A Writer's Craft Community discussion

On the companion website for A Writer's Craft, I discuss the two workshop methods I use in an introductory class Small Group Workshops and Full-Class Workshops.

These methods work well for me. In the Small Groups, there are fewer rules, though I do give students instructions for each workshop. In the Full-Class Workshops, I usually follow the standard model that the writer is silent while we discuss the work. There are times when we break that rule, and I don't mind, but I do want to keep the focus on the text, not the writer. The text is where we look for answers first; the writer gets to respond in the end. I find that the Small Group Workshops help to train the class and prepare them for the Full-Class Workshops.

However, I'm very interested in other permutations of or alternatives to the traditional workshop model that you have found effective. I'm also interested in your discussion of the challenges and successes you've had when including workshops in introductory creative writing classes.

In the Lecturer Materials section of the companion site, I provide examples of some small group workshop activities I have used. To access those, you need to register at www.macmillanihe.com and request access to the textbook.

If you'd like to try some tactics other than workshopping but aren't sure where to start, here's an article by Karen Craigo at Whale Road Review that presents some alternatives to the traditional workshop model.

This week, my class is transitioning from small group workshops to full group workshops (both of which I describe on the companion website, see links above), so I spent part of our first class discussing how the rules of the workshop would change. In small groups, I let the author talk freely once the group has gone through the steps of the assignment. With the full class, that would be cumbersome, and I emphasized that at this stage in their writing, we should look first for answers in the text and not ask the author. It helps the writer to hear us search for answers more then it would if s/he simply provided them. I admitted that sometimes we break that rule, but usually we try to stick to it as much as possible. The writer reads a poem or a paragraph or two from prose, so we get a sense of the narrator's voice, then we discuss it and in the end, the writer can talk again.

Explaining the rationale behind the workshop strategy, whichever strategy you choose, is the most important thing. It's a lot easier to sit quietly and take notes during discussion if you know why you're doing that, and it's easier to avoid asking the writer for answers if you know that the text is where we should look first.

And if you choose a different workshop strategy, I would think that explaining why you chose it would also help your students to accept it and follow your rules.

A good discussion has developed in the Facebook group, Creative Writing Pedagogy. It was about how to workshop fiction. The questions was asked by a poetry teacher in a multi-genre intro class.

*If you're not a member of this group, you have to be invited to gain access. Message me, and I can try to do that for you. Facebook's privacy rules required this group to be "secret" because it's so big. They're still very welcoming, but you need to know someone in the group to join.