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Literary Legacies and Critical Transformations: Teaching Creative Writing in the Public Urban University

Literary Legacies and Critical Transformations: Teaching Creative Writing in the Public Urban... Fr om the Classr oom Literary Legacies and Critical Transformations: Teaching Creative Writing in the Public Urban University Nicole Cooley Undergraduate interest in creative writing is on the rise. At the City Univer- sity of New York (CUNY), where I teach, creative writing classes are always oversubscribed. At Queens College, CUNY, as at many schools, creative writ- ing as a discipline is firmly entrenched in the English department. Yet the con- versations most crucial to the development of literary studies have not begun in creative writing. While English becomes more and more interdisciplinary, a dichotomy opposing “literary” study and “creative” writing creates troubling exclusions. Significantly, at the public urban university with a diverse student body this opposition is particularly difficult, even painful, for students and faculty. I will suggest that the traditional model of teaching creative writing requires revision as I focus on two questions arising from literary studies that would prove useful for creative writing. First, creative writing pedagogy claims to foster in students a distinctive voice, yet we have not fully examined the network of assumptions surrounding voice as a category. Second, Ameri- can New Criticism, installed as a pedagogy by the first graduate writing work- shops, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Pedagogy Duke University Press

Literary Legacies and Critical Transformations: Teaching Creative Writing in the Public Urban University

Cooley, Nicole
Pedagogy , Volume 3 (1) – Jan 1, 2003
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Copyright
© 2003 Duke University Press
ISSN
1531-4200
eISSN
1533-6255
DOI
10.1215/15314200-3-1-99
Publisher site
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Abstract

Fr om the Classr oom Literary Legacies and Critical Transformations: Teaching Creative Writing in the Public Urban University Nicole Cooley Undergraduate interest in creative writing is on the rise. At the City Univer- sity of New York (CUNY), where I teach, creative writing classes are always oversubscribed. At Queens College, CUNY, as at many schools, creative writ- ing as a discipline is firmly entrenched in the English department. Yet the con- versations most crucial to the development of literary studies have not begun in creative writing. While English becomes more and more interdisciplinary, a dichotomy opposing “literary” study and “creative” writing creates troubling exclusions. Significantly, at the public urban university with a diverse student body this opposition is particularly difficult, even painful, for students and faculty. I will suggest that the traditional model of teaching creative writing requires revision as I focus on two questions arising from literary studies that would prove useful for creative writing. First, creative writing pedagogy claims to foster in students a distinctive voice, yet we have not fully examined the network of assumptions surrounding voice as a category. Second, Ameri- can New Criticism, installed as a pedagogy by the first graduate writing work- shops,

Journal

Pedagogy – Duke University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2003

References