Entry 4

Hesse, Douglas. "The Place of Creative Writing in Composition Studies."College Composition and Communication 62.1 (2010): 31-52. National Council of Teachers of English, Sept. 2010. Web. 1 Oct. 2016. <http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.odu.edu/stable/27917883?seq=5#page_scan_tab_contents>.

In “The Place of Creative Writing in Composition Studies” by Douglas Hesse, Hesse interrogates the relationship between creative writing and composition. Hesse believes that the bridge between to the two is arbitrary, and that with the influx of creative writers coming from MFA backgrounds and other established areas into the scholarly world of composition, that it is time for the distinction to be lessened. Hesse, having had time in the academia and politics of the composition world, also conveys how trite it can be to constantly engage in methodical academic writing that serves no personal purpose for the writer. Hesse likens this to a composer working on a stave with only the same sets of notes. If that composer is only writing pieces of a similar vein, is that composer really a composer? He makes the point, too that engaging in higher critical thinkings of writing is important, and that people studying the pedagogy understand that composition studies and the learning of its teachings refers to the whole of the studies, not just translating composition studies to mean ‘first year composition.’ Hesse is also concerned that when you take creative writing out of academic writing studies, you create two sets of writers that are writing in different genres and unable to understand and interact with the other group’s texts. This dissonance does not bode well for the future of academia. One of the final points that Hesse makes is that composition studies should include discussion about how to engage with pedagogy ‘about’ writing/composition, which means understanding the theories behind composition and the analysis that goes with it, as well as how to engage with pedagogy ‘for’ writing/composition, which means providing students with the means and understandings to be good producers of the written work. Without creating writing in the mix, Hesse argues that composition studies lean far too much towards the ‘about’ end of the spectrum, favoring students who excel in scholarly studies and analysis.

I would definitely recommend this article to my peers. It’s one of the first ones I have read thus far that really articulates and provides concrete substance in explaining the necessity for creative in composition studies. I especially think it’d benefit my peers because it would remind them that, while indeed we are in a teaching of college composition classroom that is most greatly going to be catered towards preparing us to teach first year college composition, composition studies as a whole is much bigger and broader than that, and has more uses than just teaching college freshman proper writing tools and techniques.