Against "Excellence":
An Approach to Teaching Creative Writing

David Starkey
Francis Marion University

Obviously, it would be misguided for us conduct our creative writing program in the same manner as a department which is preparing its students to enter the labyrinth of the "professional" literary world. The priority at small universities like FMU--and, to an even greater extent, at secondary schools--ought, instead, to be sensitivity to the motivations beginning writers have for joining our classes in the first place. It has been my experience that students at Francis Marion enroll in my poetry workshops for one or both of the following reasons: They are looking for what they think will be an easy course to fill out their schedules, and/or they like to write. Clearly, the former reason is inadequate, but our assignments and attitudes can soon enough convince these students that some real labor will be required if they are to complete the course. For this type of student, mystery writer John D. MacDonald's advice is sound: "Give them a taste of the hard work involved, a good dose of discipline, and a framework of procedures" (86). The student who has enrolled on a lark probably has fewer prejudices about what constitutes a good piece of creative writing; she is often quickest to benefit from the remarks of teacher and class, and the soonest to experiment in her work. Frequently these students turn out to be treasures, writing about subjects like science, history, even economics, that English majors usually ignore.

Ironically, the latter group of students, those who are genuinely interested in the subject, may present a more challenging problem. Precisely because they have already formed an image of themselves as creative writers, students with some previous experience are often more resistant to constructive criticism. Here I would disagree with MacDonald, who argues that "you can't [teach] while being `nice.' You have to put them under stress because that's where the learning happens" (87). The truth is, if a beginning writer's fragile identity is damaged, she may become excessively defiant or hyper-critical of her own work. Wendy Bishop has rightly maintained that "becoming a creative writer is an act of personal commitment" (viii); especially in the early stages, confrontation more often undermines than strengthens that commitment.

When creative writing workshops became a feature of American English departments in the 1950s, the idea was that professional authors would come to the university to share their insights with the generation of writers who would go on to take their places. However, with the proliferation of writing programs, some several hundred now, the original reason for teaching creative writing is no longer tenable. Even if all the thousands of students were excellent--obviously, they are not--there would be no room for them in the rapidly shrinking literary marketplace. Like myself, the majority of younger creative writing teachers in the university today were trained in M.F.A. programs. Our teachers tried to turn us into "real writers," careful craftspersons as much as raw talents. Conscientiously, we demand that young people, who are not yet fully adults and who may never again take another creative writing course, aspire to become the luminaries we admire. Yet the great majority of our students do not want to be famous. They simply want to express themselves. In our fight to become legitimate and permanent members of the English Department, creative writing teachers may very well be draining our classes of the sense of play so crucial to the writing process.

A powerful example of this predicament is illustrated by Mimi Schwartz, an English professor whose writing had been mostly academic. When she returned to college to take creative writing classes, she was surprised by "the astonishing power of response to either encourage or undermine creative risk-taking" (196). Schwartz noted the potency of peer and teacher response "and its potential danger, especially when the writer feels insecure, which is the way most student writers feel--for most readers, even skilled ones, react only to what's on the page" (197). She goes on to argue that a positive oral and written response is the best incentive a beginning writer has to continue with her work.

In many cases, the flash point occurs when the student's writing is brought before the group in a workshop. The first semester I taught poetry writing, I encountered a beginning writer who reacted very negatively to anything but praise. A straight "A" student and member of the student council, "Jim" made many perceptive comments about the other writers' poems, but when his own turn came, his reading was both nervous and arrogant--his voice quavering yet unmistakably proud. Jim's poetry was prosodically better than many of the poems that had come before, but his diction was flowery and archaic, many of the figures were cliche. I felt it was my duty to expose these weaknesses so that Jim's writing could improve and so others wouldn't fall into the same trap. I began, of course, by praising the evident strengths of the poems, but when I tried to turn the discussion to sharpening the work, Jim--despite our "gag order"--kept interrupting student comments to defend his work. In subsequent workshops, I was able to keep Jim quiet, but every teacher knows that a rolling of the eyes and long sigh from a student writer can cut off dialogue as quickly as any verbal protestations.

I was unable to solve what I came to think of as "The Jim Problem," and the results were unhappy. By the end of the semester he hovered like an angry vulture over our workshops. I doubt Jim ever intended to become the great defender of melodrama and sentimental love, but that was the role he played in our class. On those few days when he was absent, it became blatant that his presence was an impasse to our open exchange of ideas. I felt almost giddy knowing I could suggest alternatives to tired phrases without being told by Jim that "poetic language" was perfectly all right.

After several years teaching the class, I now realize that as soon as I recognized a conflict developing between Jim and myself, I should have emphasized in an individual conference (as I do now with students similar to Jim) that our relationship ought not to be antagonistic, that our differing opinions ought to serve as counterbalances rather than warring cannons. Too, I would have more thoroughly discussed the assumptions on which the student's judgments were based and explicitly defined my own. Most students, when they are forced to examine the sources of their own bias, usually modify their more strident views. To try to diffuse the tension, I would also have been much quicker to address the dissident student's opinions in class. Finally, though, knowing how transient the majority of influences are, I would have reconciled myself to Jim's position and stopped worrying about it. In large part, it was my own dogged insistence on making a potentially talented student into a professional writer that caused our confrontation to drag on.

A more complex and frustrating dilemma is presented by students who take our advice too close to heart. A woman in her early sixties I'll call Irene had been writing poetry for years. Earnest as her efforts were, her poetry exhibited all the generalizations, platitudes and colorless word choice so abundant in the work of most beginning writers. Unfortunately, I hadn't gauged the depth of Irene's sensitivity to my criticism. Though the workshop had been respectful, Irene looked distressed throughout. Before she left the class I tried to emphasize that all work can benefit from revision and that the class's suggestions were only friendly recommendations. Several days later Irene came to me with revised versions of her poems. They were a mishmash of half-heard workshop suggestions and negative platitudes she evidently thought I would approve. As we went over the poems line-by-line Irene frowned, her face working, trying to discover what it was I wanted.

The semester was a perplexing one for both of us. Despite a litany of troubles in her life, Irene was supremely optimistic, and her idea of poetry was indelibly marked by greeting card and gift shop verse. But when she attempted to fuse this nearly separate genre with the more serious poetry I was asking her to write, she produced a creature that could neither walk nor fly. While I still endeavor to steer students away from the sort of writing I think does not merit time in a workshop, I have learned that it is sometimes more harmful for a student--both as a writer and as a person--to compose on a "higher" level than she chooses. When it becomes clear by midterm that a beginning writer cannot jettison the prejudices she brings to the class, I think we ought to allow her to develop within the boundaries she sets for herself. We need to appreciate--no matter how difficult it is for us--what that student is trying to do.

While it would be lazy and dishonest to coddle our students, it is just as pernicious to force them to become the sort of writers we think they ought to be. The less mature the student, the more freedom she should have to explore creative writing on her own terms. We can offer advice, we can point out what we think are missteps, we can even reprimand them if we believe they are disrupting the flow of the workshop. However--unless we are specifically preparing them to become professionals--in the end we must leave students to what they think is best. Their writing may be inadequate by our standards, their concept of "excellence" may be drastically different, but the work they are creating is at the very least something important to them, something they can claim as their own.

Works Cited

Bishop, Wendy. Working Words: The Process of Creative Writing. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1992.

John D. MacDonald. "Guidelines and Exercises for Teaching Creative Writing." Creative Writing in America: Theory and Pedagogy. Ed. Joseph M. Moxley. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1989. 83-87.

Schwartz, Mimi. "Wearing the Shoe on the Other Foot." Moxley 195-205.