Creative Writing Calls Forth Creative Teaching—and Vice Versa
“Really creepy!”
“Ooh, that’s devious.”
“Wow . . . frightening.“
“Icky!!!”
In other words, “You’re doing great,” creative writing teacher Ridley Pearson reassures our Middle School students, as he reads through drafts of their short stories. As the best-selling author of more than 40 books for adults and children, he knows a thing or two about telling a good story!
This semester, 13 students have immersed themselves in Author, Author!, an intensive eight-week, fiction-writing elective under the tutelage of suspense and adventure writer (and Prin dad) Pearson. Teaming up with language arts teachers Holly Morris and Becky Stevens, Pearson is leading the class through the many steps it takes to get a story from the idea stage onto paper—incorporating critique, feedback, and edits along the way—and finally producing a bound and printed publication for sale.
The first step is to take seriously the task of writing. Pearson believes students should enjoy writing. “So if it starts to feel like homework, stop doing it,” he advises. “Take a break.” But at the same time—as one who undertakes multiple revisions of each of his manuscripts—he wants the students to realize that the writing process is not to be taken lightly. All the students (boys and girls) don a tie before entering class, symbolizing that they are “going to work!” For seventh-grader Boone, who has written stories on his own, this is a change. “Normally, when I’m writing at home, I love having distractions,” he says. “Here, I’m learning to focus.”
Another instructive step has been learning to write longhand with pencil and eraser in spiral-bound notebooks—with plenty of space between lines to cross out, correct, annotate, and revise. “When we did assigned writing before, I didn’t really like editing and revising,” confesses sixth-grader Mackenzie. “But this is showing me how useful it can be.” Many of the students say they appreciate having a record of how their earlier efforts are evolving into more concise language and colorful imagery.
In the second week of class, after discussing concepts such as story structure and plot, character and climaxes, the students developed ideas for their short stories and “pitched” them at a publisher’s lunch. Over delicious giant meatballs at a restaurant on The Hill (a historically Italian neighborhood in St. Louis), each student presented his or her story idea to teachers and classmates. For more than two hours, they gave and received feedback and comments. In the weeks since, the students have engaged in peer-editing, asking pointed questions, suggesting new directions, teasing out nuances—all with good grace and a desire to improve their work.
“When we were doing the pitches, I was struggling with getting it down to something I could share in five minutes,” says eighth-grader Ruth, who has wanted to be a writer for as long as she can remember. “Usually I just jump right into a story and start writing all of it. Now, I listen to these comments—and it’s working!”
And what’s working even better, from the teachers’ point of view, is that every student in the class wants to be there, wants to do the work, and wants to do it well. This attitude “is phenomenal,” says a beaming Morris. “It’s feeding me, and reminding me daily why I’m here.”
As for Pearson? “I went home after the first day of seeing their writing and thought, ‘OK. Now my job is to get out of their way!’ You realize that Prin has prepared these guys incredibly well! They are very good writers.”