Tips on Teaching Creative Writing

Teaching creative writing might be one of the hardest subjects to approach because it is largely a matter for subjection. What appeals to one teacher will not appeal to another and you never know if you are helping your students at all. Of course, there are also benefits to teaching creative writing, one of which involves getting to teach what you love, and you have to remember that if you have the expertise, you will be able to impart knowledge.

1- Teach an Age-Appropriate Class

Teaching creative writing to junior high or high school students will be different from teaching a college-level or adult creative writing class. Your curriculum and lesson plans should reflect the age and comprehension levels of your students so that you don't over-challenge them or fail to challenge them enough. Adults can have more freedom with what they write about while high school students will need to be monitored more closely.

2- Don't Make Assumptions

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when teaching creative writing is assuming that everyone in the class knows what a dangling modifier is -- or, even worse, what a noun is. When you first start teaching the class, you might be better off giving the students a short quiz to determine what they know and what you must teach them in order for them to succeed.

3- Give Open-Ended Assignments

The great thing about teaching creative writing is that it's about creativity. If you give your students specific assignments -- such as, Write about your favorite summer vacation -- you're going to stifle that creativity and your students won't have as much fun. This doesn't mean that you can't have any structure, but you should be careful about how you issue assignments. For example, you could make it, Write about your happiest memory. That gives the students a little more room to maneuver.

4- Take Time to Learn the Basics

Your best bet in teaching creative writing is to start with the small projects and then work your way up. Even if the course is supposed to be geared toward writing short stories, you might want to begin with short-shorts to cover the basics of structure and storytelling. From there, you can make the assignments more complicated so your students can grow.

5- Read Stories Aloud

One of my favorite memories of my college creative writing class was the opportunity to read our work aloud. It had more effect than just passing around papers and it allowed us to show off our work to the entire class rather than just one other reader. It is important, however, not to force a student to read his or her story to the class; make it an optional exercise for those who are interested.