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Foreword

David Starkey
Guest Editor

Until recently, creative writing has been, like composition, one of the stepchildren of English studies. Though many teachers have employed creative writing in their curricula in a number of imaginative ways, the subject itself was not worthy of being labeled a "discipline." Fiction writers, playwrights and poets simply wrote: one didn't inquire how. To do so, in fact, was considered not only bad form, but potentially dangerous to the creative artist. Indeed, the myth still persists that writers who look too closely at their own creative processes are as likely as not to jinx themselves, to weld shut the lid on their source of inspiration.

In the mid-1980s, however, people like Eve Shelnutt, Joseph Moxley and Wendy Bishop--writers doubling as theorists--began to question the integrity of this model. After all, they wondered, weren't creative writing teachers doing their students a disservice by ignoring what the teachers themselves knew about their own methods of invention, drafting and revision? And wasn't there something important to be learned about creative writing from the burgeoning field of rhetoric and composition?

In the past five years, a number of theorists have answered a resounding Yes to these questions, and Carolina English Teacher's readers are fortunate to benefit from thinking by some of the most brilliant creative writing teachers in the country. My call for manuscripts attracted instructors from all across the country. Three contributors are from the Palmetto State, but we also have work from North Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire, New York, Nebraska, Wyoming and Washington. CET readers will no doubt recognize many well-known names in the table of contents.

While Middle School and High School teachers are represented, the preponderance of the work submitted focused on creative writing at the college level. Articles, therefore, were selected with an eye to their applicability to all levels of instruction. William Ramsey's "Creative Writing in Literature Classes," for instance--a detailed overview of the use of creative portfolios as a substitute for conventional essay exams- -should work as well in an eighth-grade English class is it does in Dr. Ramsey's college courses. Likewise, Sheryl Lain's "Writing's in the Bag" exercise--which is geared for ninth- graders--is one I can easily envision using in my introductory poetry class at Francis Marion University. Moreover, articles like Donald Murray's "Before Writing: Remember What Makes Writing Easy" and Alice Brand's "Myths and Little Miracles" should prove valuable to teachers and students engaged in serious writing at any level.

Variety, hybridization and cross-fertilization are recurrent themes in this issue of Carolina English Teacher: a poet uses literary theory; a literary theorist uses poetry; a composition teacher uses theory, poetry and expository writing; a long-dead poet, thought to be hopelessly conservative, is found on reexamination to be a radical precursor of current writing theorists. The prevailing notion of writing pedagogy as a bazaar with many booths offering many different kinds of commodities is evident throughout the following pages.

Granted, some readers, wary of cryptic and unnecessary jargon, may twinge at the repetitions of the word "theory" and "theorist" in the previous paragraph. They shouldn't. Theory in the hands of the present contributors is not some Frankenstein's monster which turns on its master, but instead provides a way of thinking clearly and coherently about a given topic. The present articles should furnish ample evidence that writing theorists don't have to drape themselves in obscurity when they say what they want to say.

I'd like to thank CETs regular editors, Warren and Holly Westcott, for giving me the opportunity to put together this special issue. Their advice and encouragement was essential. Our manuscript readers were equally indispensable: Lynn Kostoff at Francis Marion University, Ed Epps at McCracken Junior High School, Nell Braswell at Winthrop University, Curt Elliott at Richland School District 1 , Libby Bernadine and Harriet Williams at the University of South Carolina. Many of the articles that follow have profited from the critical acumen of these hardworking colleagues. Finally, I want to thank the members of the South Carolina Council of Teachers of English for their willingness to take a new look at an old subject. If readers of this issue of Carolina English Teacher find themselves reexamining their attitudes towards creative writing even a little, the project will have been worthwhile.

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