Process texts are published works that pull back the curtain on composition to show the techniques, tools, technologies, procedures, and/or inspirations of the creative process. Process texts also emerge mostly from nonfiction genres including memoirs, documentary films, and podcasts. In this article, educator Jason Griffith shares ways teachers…

In the pursuit of fostering vibrant and inclusive learning environments, this article explores how the practice of community-building can be a contemplative practice. Drawing upon personal experiences and pedagogical insights, Muir navigates the rewards of cultivating authentic connections among students while dismantling hierarchies within the…

This article describes an approach to descriptive writing, via the senses, as a way to promote both being present in the moment and creating vivid and evocative writing. It is important to note that this approach focuses on writing, not mindfulness or meditation training directly. However, in doing these sensory-based exercises, students learn to…

Teaching a senior seminar on creative nonfiction led author Sarah Gompers to consider how she might help her students understand the concept of writing with vulnerability. All stages of the writing process must be explicitly taught, and this extends to something as basic as topic selection. When students are taught about vulnerability--what it is,…

Diane Relf was concerned by what felt like an unbridgeable gulf between Year 7's vocabulary and comprehension, and her aspirations both for their inclusion in history and their later academic success. As a subject leader without the benefit of any history-specific training at the start of her career, she embarked on a journey of intensive reading…

In this experimental nonfiction essay, the author recounts her (many) experiences with having her creative work rejected by mainstream outlets. Detailing the blessing and the curse that is the "Ctrl Find" command, she pokes fun at the creative writing process, and links her difficulties as a writer to her work as a middle school Language…

Music is often regarded as a thing of the creative realm, something that sits to the side of the main core subjects, but music in the classroom shows music can be much more than a complement to a poetry unit. The author's journey through the Country Music Hall of Fame's Words & Music program revealed that delving into the world of songwriting…

After decades of use in creative writing programs, the workshop method has come under a recent wave of attacks and criticism. Though revising and enhancing the workshop process is necessary, the writing workshop should remain a tradition in the education of young writers.

Eight students who excelled in a statewide, middle school creative writing tournament discussed their relationships with writing. Students' interview transcripts were analyzed for references to positive and negative teacher influences. Students needed teachers who provided structured writing time and clear deadlines, valued the message of the work…

Donald Graves's early professional books inspired Koshewa to look more deeply into student writing during the 1980s, and to value all phases of the writing process. Graves's perspective on uncovering and celebrating voice elevated Koshewa's writing instruction to a new plane. In this article, he writes about the impact that Donald Graves's work…

Writing, reading, and dramatic performance have long been powerful means for representing and contending with thorny problems, and the authors see much promise in engaging students in authoring the dramas and solutions that represent their fears and their hopes for resolutions. In this article, the authors share a series of writing activities and…

Concerns about the relation between critical and creative writing are reviewed in the context of encouraging students to engage in both kinds of writing as a response to literature in undergraduate degree courses. In particular the paper seeks to illustrate and promote good practice in the integration of creative and critical written responses to…

This article offers a first-person account of an academic writing workshop from the perspective of a participant. What is significant is that the workshop combines traditional and creative writing approaches to the teaching of academic writing. This provides new insights into a process of academic writing that can have a significant effect on the…

The famed playwright Harold Pinter, having just been introduced as a very good writer, was once asked by a six-year-old boy if he could do a "w." The author suspects that "w" was a difficult letter for this young man, and he judged the writing capability of others accordingly. This student's assumption--that being a "good…

Writing a screenplay was an assignment that was part of Storytelling Through Film, a program sponsored by the Austin Film Festival, a professional film organization. In six weeks, students in creative writing and English classes first learned about the genre of screenwriting and then wrote original screenplays. The curriculum was a collaborative…