Teaching creative writing
teaching english
for students

Becoming the falconer: productive feedback for the redrafting of creative writing

Abstract or Description

Within a wider neoliberal education system, time and space for redrafting creative writing are marginalised, with focus on the written product rather than the writing process. This precludes the development of young writers. As academics and creative writers working in university Schools of Education, we use inductive autoethnography to explore our memories of feedback on creative writing throughout our writing lives. The affective dimension of feedback, with readers having power over their writers, is emphasised. We identify how feedback can be unproductive and unempathetic, harming the writer. We also identify how feedback can be productive, nurturing the writer through the process towards an internal dialogue with their inner ideal reader – their ‘superaddressee.’ It is the internal dialogue with the superaddressee, who perfectly understands what the writer is communicating, that develops the writer over time, giving them control over the writing process and facilitating redrafting. We recommend the professional development of teachers to become self-reflexive readers, who plan focused writing assessments, and provide productive feedback as well as mentorship programmes in publishing to develop new writers. Future research should explore the psychoanalytic nature of the writer–reader relationship and what the facilitation of redrafting looks like in educational settings.

Reference:

Authors: Tom, Dobson and Gilbert, Francis. 2024. Becoming the falconer: productive feedback for the redrafting of creative writing. New Writing, ISSN 1479-0726 [Article] (In Press)

Text
Becoming the falconer productive feedback for the redrafting of creative writing.pdf – Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives.
Download (720kB) | Preview

Official URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14790…

Becoming-the-falconer-productive-feedback-for-the-redrafting-of-creative-writing-1Download
keywords

Related reading

  • Different ways of descending into the crypt: methodologies and methods for researching creative writing

    For all creative writers who wish to explore writing processes further, using established research.

  • Teaching and Researching Creative Writing

    Introduction This page is devoted to ideas, images and articles which will help writers become teachers and researchers of creative writing. The argument is that all writers are teachers and researchers because writers have to teach themselves how to write constantly; they continually goading and motivating themselves to write, teaching themselves how to write in […]

  • A Century of Teaching Creative Writing in Schools: the Newbolt Report and teaching creative writing

    Newbolt strongly advocates imaginative ways of teaching writing, championing self-expression above rote-learning.

  • Mindfulness and Creative Writing

    Abstract or Description An article for NAWE’s peer-reviewed magazine Writing in Education about how mindfulness can be used by creative writers to develop their practice and pedagogy. Reference details: Gilbert, Francis. 2019. Mindfulness and Creative Writing. Writing in Education(77), ISSN 1361-8539 [Article] TextFGilbert_NAWE_magazine_Jan_2019 (2).pdf – Accepted VersionAvailable under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial.Download (149kB) | Preview Official URL: https://www.nawe.co.uk/writing-in-education.html You can […]

  • Creative Power: Investigating Creative Writing & Its Value

    An instructive and inspiring collection written by Masters’ students at Goldsmiths’ university, and pupils from South London schools. Essential reading for anyone interested in finding ways of thriving in a fractured world.