Although much is known about the benefits of providing creative writing courses to English learners, little research is available on Chinese ethnolinguistic minority learners’ creative writing in formal education. In...Although much is known about the benefits of providing creative writing courses to English learners, little research is available on Chinese ethnolinguistic minority learners’ creative writing in formal education. In response, this ethnographic study explored three ethnolinguistic minority learners’ engagement with a three-month elective English creative writing course at a Chinese university. Data(drafts, interviews, and reflection) were analyzed to reveal the three learners’ investment in creative writing and its impact. It was found that creative writing helped the learners to develop more confident writer identities, that they became more proficient in writing, and that their language proficiency also grew. The study suggests creative writing can serve as identity texts,which reflect back on their emergent creative writer identity, and can be a beneficial pedagogical option for ethnolinguistic minority learners.展开更多
How to teach creative writing at school？ If the procedures inherited from writing workshops have undoubtedly proved efficient as regards text production, it is also clear that in Switzerland, as elsewhere in Europe a...How to teach creative writing at school？ If the procedures inherited from writing workshops have undoubtedly proved efficient as regards text production, it is also clear that in Switzerland, as elsewhere in Europe and in the Anglo-Saxon world, the present use of evaluation grids with their numerous items prevents secondary school pupils from adopting the stance of an author. Why？ Simply because the most innovative and ＂literary＂ texts are always surprising： They are ＂different＂, and could not possibly result from writing guidelines devised only to facilitate a mechanical evaluation itself conceived for the sake of some illusory objectivity... Now, in our postmodern age with its rejection of models, what is more difficult than assessing the quality of creative writing？ In our approach, we suggest restoring confidence in the teacher, an expert reader if any, who, acting as a publisher, dramaturge, or mere aesthete, knows how to take his pupils＇ texts seriously, acknowledge their aesthetic value, and look at apparent clumsiness as a possible promise of innovation. The teaching of creative writing lies both in this specific reception of budding works and in the teacher＇s performative utterances that, then and there, make the pupil a writer.展开更多
文摘Although much is known about the benefits of providing creative writing courses to English learners, little research is available on Chinese ethnolinguistic minority learners’ creative writing in formal education. In response, this ethnographic study explored three ethnolinguistic minority learners’ engagement with a three-month elective English creative writing course at a Chinese university. Data(drafts, interviews, and reflection) were analyzed to reveal the three learners’ investment in creative writing and its impact. It was found that creative writing helped the learners to develop more confident writer identities, that they became more proficient in writing, and that their language proficiency also grew. The study suggests creative writing can serve as identity texts,which reflect back on their emergent creative writer identity, and can be a beneficial pedagogical option for ethnolinguistic minority learners.
文摘How to teach creative writing at school？ If the procedures inherited from writing workshops have undoubtedly proved efficient as regards text production, it is also clear that in Switzerland, as elsewhere in Europe and in the Anglo-Saxon world, the present use of evaluation grids with their numerous items prevents secondary school pupils from adopting the stance of an author. Why？ Simply because the most innovative and ＂literary＂ texts are always surprising： They are ＂different＂, and could not possibly result from writing guidelines devised only to facilitate a mechanical evaluation itself conceived for the sake of some illusory objectivity... Now, in our postmodern age with its rejection of models, what is more difficult than assessing the quality of creative writing？ In our approach, we suggest restoring confidence in the teacher, an expert reader if any, who, acting as a publisher, dramaturge, or mere aesthete, knows how to take his pupils＇ texts seriously, acknowledge their aesthetic value, and look at apparent clumsiness as a possible promise of innovation. The teaching of creative writing lies both in this specific reception of budding works and in the teacher＇s performative utterances that, then and there, make the pupil a writer.
