The use of the workshop style seminar in creative writing teaching has become something of a standard at University of East Anglia on both graduate and undergraduate courses. This kind of seminar which allows the students to present work to their peers and receive feedback, seems to be one of the most popular and enduring parts of the course. Students express again and again that where they gain the most in Creative Writing is from hearing other people’s work and talking about it.
At a postgraduate level, this is pretty much all you will get, with the focus resting on the workshop leader to shepherd and direct the group dynamics into a functioning critical organism. At undergraduate level there is still an element of teaching involved, some formal stuff on Plot, Point of View and so on, but every week for an hour we discuss two, or maybe three, pieces of work submitted by other members of the class.
For the first few weeks the responses are generally thoughtful, if a little timid, generally playing to the strengths of the writing: ‘I liked this piece’, ‘I thought the dialogue was great’ etc. but once everyone has had a go, and the class has had a chance to get the measure of each other, it gets more pointed, directive, editorial. ‘I liked this but I though the dialogue could be sharper, more succinct, why don’t you cut it and add some more description?’ And so forth. There’s a sense in which the group is looking for the potential in the work and trying to send the author in that direction. There is an acknowledgement that in one way or another everybody is giving a bit of themselves away. One student noted that ‘It was scary at first to read in front of everyone but after a while I got used to it as everyone was in the same boat so they weren’t too judgmental.’ In this environment the transferable skills on offer to the student are numerous. The participatory nature of the workshop means that if no one says anything we sit in silence for an hour. The expectation of a seminar led from the front is instantly dismissed. In the first instance the writing improves, but secondly there is the development of an editorial as well as a writing skill, a self-consciousness that can be applied in other subjects. In Practical Journalism for example, students benefited from having their journalistic work reviewed by the class. The class had a chance to think about the rhetoric of journalism and to see it applied in practise by their peers. The workshop created an environment where the art of journalism could be dissected and then applied to the written work.
Similarly, this kind of environment prepares students for teaching themselves. It creates an atmosphere of mutual learning, of watching others progress. One student noted on their Creative Writing Evaluation form that ‘it taught me to edit and to criticise.’ Obviously the workshop doesn’t suit all students, the less confident struggle having to present themselves orally, there is sometimes a danger that the class can be ruined by the singular voice who won’t shut up, the group may not like each other and refuse to talk. But these problems are rare and usually overcome if the workshop is led sensitively. In Creative Experiment Frank Whiteread suggests that the ‘real problem the teacher of English has to face is not how to supply his pupils with ‘matter’ to write about; it is rather how to develop within the classroom a climate of personal relationships within which it becomes possible for them to write about the concerns which already matter to them intensely.’
The workshop, when working as it should, goes a long way towards creating that climate.
