Creative writing pedagogy in the two year college: Lessons learned and literature reviewed, findings by a 35-year teacher

Abstract

A literature and best practice review and retrospective from 35 years of applied community college teaching pedagogy looks at the heuristics of the whole creative writing student as an eager learner and suggests the most efficient practices; prerequisites and classroom universal policies necessary to growth in creative writing ability. Positive growth in creative writing students' work in the genre's is associated with particular student personality orientations and attitudes, such as low classroom anxiety, moderate social extroversion, and a propensity toward altruism, confirming the author's earlier research using the Omnibus Personality Inventory and longitudinal narrative pre and post-writing samples to confirm those same learning correlations in a California reservation Native American high school district. Thesis findings include that to both teach and learn creative writing effectively one must have paid apt, Chekhov-like attention to social nuance and sensory detail in order to provide rich fundings for story-telling; that to teach writing well one must be, have been or be associated with practicing writers; that to learn effectively the student must find and cultivate mentoring Giants who model for them their own creative writing process and tricks of the trade; and that a sense of humor is also necessary in both the instructor and the student in order to act as counter-point to all the hard work necessary for student writing to soar. © 2013 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.