I’m working with Jonette on perfecting the art of the critique. As a veteran of poetry, she’s taken many more creative writing courses than I have and has a wealth of knowledge to offer. I’m learning how to pose more constructive questions and how relate my specific comments to the work as a whole. I’ve found that I often find details that seem to help or hinder a piece, but often am unable to express how to make it better or why something works. This is a difficult process because I haven’t practiced it much in the past. As an English teacher I critique many things, but usually creativity is lower on the list of priorities. I’m beginning to realize that maybe it should be higher. Creative writing is more important than it’s often given credit because it forces writers (and readers) to perform on a higher level of thinking. In fact, it forces us to work on multiple levels of thought.
Definitely, and it comes with a kind of "presupplied sense of importance," since we associate it with one's own self or "identity." Obviously, as we know, these are not completely rational assumptions, but we can, as teachers, utilize that tendency to take creative writing more seriously as a reflection of the self. The key is to lend some of that intensity then back over to critical writing, so illustrate how creative the analytical sphere can be.
ReplyDelete