Creativity and Discovery in the University Writing Class: A Teacher’s Guide presents ideas for teaching writing at university level which recognize the need in the current world to be continually innovating in response to rapidly changing student populations and conditions, including advances in media and writing technologies. The volume emphasizes the creativity of all forms of writing and the important role of discovery in teaching, learning, and the acquisition of knowledge of all kinds. The volume brings together distinguished scholars in writing pedagogy from different educational and cultural contexts who took part in a Summer Institute on Creativity and Discovery in the Teaching of Writing at City University of Hong Kong in June 2013. Designed for teachers of writing based on lectures and workshops given at the summer institute, the collection offers both theoretical insights and practical suggestions for classroom activities that teachers of writing will be able to go to for materials and guidance.

Creativity and Discovery in the University Writing Class: A Teacher’s Guide presents ideas for teaching writing at university level which recognize the need in the current world to be continually innovating in response to rapidly changing student populations and conditions, including advances in media and writing technologies. The volume emphasizes the creativity of all forms of writing and the important role of discovery in teaching, learning, and the acquisition of knowledge of all kinds. The volume brings together distinguished scholars in writing pedagogy from different educational and cultural contexts who took part in a Summer Institute on Creativity and Discovery in the Teaching of Writing at City University of Hong Kong in June 2013. Designed for teachers of writing based on lectures and workshops given at the summer institute, the collection offers both theoretical insights and practical suggestions for classroom activities that teachers of writing will be able to go to for materials and guidance.

Creativity and Discovery in the University Writing Class: A Teacher’s Guide presents ideas for teaching writing at university level which recognize the need in the current world to be continually innovating in response to rapidly changing student populations and conditions, including advances in media and writing technologies. The volume emphasizes the creativity of all forms of writing and the important role of discovery in teaching, learning, and the acquisition of knowledge of all kinds. The volume brings together distinguished scholars in writing pedagogy from different educational and cultural contexts who took part in a Summer Institute on Creativity and Discovery in the Teaching of Writing at City University of Hong Kong in June 2013. Designed for teachers of writing based on lectures and workshops given at the summer institute, the collection offers both theoretical insights and practical suggestions for classroom activities that teachers of writing will be able to go to for materials and guidance.

Creativity and Discovery in the University Writing Class: A Teacher’s Guide presents ideas for teaching writing at university level which recognize the need in the current world to be continually innovating in response to rapidly changing student populations and conditions, including advances in media and writing technologies. The volume emphasizes the creativity of all forms of writing and the important role of discovery in teaching, learning, and the acquisition of knowledge of all kinds. The volume brings together distinguished scholars in writing pedagogy from different educational and cultural contexts who took part in a Summer Institute on Creativity and Discovery in the Teaching of Writing at City University of Hong Kong in June 2013. Designed for teachers of writing based on lectures and workshops given at the summer institute, the collection offers both theoretical insights and practical suggestions for classroom activities that teachers of writing will be able to go to for materials and guidance. This book is about the teaching of writing in university classrooms. It poses questions such as: • What should we be teaching today’s university students about writing? • How should we be teaching writing to university students? • What does today’s university writing teacher need to know?

One of the consequences of the spread of English as an international language is a growing demand at all levels in both the public and private education sectors for good English language teachers. Schools want teachers who are dedicated, well-qualified, have a good command of English, who work well with their colleagues, who can engage and motivate their students and who are committed to helping their learners succeed. But above all they want individuals who are good teachers. The notion of what it means to be a good teacher is a complex one, since good teaching draws on many different qualities that teachers bring to their classes – reflecting the knowledge, skills and understanding they have built up from their professional education and from their experience of teaching. In this paper I want to explore one quality among the many that characterize effective teachers – the ability to bring a creative disposition to teaching. For learners, creative teaching helps them develop their capacities for original ideas and for creative thinking. It also improves the quality of the experiences learners receive and can help learners develop increased levels of motivation and even self-esteem. For the teacher it provides a source of ongoing professional renewal and satisfaction – since when learners are engaged, motivated, and successful, teaching it motivating for the teacher. For the institution it can lead to increased levels of satisfaction for both teachers and students as well as contribute to the quality, effectiveness, and reputation of the school. To summarize, creative learners need creative teachers and teachers need to work in schools where creativity is valued and shared.

