Christina Holmes

Discussing the Objectives

When I first signed up for this course I was under the impression that we would just write at whim and anything we wrote would be considered creative. Who would have thought that creative writing could have an objective—after all it’s creative right? So anything goes—or so I thought. That was not the case. The class entailed several objectives to help guide the course in a purposeful manner.

Objective 3 stated that the class would develop a friendly but rigorous atmosphere where students gain practices and confidence in producing, sharing and revising their writing.  I found this objective to be very practical. The roundtable discussions did create a friendly atmosphere. By having everyone within your view and at the same eye level, I felt as though I were just sharing rather than presenting.

This element made me feel relaxed and enabled me to open up more on the topic I was discussing (a poem about my brother’s drug addiction). Not only was the atmosphere more casual for me, it was obvious that my peers were enjoying the atmosphere as well, which was evident in their willingness to open up about their experiences with similar situations to mine. Because of the time constraints, I did find the class a bit rigorous, as the critiquing was expected from the majority of the class.

This could have been a difficult element, because not all wanted to share, had it not been for the discussion leader that helped guide the questions and responses, enabling others to open up about how they felt about what you’ve read. There were a few times when we would get a bit carried away by inputting our own twist on things, and the professor had to step in and redirect the focus.

The most beneficial element of this objective for me was the confidence that I felt   after all the responses to my work. Don’t get me wrong, the critiques are more than, “You did a great job,” many of the responses provide the writer with more insight into the piece of writing they have shared with the class. This lets the writer know what their audience would like to hear in their writing—maybe add more personalization to the piece or even remove some.

The confidence that you gain, when you can see that your readers are relating to the point that you are trying to get across to them, enables you to continue with your writing process, to know that your writing  is worthy!

 Another objective that I found particular helpful was objective 4; beyond self expression, to learn how to help others with creative writing. First the ability to be self-expressive automatically takes a great deal of pressure off the individual. It can be difficult to write on a topic that you have no personal connection to, with self expression you are able to write about things you like or what inspires you.  The ability to help another is always amazing and can be self gratifying, but in order not to offend the person you need to know how to helpful. For instance, during the roundtable discussions it can be easy to say to the person whose piece is being reviewed, “That word doesn’t work,” but rather than just make the comment, we were encouraged to offer a suggestion. For example if someone in the class would make that comment, the professor would chime in with, “Well, if you think that word doesn’t work, what word could you see being used?” This type of coaxing from the professor enabled us to not only point out the problem, but to offer a solution.

 My final objective of choice was objective #6; to learn constructive and critical elements of standard creative genres like poetry, prose and fiction. This objective related directly to the text, Three Genres, chapter I, “What Makes a Poem a Poem.” Coming into the class with no knowledge of the difference between poetry and prose, I found the reading from the text extremely insightful. Not only did the reading provide a detailed definition of each, it also explained the differences of each by providing examples. The most useful bit of information that I found was the 5 fundamentals used to distinguish poetry from prose. After reading these characteristics I was able to see them at work in my piece of poetry but I also saw it in the pieces that were presented in the classes to follow. Several of the students, including myself used a lot if images in their writing. I found this personally gratifying because it enabled me to take the reader where I was; giving them a sense of being there and  experiencing what I was experiencing. Another very helpful technique that I used form the text and saw observed in the workshops was the element of creating density. This was awesome! Implementing similes, metaphors and symbols to give meaning to poetry truly magnifies the creativeness of the piece.  For example, in the first draft of my poetry piece my line read, Back and forth, forth and back.

One of the suggestions made during the workshop was to keep the first part of the line, but to try and use another set of words that alluded to a movement of going back and forth. What came to mind was a pendulum because it moves back and forth, in incorporating the changes my line then became,   Back and forth, like the movement of a pendulum. This little technique gave a visual to the poem that it didn’t have. Had   I not read the possibility of using similes in poetry to set it apart from prose I probably would have removed the entire line from the poem. 

I think the objectives are great asset to the class curriculum. They help guide the course, but more importantly they give accountability to the learning process.