Love the Ugly Red-headed Stepchild: The Role of Creative Writing in Academia by Janine Harrison

With increased emphasis being placed upon assessment in schools from Kindergarten through college, and especially in a time of economic turn down when the arts are increasingly in jeopardy, it is imperative that creative writing as an academic discipline continue to flourish as it has been for the past three-and-a-half decades in the United States. According to The AWP Official Guide to Writing Programs, undergraduate creative writing majors grew from a mere three in 1975 to currently exceeding 137. Although creative writing has been often deemed the "ugly red-headed stepchild" of the English department, it is a vital component to English education.

Creative thinking is as necessary to thought processes as critical thinking and to have one without the other is to be ill-equipped for tasks that require "out-of-the-box" thinking. Furthermore, today's educational system focuses so intently upon informational writing that the "affective" side is frequently neglected. Creative writing can serve as an outlet for not just emotional release, but genuine exploration of the intersection between ideas and emotions, conflicting truths, and expectations and reality; it is a mode of discovery and the marriage, the very manifestation, of creative and critical thinking.

In their December 2009 Writer's Chronicle article, "Out of the Margins: The Expanding Role of Creative Writing in Today's College Curriculum," Chad Davidson and Gregory Fraser posit that advantages to including creative writing are that it:

1. Promotes close-reading skills
2. Challenges the myth of linear process
3. Encourages both detachment from, and investment in, one's writing
4. Implicitly critiques the myth of the isolated genius
5. Fosters a beneficial apprentice mentality

In addition, it gives students a respite from the shallow characters and predictable plot structures that mass media has been attempting to shovel into their mouths since their first silver spoons. Students are often searching for something deeper, more substantive, something that will make them see and think in new ways.

Another reason that creative writing course curriculum is valuable is because of its interplay with linguistics. Creative writing teaches syntax as students are advised to vary sentence construction and length and to tighten structure. It teaches etymology as they examine word origins and semantics as they explore connotation and denotation. It teaches phonology as they listen closely to words for alliteration and assonance. And creative writing instructs students about sociolinguistics as they explore dialogue of characters with socioeconomic backgrounds dissimilar from their own.

I instruct college creative writing. Recently, a student e-mailed to thank me for my introductory course because she had never had an opportunity to write creatively before. As much as I appreciated receiving the communique, it also wounded me to know that the student had made it through 13 to 15 years of formal education without such exposure. Creative writing, as major, as minor, supports professional writing, journalism, communication, broadcasting, computer graphics technology, theatre, advertising/marketing, culture and media, and other majors. In K through 12, it helps to flower imaginative minds that may otherwise wilt.

For the past two years, I have seen less and less creative writing job postings. We live in a world with state budget cutbacks impacting schools across the nation. And what suffers most? The arts, deemed "superfluous" when during times of strife, individual stories need more than ever to be voiced. Love the flaming hair, the accompanying freckles. Spread the word.