Even as we introduce them to and give them practice in standardized forms, students need to see these as tools to express ideas they want to express, to explore new thoughts, to develop unique perspectives and messages. We should treat genre as an opportunity space for expression. The genres we assign provide invitations to express new contents, represented in new ways, and pieced together in new kinds of coherence – all to foster new thought and cognitive development. So in assigning students to write in various genres we should be mindful of which ones might produce the most appropriate challenges to advance student thinking in our courses. Also, in assisting students to write in each genre we should not only help them to adhere to the proper form but to build those thoughts that will accept the invitation of the genre and take advantage of the opportunity the genre provides to grow intellectually and expressively.

In this chapter, I explore commonalities as well as differences between creative writing and the kind of writing we think of as non-creative, and then draw implications for pedagogy related to writing of the second kind. I will especially have in mind the kind of writing taught in university classes – typically, academic essays or research papers. A central point is that creativity and discovery are at the heart of writing and, moreover, that discovery is part of the creative process. Other key points are that creativity and discovery are forces in all human beings and can be enhanced through teaching. These are important notions for education and specifically for writing pedagogy. The discussion is divided into four parts: First, I briefly describe creativity in written language starting from a framework developed by Sky Marsen (Marsen, 2012). Then, I present some creative content in the form of a one-paragraph example of scholarly essay-type (expository or analytical) writing and describe some of the different kinds of creativity it exhibits. On the basis of this examination, I make some reflections on the nature of writing and compare literary writing that is normally classified as creative with academic writing. In the final section, I make observations and then suggestions regarding the teaching of writing that emerge from the earlier parts of the discussion.

The aim of this chapter is to consider writing as a facilitator in the context of university study. More specifically, it foregrounds the role writing has in developing learning as opposed to, what is more usually the case, its role in demonstrating learning. It focuses particularly on the use of genre, and, building on my earlier work (English, 2011), it offers an alternative to traditional approaches to genre pedagogy which prioritize genre “forms” and offer exemplary models to be emulated or templates to be filled. Instead, this discussion shows how genre can be used as a dynamic, transformative resource in the development not only of student writing but also student disciplinary learning. In other words, instead of genre being the pedagogical goal, genre becomes a pedagogical resource.

In my experience, even the strongest writers often struggle with traditional research papers. Perhaps because the word research intimidates students, many over-rely on their research sources. Perhaps because they believe research papers are supposed to be dull and dry, many students exclude information that is engaging and compelling. Perhaps because they find it difficult to reproduce the kind of formal papers that teachers often require, many students write sentences that are garbled and incoherent, filled with language that is clumsy, inaccurate, and pseudo-academic. And perhaps because they don’t understand why or how they should “translate” information from their research sources into their own language and framework of ideas, many students plagiarize. Using approaches that blend creativity with research can help students avoid some of these problems. All of the approaches that I advocate in this chapter are, I believe, beneficial to those students who already consider themselves creative, as well as those who need to discover that they are more creative than they realize. These approaches are the Personal/Traditional Blend, the Drama Approach, the Multi-Genre Approach, the 20–25 Random Things Approach, and the On-Fire Approach. Although the Personal/Traditional Blend involves creativity, it tends not to intimidate those students who feel comfortable with traditional approaches to research-based writing. The Drama Approach is especially well suited for argumentation papers. Both the Multi-Genre Approach and the 20–25 Random Things Approach, which lend themselves to essays that are intended primarily to be informative or exploratory, are perfect for students who wish to work in pairs, as well as those who must work in short bursts because of busy schedules (or because of limited attention spans). The On-Fire Approach, which uses second-person pronouns, present-tense verbs, and compelling details, can be quite intense, helping writers and readers feel immersed in the subject. Since published articles often combine research with detailed examples and true stories, the Personal/Traditional Blend and the On-Fire Approach (and others) serve as valuable models for those students who hope to write for publication.

