBT skill of wise mind within the context of an action-based DBT group.

The facilitator begins the group session by reviewing general guidelines and introducing the targeted DBT skill for the day: wise mind. The group then participates in improvisational warm-up activities to promote creativity , positive social interaction, and group connectivity. Following the warm-up, the facilitator distributes the DBT mind states handout (Linehan, 2015) and provides brief psychoeducation on this skill. Three chairs are placed in the front of the group room, facing the semi-circle of clients. Each chair had a piece of colored construction paper taped to the front, reading as Reasonable, Wise and Emotion . The facilitator explains that each chair represents one of the three mind states: reasonable mind, emotion mind and wise mind. To encourage exploration of the mind states, the facilitator can assign a more specific role to each state of mind. For example, the reasonable mind is The Computer, the emotion mind is The Tornado, and the wise mind is The Sage. Group members are invited to think of a scenario in which they felt they had difficulty accessing their wise mind. Clients then take turns embodying each mind state by sitting in the chair and speaking from the respective role. When a client first sits in a chair, the facilitator aids in enrolling the individual by asking questions about the role (i.e. The Computer, The Tornado, The Sage). For example, the facilitator may ask about the posture, tone of voice, or a “catchphrase” for this role. The client then embodies the role and responds to questions from the group as the specific mind state. After the embodiment, clients engage in verbal processing. The wise mind directive supports clients in developing kinaesthetic awareness of the three mind states. Embodying these mind states within the context of a supportive group and engaging in verbal processing around the experience can increase awareness of the mind states, which is helpful for clients who are trying to understand their emotional response to lived events outside of the group setting.

The creative arts therapies offer a dynamic pathway to teaching and reinforcing DBT skills. Incorporating visual art, drama, or music in the process of learning DBT skills allows clients to engage with these concepts in a multisensory and embodied way.

In my personal experience, weaving drama therapy techniques into DBT skills training has proven to be profoundly impactful. The Action-Based DBT approach, with its emphasis on storytelling and embodiment, offers an immersive and experiential learning environment that can be especially beneficial for those who find traditional methods challenging.

Looking ahead, my next post will delve into how storytelling can be harnessed to teach DBT skills in a way that is both engaging and memorable.

To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory .

Clark, S. M. (2017). DBT-informed art therapy: Mindfulness, cognitive behavior therapy, and the creative process. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Heckwolf, J. I., Bergland, M. C., & Mouratidis, M. (2014). Coordinating principles of art therapy and DBT. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 41(4), 329-335.

Huckvale, K., & Learmonth, M. (2009). A case example of art therapy in relation to dialectical behaviour therapy. International Journal of Art Therapy, 14(2), 52-63.

Monti, D. A., Kash, K. M., Kunkel, E. J., Brainard, G., Wintering, N., Moss, A. S., Rao, H., Zhu, S., & Newberg, A. B. (2012). Changes in cerebral blood flow and anxiety associated with an 8-week mindfulness programme in women with breast cancer. Stress and Health, 28(5), 397-407.

Morris, N. (2018). Dramatherapy for borderline personality disorder: Empowering and nurturing people through creativity. Routledge.

Roohan Mary Kate, Trottier Dana George. (2021) Action-based DBT: Integrating drama therapy to access wise mind. Drama Therapy Review, 7 (2), 193 https://doi.org/10.1386/dtr_00073_1

Spiegel, D., Makary, S., & Bonavitacola, L. (2020). Creative DBT activities using music: Interventions for enhancing engagement and effectiveness in therapy. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Von Daler, K., and Schwanbeck, L. (2014). Creative mindfulness: Dialectical behavior therapy and expressive arts therapy. In L. Rappaport (Ed.), Mindfulness and the arts therapies: Theory and practice (pp. 107-116). Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Mary Kate Roohan, Psy.D., is a licensed psychologist and drama therapist and the founder of Thrive and Feel, a therapy practice that supports clients in managing emotional sensitivity.

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Create video presentations that keep classrooms engaged.

Learn how to craft teaching sessions or class projects that keep eyeballs on the screen with compelling video presentations.

Person recording a leather-working video of themselves on their mobile phone

Spice up learning with a video presentation.

As the world shifts toward the virtual classroom, teaching and education tools are moving into digital spaces, as well. With video presentations, students and educators alike have a powerful resource to make learning exciting and fun.

For educators, a video presentation can help introduce topics visually and hold the attention of a class longer. For students, video presentation projects draw on creative and analytical skills that they’ll use throughout their lives.

Go beyond simple PowerPoint slides and explore how Adobe Premiere Pro can help any video presentation maker create their own videos and live presentations that compel audiences with video, animation effects, and more.

