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Teacher Feature...
Direction for Teachers of Creative Writing
(continued from page 4)
by Dan Lukiv
(Condensed from Lived School Experiences That Encouraged one Person to Become a Creative Writer, a 2002 research study completed as part of the MEd requirements at The University of Northern British Columbia)
Copyright © 2002 by Dan Lukiv. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted in any form or through any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without written consent from the author.
In my continued efforts to establish validity and reduce bias, I kept a field log, "a chronological record" (McMillan & Schumacher, 1997, p. 409) of the interview and episodes of participant review and peer debriefing. I kept a field journal to contain "assessments of the trustworthiness of each datum set" (p. 409). The field journal also detailed "the evolution of [my] ideas, personal reactions, possible related literature, and questions for future investigation" (p. 410). To further validate the study, I considered audibility criteria. I "place[d] a list of files...and decision-rules in an appendix for perusal" (McMillan & Schumacher, 1997, p. 411) by colleagues interested in verifying the data.
Ethics
Prior to the collection of data, I wrote a letter of introduction and an Informed Consent Form that were provided to the respondent. The letter of information detailed potential benefits and risks to the respondent; sampling criteria; what the respondent would be asked to do; who would have access to the respondent's responses; how anonymity would be addressed; how confidentiality would be addressed; and how long data would be stored and when and how it would be destroyed.
Conclusions
Many events in school encouraged Arthur to become a creative writer. I describe some of them and the themes that they support, but first I would like to discuss what Arthur did not say.
What Arthur Did Not Say
I wondered if Arthur would describe creative writing activities as examples of lived school experiences that encouraged him to became a creative writer. Interestingly, he mentioned none. Does that mean teachers offered no creative writing activities? During one participant review session, Arthur said teachers very rarely had asked students to write poems or stories of fiction.
Arthur did not refer to the kinds of creative writing activities found on Web sites and did not describe any specific creative writing activities that encouraged him. He did not refer to assignments similar to the ones in my creative writing course, nor did he mention classroom publication activities that had motivated him to write or had encouraged him to further study creative writing. He mentioned no encouragement through contact with a teacher who was himself or herself a creative writer.
But Arthur did mention many, many examples of events in school that had encouraged him to take up creative writing later in life. I will now describe the themes that those events support.
The Themes
Theme One. Arthur was encouraged by events in school that promoted the joy and wonder of silent reading of poetry and fiction. The words "joy" and "wonder" show he enjoyed "the benefits and pleasures of...reading" (The Ministry, 1996a, 1996b, 1996c, p. 1). He spoke about how he had become "intrigued with literature....Books…were important,...always intriguing...because... people...in literature, in writing,...in poetry, and in adventures" were more intriguing than, he felt, himself.
He told me he had loved "literature. Poetry," especially "poetics....Even though I was reading, say an adventure story [like Tarzan], the poetic imagery that came through was important to me." He said, "I took English 91 which I think is [now] called English 12 or Lit 12," and he recalled reading Beowulf in class. He had loved "silent reading" opportunities of such fine works. He recalled feeling intrigued by great writing such as the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson and the fiction of D. H. Lawrence. The imagery of their texts, of a myriad of good texts, had intrigued him to the point of fascination.
In participant review sessions, Arthur described feelings of joy and wonder rather than just intrigue as the most accurate emotions that had often filled him as he read in school.
Theme Two. Events in school that promoted the joy and wonder of listening to poetry and fiction fluently read aloud and of listening to songs encouraged Arthur to become a creative writer. He said, "I remember songs...that we used to sing. I was intrigued with the words....‘Put your left foot in, put your left foot out.' ‘I'm a little teapot.' Things like that….I loved listening to the voice....I fell in love with the voice....Loved listening." Although these singsong events helped establish a "resource-rich learning environment" (The Ministry, 1996a, p. 8; 1996b, p 9; 1996c, p. 10) for Arthur, The Ministry's three guides do not specifically encourage language arts teachers to consider the benefits of singsongs.
"The fun part of language...was," for Arthur, "always...the intriguing....sound that words made." Arthur distinctly recalled an early intermediate experience of his teacher reading aloud a Pauline Johnson poem, and how the words had opened up "wonderful feelings" inside of him while he had been "swept along by the reading." He had "loved the sound of the word in poetry" and he had "loved music too, but...hearing the words really, really clearly...was always the intriguing part for [Arthur]."
He mentioned, "In grade eight the teacher read Treasure Island....I was intrigued by the sound of the words and the way they fit into the picture I was building….The sound. It was beautiful."
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