Re: if you only had 75 minutes

[Latisha LaRue <kfischer@keller.clarke.edu>]

I rather detest making distinctions between creative writing and
composition writing in general although I do most certainly understand the
college's need to label courses as such.  I have read some very 
traditionally formed and launched essays that are also terribly creative.
Similarly, I have read fiction that lacks nearly all vestige of
"creativity" or uniqueness.  I think of Wendy Bishop suggesting that we,
both as writers and as teachers of writing, be shape shifters both in
genre and in form.  I think of Pam Houston's "Blizzard Under Blue Sky"
being published as fiction and as nonfiction.  I think of how I shape a
piece of nonficition by "lies" in order to tell truth.  I think of how
true fiction is.  I think of how good writing is good writing is good
writing no matter what the form.  And I think of how very well-written
prose, whether we label it traditional or academic or creative or fiction 
or script, is generally accepted as legitimate in the academy as long as
it accomplishes the task -- to reach a reader in some profound way of
meaning.

Katie

On Sun, 2 Nov 1997, WILL HOCHMAN wrote:

> Yes, one of the delights of teaching rhetoric/discourse/writing is that it
> often involves uncovering what is always known or understood.  And yes, I
> think Nick and I are coming at the issue of synthesizing CW & Comp with
> similar intentions...but the truth is that there is too little emphasis on
> creativity in fy comp...every year I spot students who, like myself, write
> most centrally  with poems or stories, and who also like myself, find
> themselves in an academic writing class...instead of whipping the
> creativity out of writers with our fy comp programs, I think we need to
> serve and use the creative resources our student writers so richly bring
> to us.  Will
> 
>