Limitless video presentation ideas for any creative occasion.

In a virtual learning environment, students are exposed to limitless knowledge with the drop of a link. Videos offer digestible amounts of information that students can rewatch later to help retain new knowledge.

For teachers, video presentations add variety to teaching materials, which can help keep eyes on the lecture screen instead of the phone screen. Making video presentations can help both students and teachers express themselves, share ideas, and make meaningful learning progress.

Expand the possibilities of virtual learning for students.

Some subject matters lend themselves better to a video presentation than other teaching formats. For example:

Real-world events and experiences: Watch a video tour of the Parthenon ruins in Greece or experience rare green mambas hatching from their eggs in West Africa.
Art, creativity, and visual skills: Learn about painting, drawing, geometry, and more with visual aids to help better understand the topic.
Complex or technical topics: Get a 3D view of the human skeleton to help learn about anatomy, or show all of the elements of the periodic table in action.

Person looking down at their laptop watching a leather-working video

Make teaching more accessible and engaging.

Keeping students interested can be a challenge, especially in a virtual classroom setting. Try using videos to change up your course content — and give you a break from lecturing. But, entertaining as videos may be, there are lots of other good reasons to use them in the classroom:

Inclusivity: Online video presentations with subtitles can accommodate all audiences, including students with hearing impairment. Subtitles can also help students who are learning a new language better understand their teachers.
Information retention: Smaller chunks of information tend to be easier for learners to remember. Engaging visuals can help overcome learning curves so students can grasp concepts more easily.
Time efficiency: A brief explainer video or short clip can save you time with lesson planning and help share information from experts in their fields.
Effortless studying: Students can revisit and rewatch videos outside of the classroom and have time to reprocess the course material.

Types of video presentations.

There’s no limit to what you can create with your video presentation, from a video of you dancing the cha-cha to an animated infographic, or even funny GIFs for a dose of comic relief. Here are a few types of videos you can make yourself — or find online — to use in the classroom:

Personal narratives: As a class assignment, a personal narrative video can help students learn about themselves and each other. Or, share a personal narrative of people related to the subject you’re teaching.
Instructional videos: Step-by-step tutorials are a versatile way to break down complicated topics. Try making a how-to video on linear algebra, novel writing, or even a DIY art project.
YouTube videos: Try using a YouTube video in your presentation slides to connect with younger students in their own language. Many YouTube stars cover educational topics . Or, within a larger video presentation, pop in a short video or two from credible YouTubers to help students stay attentive.

The makings of an engaging video lesson.

Whether you're a student with a video project assignment or a teacher looking to change up your lesson plan, a solid outline will help you or your students create a cohesive video presentation. Start by writing an outline that includes the following:

1. Introduction of your topic:

Hook your audience with an exciting story, fact, or anecdote about your topic.

2. Agenda or overview:

Provide a slide of the talking points you will be sharing with your audience so they can see the full breadth of the presentation.

3. Explain your topic or subject:

Tell the audience about the most important aspects of your topic as you work your way through the sections you presented in your overview.

4. Examples and discussion points:

Get practical on your topic and dive into detail to get the conversation going.

5. Conclusion:

Wrap up your presentation with any last remarks or touch back on the theme of your presentation.

Use Adobe Premiere Pro to create your presentation.

You don’t need a vast knowledge of video editing software to craft a quality video presentation. Adobe Premiere Pro features many video and presentation tools that you can use to customize and finalize your video. Choose from several themed video and presentation templates, slide transitions, and features that let you add subtitles , music, and much more.

Polish off your video by adding some creative components.

Take your video presentation to the next level with these creative tips:

Two images side by side: one of a leather chair with personal accessory items laid out on it and one of a person taking a photo with an audio soundwave file superimposed over it

Editing ideas:

Select short clips : Pick a quick video clip to add variety as a visual aid, but keep it bite-sized so it’s easier for your audience to grasp. You can add video files and clips easily in Premiere Pro and use video templates to speed up that work.
Add transitions : Premiere Pro features many fun transitions and animated effects you can use within your presentations to keep your audience’s attention.
Throw in some music: Sometimes a little background music can make a presentation more engaging. Keep the tempo up by adding a tune.

Add the final touches:

Choose a color scheme or overall design: Slideshow and presentation templates can help you unify the color and theme of your presentations to ensure nothing distracts the viewer. Customization controls can help you update those color schemes too.
Use stock images: Select a few stock images as visual aids to place throughout your presentation to add high-quality visuals to your piece.

Read more about Premiere Pro tutorials so you can hone your video editing skills and start putting together an engaging video presentation for your next lesson plan or class assignment.

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