It’s about More than a Class: The Case for a Fluid Definition of Creative Writing

C. Vince Samarco Professor of English Winner of the 2022 Innovative Writing in Teaching Award

Dr. C. Vince Samarco joined the SVSU faculty in 2001. He earned his B.A. from the University of Michigan, his M A from Wayne State University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi. In addition to receiving the 2022 SVSU Innovative Writing in Teaching (IWIT) Award, he has also received the school’s House Family Award for Teacher Impact. One of the editors of and contributors to Reflections from the Wrong Side of the Tracks: Class, Identity, and the Working Class Experience in Academe (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), he has also published numerous short stories in various magazines and journals. Dr. Samarco has also served as editor of the SVSU publication Cardinalis and taught at the Saginaw Correctional Facility.

When students nominated him for the IWIT Award, they praised him for his workinIntroductiontoCreativeWriting(ENGL261).Dr.Samarco’sclassroom was described by one student as being designed to “inspire creative discussion we don't just learn from him, but from the people around us, as well. He also pushes us to give rationale for both our critiques of others’ writing and our own reasoning for writing what we do. The classes I've had with Dr. Samarco have all expanded my knowledge of their given areas in such a substantial way.” In the essay below, Dr. Samarco, who specializes in fiction writing, talks about his approach to that class, which involves challenging students to go beyond what they’ve learned (explicitly and implicitly) in the past something that applies to all students of writing no matter their major.

Teachingcreativewritingina universitysettingpresents challenges not necessarilypresent with other forms of writing. Where rhetorical strategies taught in high school can translate to a university classroom, creative writing students often arrive at university having not received any formal creative writing instruction. Instead, what students usually bring with them to their first class is received knowledge believing all poems have to rhyme, that all stories must have a single conflict that becomes more complicated as the story progresses until the story reaches a tidy resolution, that creative writing cannot be assessed, that whatever a student writes is worthy of praise, etc. In the Introduction to Creative Writing course, then, it is necessary to both teach skills that students likely haven’t encountered while at the same time challenging students’ definition of what creative writing is. By the end of the semester, the strategy of teaching skills while subverting expectations about the fieldhopefully leads students toa broader,more fluid understanding of what creative writing can be.

The goal of expanding students’ definition of creative writing begins on the first day of the Intro class, a class that covers both fiction and poetry writing. In that first class, when we begin with the poetry portion of the semester, I make it clear that students will be performing their roles as students in ways that might be initially uncomfortable for them. After we go over the syllabus and introduce ourselves, students work on an exercise they will share to the class. The exercise could be to write a poem that doesn’t make literal sense, or to write the worst poem they could possibly write. The exercise serves as an icebreaker, where students can laugh at the nursery school rhyme or nonsensical draft they’ve produced and in the process become more comfortable with each other. At the same time, the exercise serves as a kind of catharsis. Because the exercise pokes fun at or confronts definitions of poetry students often hold, students begin to rid themselves of the notion that poetry is a singular thing. Do poems have to rhyme? Do poems have to make sense? What contributes to a person’s appreciation of a poem? These questions can lead to reevaluating childhood definitions of the genre.

After that first day, students begin the process of learning skills. The first skill we talk about is the concept of “showing vs. telling.” Showing vs. telling is a foundational skill that writers can choose to employ in a variety of contexts. It asks writers to create moments or images that suggest meaning without stating directly how the moments or images should be interpreted. “She was angry” is a direct tell. “She balled her fists and stuffed them in her pockets” is an image that shows anger without an intrusive voice stating how readers are to understand what the character is feeling. Images that show rather than tell enable readers to immerse themselves in a moment without being interrupted by a voice tapping them on the shoulder. Writers can use both methods, but while “telling” seems to come naturally to most people, “showing” tends to be something that needs practice. Students write a 500-word narrative about a character in a kitchen washing dishes. Someone very near this character has recently died. In 500 words, students must describe the character washing dishes without telling readers explicitly that someone in the character’s life has died. The goal is to depict grief without telling the reason for the grief. It’s a challenging assignment, one that provides initial practice with an important skill. Because many students haven’t encountered this device, the exercise also pushes students’ definition of creative writing beyondtheir prior understanding. Students continuetolearn that creative writing involves elements they hadn’t considered.

The next subject students learn about in the Intro course is the role sensory images can play in a reader’s immersive experience. The more a reader can feel that what’s been represented on the page mimics “real life,” the more readers are apt to accept the experience. Students almost always understand this logic intuitively. The challenge is that students often haven’t consciously used their sensory perceptions in a focused or sustained way for some time. Their sensory perceptions thereforehavebecomerusty. Some oftheearlyexercises inthe Introclassaskstudentstoreconnect with their sensory perceptions. For an assignment on “sound,” for instance, students describe in 500 words the sound made by a household appliance. The assignment encourages students to use similes to connect the appliance sound with something readers can relate to. The assignment also encourages students to recreate sounds using creative spelling. The goal of the assignment is for students to begin to retrain their sensory perceptions so that those perceptions are more attuned to the world around them. When students are aware of the important role sensory images can play in their writing, they see more fully that creative writing is an artificial construct that can be manipulated to appear like it’s accurately representing “real life.” This, too, is often something students haven’t considered.

It is also crucial in the Intro class to insist that student writers choose language carefully. This seems obvious, but most students have never entertained the idea that everyone employs in their daily interactions a palette of tired words and phrases meant to assist quick communication. Tired words and phrases often lead to tired, less-inventive descriptions on the page, which can interrupt or destroy the immersive experience. Students usually haven’t yet accepted that care with words usually comes in the revision process where writers critically examine each word, phrase, and image for meaning, sound, weight. To emphasize the importance of language selection, students write a 500-word story using nothing but one-syllable words. There are usually groans whenthisassignmentisannounced.Studentsthinktheirexerciseswill soundlikesomethingwritten by an elementary school student, and they don’t like restrictions to their writing freedom. Through this challenge though, students often find that because their palette of words is limited, they have to pay attention to words more carefully. They also find that being forced away from their oft-used words and phrases enables their drafts to evolve in unexpected ways. Along with exercises in showing vs. telling, sensory images, and language selection, students also write and share their own stories and poems with their classmates where they learn how to both give and receive constructive feedback. The ability to critically examine and talk about other people’s writing emphasizes the important notion that writing can be reshaped to more fully reach authorial intent. In fact, the feedback process often introduces students to the understanding that writing can have intent, that works don’t have to spring from their brains spontaneously and fullyformed.Throughoutthesemester,studentsalsoreadanddiscussworksbyprofessional writers so they can see how peoplewith years of writing experience have handled challenges Intro students might be facing. In addition, these readings enable students to witness how differences in identity often lead to aesthetic choices. With the exercises, readings, and feedback on their work, students’ understanding of the many forms and directions writing can take evolves. After the Intro course, students can take intermediate and advanced classes to continue learning skills and broadening definitions. What many students find by the time they graduate is that the process of evaluating and reframing their understanding of writing has liberated them to think more autonomously, about writing and about everything. That ability has far-reaching consequences beyond the world of writing.