My teaching is guided by some basic principles and beliefs about how people learn best.
Teach Tools, Not Rules
Students often seek aid in “fixing” the problems in a given piece of writing—specific, explicit solutions to specific problems in the text at hand. My approach is to dispel the idea of a single solution, and to help students to develop a flexible, pragmatic framework for approaching the problem-solving nature of creative work. By analyzing the problems in a given piece of writing at multiple degrees of abstraction and specificity, and exploring explicitly contradictory models of how other creators have solved similar problems, students can develop build a repertory of potentially-useful problem-solving strategies, rubrics, and tools that help them develop self-sufficiency as creative writers.
Revision and Process
While occasionally a work will spring forth in nearly or perfectly finalized form, serious writers and writing instructors agree that generally quality in writing is achieved through thoughtful editing and diligent revision. It is curious how little active coverage this process receives in most academic writing courses, since it is arguably the most crucial step in producing outstanding writing. Revision is an important part of my teaching of academic writing, modeled through workshop, conferences, peer and instructor feedback, and exercises.
The Inner Game of Creativity
At a reading I once attended, the Canadian poet Dionne Brand once said of inspiration, “You can’t sit around waiting for inspiration to strike, like something outside of you. It’s something you need to learn to summon at will, to turn off and on like a tap within you.” Helping students internalize this fact, and develop tools for tapping into their creativity in a willed manner, is also an important part of teaching creative writing. Dispelling fanciful and romantic notions that plague many young writers, such as “genius,” “inspiration,” and “writer’s block,” is insufficient: innovative exercises (like those contained in this dossier) and an emphasis on the thinking side of writing as a form of detail-oriented labour can help students fundamentally reconfigure their relationship with their own creativity and their work in a positive, engaging, and fundamentally empowering way.
Deliberate Practice
Just as it took more than a day to build Rome, it also required technical know-how, hard work, and nitty-gritty skills developed through conscious, purposive practice. “Deliberate practice” as I approach it integrates the study and “reverse-engineering” of exemplary texts (especially those students feel embody their goals as creators), the development of sensitivities to the fundamental components of academic writing, and a modular approach to mastery of these components. Though conscious, deliberate choice and effort directed at the process of writerly self-transformation, I hold that this approach allows the development of not just technical mastery but also a personal voice and written fluency. Additionally, this approach reinforces an awareness of how to actively navigate and overcome the inevitable creative plateaus and stalls faced by all creative writers throughout their careers.
Practicalities
Specifically in the academic writing context, I believe it is crucial to ensure that students are familiar with at least the fundamental norms expected of them as student writers: mastery of standard manuscript format in their chosen genre(s), the basics of the processes for submitting their work, and the rudiments of a practical awareness of plagiarism, citation, and other related issues. Given how easily (and, frankly, how quickly) this knowledge can be imparted, I attempt to cover them at some point in every creative writing course I teach, at the very least in the form of a handout, informal lecture, or Q&A session.