Creative Writing as a Discipline
Creative writing is the academic writing course taught at colleges and universities of English-speaking countries that prepare students to become professional writers in imaginative fiction and poetry, which are different from academic and journalistic writing. Creative refers to “ fiction, poetry, script, narrative non-fiction and feature side of journalism” (May 2007). Concerning professional writing in a literary context, creative writing covers the critically reproduced and professionally managed attainment of literary writing techniques. Creative writing strives to make its students experienced in the writing of creative non-fiction, poetry, and fiction. But in university courses, it had been taken as the branch of literary studies in English departments before it departed as a discipline. “Many university creative writing courses place an equal emphasis on the study of literature and the practice of writing” (Morley, 2010). Though many universities in the world are teaching creative writing and literary studies some colleges and universities have separated it from the literary English departments by establishing separate creative writing departments in universities. Those colleges and universities have developed it as a discipline. “An academic discipline is an organized body of knowledge collectively embraced in a formal course of learning: the acquisition of such knowledge is assumed to be an adequate and worthy objective as such without any demonstration or requirement of practical application: the content is theoretical and scholarly as distinguished from technical and professional” (Henry,1978). So this essay claims that creative writing is a separate academic discipline with its own field of study, research methodology, pedagogical practices, and scholarly journals publications.
FIELD OF STUDY
Creative writing is an emerging field of scholarly research and study. It originated from the composition studies and literary studies within English departments. So it has developed its field from other disciplines of English Studies. It has taken some areas of study from composition studies and some from literary studies. The field of creative writing stands once again at a crossroads. On one side of the road is a course of study, a discipline that is unaware of the histories and theories that inform its practice. On the other side of the road is a creative writing study, an emerging “field of scholarly inquiry and research” (Donnelly, 2011). Creative writing remained for a long time with rhetoric and composition studies in universities. Finally, it departed from the rhetoric and composition studies. So the principles, methodologies, and theories of this discipline are emerging in various cultural and institutional contexts.
PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES
Undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D. programs in creative writing studies are being run by colleges and universities of English-speaking Anglophone countries and other Asian and African universities. Creative writing programs focus on developing skills to produce professional writing which could be publishable. Mostly in the academic world, it was thought that literary works are not the result of teaching. It was assumed it couldn’t be taught but it is the God-given talent that is beyond reason and logic. Writing and producing great literary works is taken as a solitary work. The main pedagogical paradigm adopted in creative writing programs is the workshop model. “The creative writing workshop itself is an event, significant site of human action. Because creative writing is an action the workshop can’t be considered unless it is considered in relation with action” (Donnelly, 2010). Workshops are conducted to develop creative writing skills and to produce creative works. This model assumes that students can read and respond to the work and it separates students from their work. This workshop takes students as a producer and their creative work as a product. Finally, the instructor corrects the flows of students’ work according to the standard of the workshop.
At the undergraduate level, a practical-based approach is adopted for developing literary skills that finally contribute to English literature. Anna Leahy says in Power and Identity in the Creative Writing Classroom: The authority project “The authority as a guiding pedagogical principle in our teaching makes central the human, the culture, and textual elements of our pedagogy encourage college-level teachers to participate most thoughtfully and productively in their professional lives and so that, students, too flourish” (2005). Authority is taken as the little power of the teacher to give order to the pupils in the classroom but it is more understandable as guidelines of overall classroom activities. Creative writing adopts two elements in its pedagogical practices; they are- “the act of writing creatively” and “the act of critically considering that act and its result” (Harper & Kroll, 2007). So the pedagogical paradigms are shifting and changing in creative writing programs in colleges and universities.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
How the additional knowledge is produced is important for any academic discipline. The number of B.A., MA, and Ph.D. programs in creative writing is increasing in the United States, Australia, the UK, Africa, and the Asian continent. So it was necessary to develop its research methodology to stand as a discipline in academic institutions. So far its research for adding knowledge domain is not well documented. However, in creative writing as an academic discipline observation and reflection, the archival investigation into related works of literature and philosophy, and practice-led work of imagery lineation and expression method of research are adopted in scholarly research works. Practice-led research is widely adopted in creative writing departments of colleges and universities. “Practice-led a conceptual framework that allows a researcher to incorporate their creative practice, creative methods, and creative output into the research design and as a part of the research output” (Smith & Dean, 2009). As the epistemological framework, creative writing research is fundamental “practice-led” and it has always practiced as its central conceptual core even when it is dealing with “issues of critical understanding or with theoretical speculation” (Kroll & Harper, 2012). New research methodologies are also emerging in the creative research field.
