Date sent:              Wed, 31 Jan 2001 13:23:07 +0000
Send reply to:          To encourage discussion and the exchange of good practice by              those actively <[log in to unmask]>
From:                   "R. Allan Reese" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Re: An even wider membership?
To:                     [log in to unmask]

David responded to this on-list, so I'll broadcast it to avoid confusion.
I have nothing against creative writers or cw teachers joining this list,
but point to a corollary.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:12:23 +0000 (GMT)
From: R. Allan Reese <[log in to unmask]>
To: Mr D J Morley <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: An even wider membership?

The danger of emphasising creative writing is that it promotes to many
people (staff and students) the view that "writing" in any self-conscious
sense is concerned with arty-crafty literature.  Hence it may backfire,
and give more staff the excuse to ignore the DEV in writing-dev-he.  As
one dean put it, "If they can't write by the time they arrive here, they
never will."  And he wasn't even a scientist.

Last year I suggested we needed closer links or overlaps with EARLI, the
European Association for Research in Learning and Instruction, and their
special interest group SIG Writing.  I admit, I have not done much since
to encourage this.

R. Allan Reese                       Email: [log in to unmask]


You make one of many fair points that will emerge in this
discussion. There is resistance in partnership departments
(essentially science and engineering) to 'creativity' - whether that is
creative writing - or a distrust of the word itself. Of course there are
many colleagues who accept the 'creative' nature of their work and
encourage students to think creatively which here might mean,
broadly speaking, divergently.
The core problem is a concern that writing as discourse is specific;
that somehow it is achieved by osmosis. And then the idea that
perhaps there may be colleagues who do not have overmuch
confidence in their own 'communication skills' - a view which
students may come to adopt.
I presume that this group challenges each of this issues.
To admit creativity in academic writing is also to want to know
something about its own methodologies and theoretical
perspectives because that too is undoubtedly what our colleagues
will want to hear at some point; and no doubt there will be many
staff development opportunities.
Phyllis and Mary in 'Writing at University' already admit the need to
write across genres and write regularly and no doubt our
colleagues in the schools have been doing this for years.
Possibly, there is much to learn from them.
A good place to begin is at the conference in late March.
Best
Dave





is also to want to ask something about




Dave Peggs
Tutor/Coordinator in Expository Writing
Warwick Writing Programme
Warwick University
Coventry
CV4 7AL
Tel: 02476-523343
email: [log in to unmask]
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