Lore, Practice, and Social Identity in Creative Writing Pedagogy

Abstract

The article examines the significance of lore in creative writing pedagogy discourse, the problem posed by the historical distinction between teaching craft and drawing out talent in workshops, and the role of social identity as it is rejected, theorized, or ignored in discussions on teaching creative writing. Taking into account students' subjectivity as also constituted by the dynamics of collective identities such as those suggested by the terms gender, race, ethnicity, and so forth, the essay offers examples of workshop strategies that encourage dialogic voicing.

MFA Writers’ Relationships With Writing

“…They also referred to the role of “lore” in creative writing. Lore is the set of pedagogical assumptions passed down from teacher to student; an example is the belief that the best and most successful writers make the best writing teachers (Ritter, 2007), or that the workshop model emphasizing peer response relieves the instructor of the responsibility of giving in-depth feedback (Lim, 2010). The ever-growing popularity of MFA programs, combined with the lack of qualitative or quantitative inquiry into the discipline, makes this context an appropriate area of study.…”

The scientific study of poetic writing

“…A consideration of Hyland's (2002) classification system presents a range of areas to be researched. Practitioner research deals with the educational context of writing -an area which requires some empirical attention (Bishop, 1999;Ketzle, 2007;Lim, 2010;O'Rourke, 2007;Pavelich, 2010). Text research explores the textual characteristics and has been used to characterize the genre of poetry (Armstrong, 1984(Armstrong, , 1985(Armstrong, , 1986Gerrish, 2004;Hanauer, 2010).…”