Creativity and Discovery in the University Writing Class: A Teacher’s Guide presents ideas for teaching writing at university level which recognize the need in the current world to be continually innovating in response to rapidly changing student populations and conditions, including advances in media and writing technologies. The volume emphasizes the creativity of all forms of writing and the important role of discovery in teaching, learning, and the acquisition of knowledge of all kinds. The volume brings together distinguished scholars in writing pedagogy from different educational and cultural contexts who took part in a Summer Institute on Creativity and Discovery in the Teaching of Writing at City University of Hong Kong in June 2013. Designed for teachers of writing based on lectures and workshops given at the summer institute, the collection offers both theoretical insights and practical suggestions for classroom activities that teachers of writing will be able to go to for materials and guidance.

Are there other writing forms and writing styles – forms and styles other than the standard thesis-supported essay – that can be viewed as legitimate in higher education? In other words, can students present evidence, and reflect on, analyze, or play with that evidence through writing forms and writing styles other than the conventional thesis essay in the university classroom? My answer to such questions is a fervent “yes.” Defining the university essay beyond standard thesis+support forms unlocks the potential for writing assignments that represent the Montaignian tradition of the essay. The disjunctive essay is one way to bring Montaignian forms of the essay into the university classroom, and adding it to my teaching has offered me new dimensions for using writing as a tool for learning and discovery in my university classes. I have found the disjunctive essay so flexible in form and style that I have been able to successfully use it in many of my courses, much because of its ability to encompass both traditions of the essay while providing students with an open structure to encourage and also make it possible for them to demonstrate their discoveries and creativity. In the spirit of Dewey’s social ideals for education, I have discovered that the disjunctive essay is rich in possibilities to foster reflection and transformation through deep learning.

To teach nonfiction writing, we have broken this wide field down into component parts and various subgenres: business writing, narrative writing, persuasive writing, and many others. This is not a bad approach, and it is often a necessary one. Mastery of genre distinctions is a literary approach that is often assumed to be one of the main tasks for student writers; but distinguishing a genre by its “rules” and separating modes of writing often has the effect, in my experience, of freezing students’ natural discovery processes and creativity and even restricting their ability to use their own experience as a resource for research. My aim here is to explore the unintended consequences of this categorization specifically as it relates to students’ understanding of the choices available in writing nonfiction and to suggest specific remedies to allow for flexibility in voice and mode of discourse. In particular, I will offer an overview of a “family tree” of nonfiction forms, with question asking as the “trunk” that unites these various forms.

For the 2013 Summer Institute on Creativity and Discovery in the Teaching of University Writing held at City University of Hong Kong, I taught a highly modified version of the standard M.F.A. writing workshop which was titled The Creative “I.” The modification was designed for beginning writers or academic writers or college teachers of writing. The audience in mind is one that may not necessarily have previously written creative literary work or those who have never written or desired to write such work, unlike an M.F.A. workshop of those accepted for study in graduate level creative writing programs. The objective was to introduce some of the approaches and thinking which creative writers use in M.F.A. teaching to this audience in order to give them new tools that might be usefully applied to the teaching of various other forms of college writing. This paper discusses that experience.

This chapter describes the techniques used by the author during the Summer Institute teaching travel writing to a group of mostly Asian university instructors, many serving communities of ESL students. It introduces a number of exercises of observation and self-reflection.

This chapter recounts the author’s experience of using puppetry in academia to encourage discovery.

My chapter argues that cross-talk between creative writing and composition teachers, despite the different pedagogical traditions they are located in, will prove helpful in composition teaching.

This chapter comes out of experience teaching graphic novels in the contexts of Hong Kong and Mainland China and conducting a workshop on using the graphic novel as a foundation for critical thinking at the Summer Institute for Creativity and Discovery in University Writing that was held at the City University of Hong Kong in the summer of 2013. In the first part of this chapter I discuss the potential strengths of using graphic novels in university writing classes. In the second part, I discuss activities and strategies for implementing graphic narratives into the classroom by referring to two texts: Guy Delisle’s Burma Chronicles (Delise, 2007) and Joe Sacco’s Not in my Country (Sacco, 2010). I close with some brief reflections and recommendations.

