Toward an Inclusive Creative Writing: Threshold Concepts to Guide the Literary Curriculum

Description

The creative writing workshop has existed since the early part of the 20th century, but does it adequately serve the students who come to it today? While the workshop is often thought of as a form of student-centered pedagogy, it turns out that workshop conversations serve to marginalize a range of aesthetic orientations and the cultural histories to which they belong. Given the shifting demographics of higher education, it is time to re-evaluate the creative writing curriculum and move literary writing pedagogy toward a more inclusive, equitable model. Toward an Inclusive Creative Writing makes the argument that creative writing stands upon problematic assumptions about what counts as valid artistic production, and these implicit beliefs result in exclusionary pedagogical practices. To counter this tendency of creative writing, this book proposes a revised curriculum that rests upon 12 threshold concepts that can serve to transform the teaching of literary writing craft. The book also has a companion website www.criticalcreativewriting.org offering supplemental materials such as lesson plans and course materials. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Discussions of diversity and inclusion in creative writing Threshold concepts to guide the literary writing curriculum Toward an inclusive creative writing pedagogy 1. Privileged Assumptions and Assumptions of Privilege What the VIDA Count tells about teaching Exclusionary constructions of the writer’s life Finding a voice The lonely writer Leisure and unalienated labor The writer as exceptional Mapping pedagogical constructions of the writer Progressive pedagogical approaches Humanist pedagogical approaches Professionalizing pedagogical approaches Auditioning pedagogical approaches Experimental pedagogical approaches Therapeutic pedagogical approaches Elitism in creative writing Exclusionary assumptions about writers and writing 2. Marginalized Aesthetics Policing intention: Polemics against polemics Policing taste: Ideologies of craft Policing emotion: Scorn of excess The diversity of the textual landscape 3. Threshold Concepts in Creative Writing Concept 1: Attention Concept 2: Creativity Concept 3: Authorship Concept 4: Language Concept 5: Genre Concept 6: Craft Concept 7: Community Concept 8: Evaluation Concept 9: Representation Concept 10: Resistance Concept 11: Theory Concept 12: Revision Threshold concepts and learning outcomes 4. Toward an Inclusive Pedagogy Starting points Reading Workshop Evaluation and grading Coda: Reimagining Creative Writing’s Institutional Practices Appendix A—List of Craft Texts Surveyed in Chapters 1 and 2 Appendix B—Sample Syllabus Notes Index