Creative writing has also adopted the writer-academic method is popularly adopted in creative writing departments of colleges and universities. “Research practices can invigorate writing; creative practices can invigorate research; and –if properly organized and managed- creative writing can operate as a mode of knowledge generation, a way of exploring problems and answering questions that matter in our current context. Researching creative writing enables writer-researchers to craft a toolkit that will help them produce better creative works and more rigorous research work” ( Webb, 2015). So in creative writing “research led by or through the practice of creative writing and research that is about creative writing: both frequently appear today on the radar of creative writing research” (Harper, 2013). So, in creative writing two methods are in a dominant position; they are practice-led research and research-led practice method.
SCHOLARLY JOURNALS IN CREATIVE WRITING
For an academic discipline, there must be specialists and researchers who continuously contribute to developing the discipline and adding new knowledge in the study field. There is a large number of scholarly journals that publish research papers that examine the teaching, practice, theory, and history of creative writing. Creative research involves the theories and methodologies of all disciplines because it believes that knowledge must be constructed from open conversations. So the number of scholarly journal publications indicates how prosperous that particular discipline is. Along with the other dimensions of creative writing, journals are also increasing in this field. Associated with the UK expansion in the course the basic requirement of a Ph.D. in Creative and Critical Writing as the entry qualification for the field, a greater connectedness with institutions and representative bodies internationally, the “widespread staging of pedagogical conferences, and a production of pedagogical literature, including peer-reviewed journals of international scope pre-eminently the Australian online journal TEXT”, creative writing has established itself as a full-fledged academic discipline (Cowan, 2016).
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it can be claimed that creative writing has been growing as an academic discipline in the academic world. It has fully emerged its field of study from different disciplines such as composition studies, rhetoric studies s and literary studies. It has developed its own pedagogical approaches. It has a large number of scholarly research journal publications. The number of educational institutions are growing all around the world. But in the context of Nepal, there are no separate departments for creative writing studies. The portion of creative studies is small within the English departments of Tribhuvan University. Creative writing is still residing in the English departments of universities of Nepal. Though there is a creative writing course in the English departments of Nepal, the pedagogical approaches of creative writing are not adopted. Creative writing studies as a separate academic discipline seems to grow in the future when considering its current popularity.
Works Cited
Cowan, A. (2016). The Rise of Creative Writing. In Futures for English Studies (pp. 39-60). Springer.
Donnelly, D. (2011). Establishing creative writing studies as an academic discipline (Vol. 7). Multilingual Matters.
Harper, G. (2013). Creative writing research. A Companion to Creative Writing, 278-290.
Harper, G., & Kroll, J. (2007). Creative writing studies: Practice, research and pedagogy. Multilingual Matters.
Henry, F. M. J. Q. (1978). The academic discipline of physical education. 29(1), 13-29.
Jen, W. (2015). Researching Creative Writing. Frontinus Press.
Kroll, J., & Harper, G. (2012). Research methods in creative writing. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Leahy, A. (2005). Power and identity in the creative writing classroom: The authority project (Vol. 1). Multilingual Matters.
Morley, D. (2007). The Cambridge introduction to creative writing. Cambridge University Press.
Smith, H., & Dean, R. T. (2009). Practice-led research, research-led practice in the creative arts. Edinburgh University Press. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=315978
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Webb, J., & Brien, D. L. (2011). Addressing the ‘ancient quarrel’: Creative writing as research. The Routledge companion to research in the arts, 186-203.