This chapter is one small attempt to find ways to reduce the gap between the so-called academic and the popular styles of writing, to undo the perception that scholars avoid exposure by using prosaic and technical prose, and to find ways to re-think academic writing so that we might communicate “academically” and at the same time comprehensibly to wider audiences. There is good reason to pursue such a goal at this moment. Recently, growing numbers of scholars are arguing for open access to journal publications and rebelling against a pay system of publication, rooting their argument in calls for democratic access to academic work (Alberti, 2010; Jha, 2012). This is an argument about systems of knowledge, but it is also one inherently tied to writing. To be brief, there is a danger in fooling ourselves into believing that eliminating a payment system solves a problem of public accessibility to academic texts. In all likelihood, it does not. The practices of writing are much too local, contextual, disciplinary, and convoluted for that. As professional writers and scholars, we must find ways to reach wide and varied audiences through# our writing. Is it enough to make academic texts freely available online? I believe we must also try to make research compelling to and interactive with those people outside our fields who consider it valuable. In so doing, we bring our discoveries to a wider public and experiment with other means of discovery. This chapter explores two new techniques– digital infographics and digital timelines — which are proving effective in helping to bring academic research to a wider public.

This study aims to conduct a preliminary exploration of the use of online collaborative writing software in the classroom, asking not what this software does but rather what informed writing teachers and learners might be able to do with it to develop resourceful, confident, and creative writers. It will also consider the possibility that it might in fact be better sometimes to do without it.

Students in contemporary composition classes need to understand both copyright law and conventions of academic honesty (especially since most contemporary composing practices involve both copying and reusing existing materials and the necessity to attribute those materials to their sources). At the same time, they need to know the difference between the two, and to understand when and where it is appropriate to apply these different rules of “textual ownership” (Spigelman, 2000). Finally, they need to be given the opportunity to explore how both copyright laws and conventions of academic writing are the products of certain historical conditions and relationships of power and the opportunity to engage in critical debates regarding their aims and principles and their contemporary manifestations in things like corporate prosecutions of people who share content online and the use by universities of computerized tools that purport to be able to “analyze” the “originality” of student writing. In this chapter, I will introduce a series of activities designed to engage students in exploring how their everyday literacies associated with sharing and reusing the content of others can actually contribute to rather than detract from the development of creativity and sound academic writing skills and to foster the conditions in the composition classroom for more open, non-judgmental discussions about intellectual property. I will be focusing primarily on three different but related literacy practices, which I call mashing – the ability to borrow and effectively combine ideas and content from others, modding – the ability to alter borrowed ideas or content in a way that makes it “new,” and memeing – the ability to promote one’s “new” idea in a way that encourages other people to borrow it and to further alter it or combine it with other ideas or content.

Creativity and Discovery in the University Writing Class: A Teacher’s Guide presents ideas for teaching writing at university level which recognize the need in the current world to be continually innovating in response to rapidly changing student populations and conditions, including advances in media and writing technologies. The volume emphasizes the creativity of all forms of writing and the important role of discovery in teaching, learning, and the acquisition of knowledge of all kinds. The volume brings together distinguished scholars in writing pedagogy from different educational and cultural contexts who took part in a Summer Institute on Creativity and Discovery in the Teaching of Writing at City University of Hong Kong in June 2013. Designed for teachers of writing based on lectures and workshops given at the summer institute, the collection offers both theoretical insights and practical suggestions for classroom activities that teachers of writing will be able to go to for materials and guidance.

Creativity and Discovery in the University Writing Class: A Teacher’s Guide presents ideas for teaching writing at university level which recognize the need in the current world to be continually innovating in response to rapidly changing student populations and conditions, including advances in media and writing technologies. The volume emphasizes the creativity of all forms of writing and the important role of discovery in teaching, learning, and the acquisition of knowledge of all kinds. The volume brings together distinguished scholars in writing pedagogy from different educational and cultural contexts who took part in a Summer Institute on Creativity and Discovery in the Teaching of Writing at City University of Hong Kong in June 2013. Designed for teachers of writing based on lectures and workshops given at the summer institute, the collection offers both theoretical insights and practical suggestions for classroom activities that teachers of writing will be able to go to for materials and guidance.