Books
Bishop, Wendy. Released Into Language: Options for Teaching Creative Writing. National Council of Teachers. 1990. Link
Bishop’s book is a major pedagogical text in Creative Writing Studies. It explains her research on Creative Writing and her method of the “transactional workshop.”
This book is available for free from the Institute of Education Resources. (See link).
Breakdown of Chapters
- “Writers in Motion:” history of pedagogy and issues with CW teaching styles
- “Writers and Researchers on Writing:” writing process theories and activities
- “Options in Design:” What to cover in a workshop
- “Generating Writing:” ideas for invention activities
- “Ten Inventions and Variations:” more invention activities
- “Collaborative Composing and Variations:” group work activities
- “Responding and Revising:” revision theories and activities
- “Evaluating and Responding:” How to “grade” and give feedback to assignments
LaPlante, Alice. “The Making of a story:” A Nortion Guide to Creative Writing. W.W. Norton and Company. 2007.
This is a craft book for students. The book focuses on prose writing. Each chapter focuses on one element; providing information on that element, writing exercises, and student and professional examples. This is a helpful resources for lectures or writing exercises. It can also be used as an assigned text for a Prose course.
This book is for sale only.
Oliver, Mary. A poetry Handbook. Ecco Publisher. 1994.
This is a craft book for students. However, it is a good resources for lesson planning and even course design.
This book is for sale only.
Peary, Alexandria; Tom C Hunley. Creative Writing Pedagogies for the Twenty-First Century. Southern Illinois University Press. 2015.
Peary and Hunley collect essays about teaching creative writing now. These are very helpful in planning courses and, some, provide assignments and activities.
This source is available for free through the City College Library databases.
A) Williams, Bronwyn. “11: Digital Technologies and Creative Writing Pedagogy.” p243-268.
Williams discusses how we can incorporate digital technologies into our creative writing classes. She does not discuss specific technologies, instead she discusses how these technologies should be used.
B) Healy, Steve. “8: Critical Literacy Pedagogy.” p169-193.
Discusses his idea of Critical Creative Literacy as a skill to be taught in courses.
C) Hunley, Tom; Sandra Giles. “1:Rhetorical Pedagogy.” p7-29.
Discusses the use of rhetoric to help students understand readings and their own work better.
D) Mayers, Tim. “2: Creative Writing and Process Pedagogy.” p30-51.
Discusses why and how to emphasize proccess in courses.
Salesses, Matthew. Craft in the Real World. Catapult Press. 2021.
This is a wonderful craft book about the history of workshops and how to make the experience of workshops better for everyone. I’ll let Salesses explain,
“This book is a challenge to accepted models of craft and workshop…that in a creative writing workshop silences the manuscript’s author. The challenge is this: to take craft out of some imaginary vacuum … and return it to its cultural and historical context. Race, gender, sexuality, etc. affect our lives and so must effect our fiction. Real-world context, and particularly what we do with that context, is craft” (xiii).
This source is for sale only.
Vanderslice, Stephanie; Rebecca Manery. Can Writing Really be Taught?: Resisting Lore in Creative Writing Pedagogy (10th anniversary edition). Bloomsbury Academic. 2017.
This second version has authors revisit some of the essays from the original book. Like Peary and Hunley, this is a great resource for contemporary Pedagogy, as well as assignments and activities.
This source is available for free through the City College Library databases.
a) Leahy, Anna. “4: Self Esteem, the growth mindset, and Creative Writing.” P44-56.
Asks teachers to emphasize that students skills can grow. Also discusses the history of the traditional workshop.
b) Manery, Rebecca. “17: Myths, Mirrors and Metaphors: The Education of the Creative Writing Teacher.” p219-236.
Manery presents explains 5 roles a creative writing teacher can take on. Expert Practitioner, Facilitator, Change Agent, Co-constructor of Knowledge, and Vocational Coach.
Articles
Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces. P71-86.
Discusses the use of rhetoric to identify and understand the techniques of other writers, and then implement these techniques in our own writing.
This is an OER resources, available on the Writing Spaces website.
Clifton, Glenn. “Critical-Creative Literacy and Creative Writing Pedagogy.” University of Toronto Quarterly. 91(1): Winter 2022. Pp.51-66.
Doi:10.3138/UTQ.91.1.04.
Clifton discusses Critical Creative Literacy, which he defines as the broad range of skills used in creative practices (p52). Clifton argues that critical thinking should be one aim of creative writing classes because the skills we want students to develop rely on a critical idea of the writing process and its role.
This source is available for free through the City College Library databases.
