Writing Creative Writing: Essays from the Field - Rishma Dunlop, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Priscila Uppal 2016
From memorization to improvisation: the challenges of teaching creative writing to students in a culture of rote teaching
Writing creative writing pedagogy
C. BY CLASSROOM
From memorization to improvisation: the challenges of teaching creative writing to students in a culture of rote teaching
GÜLAYŞE KOÇAK
Though the prospect sounded very attractive, when I was invited to teach creative writing at Sabanci University, Istanbul, in 2003, I was very hesitant about accepting, as creative writing wasn’t a well-known concept in Turkey. So I ordered various creative writing books from Amazon, found thousands of websites (all in English), added my own experience as a writer and novelist — and designed a syllabus accordingly. Everything was planned out for each week: genre, plot, character development, dialogues, metaphors, and so on … or so I thought.
So self-confident did I feel that it came as a real shock when on the first day of teaching I realized that these (mostly imported) exercises and prompts weren’t likely to work: among the many problematic issues that presented themselves, the most important was that a large number of my students didn’t know how to put their creativity into motion!
By way of background information, let me offer that Turkish education is governed by a national system designed to strengthen the “moral values” of society and to produce “like-minded” citizens. Students enter university through a standardized multiple choice exam administered once a year. Most of the classes in the education system, including Turkish language classes, are based on rote teaching — the memorization of the course subjects.
Turkish “writing” lessons involve composition writing (rarely poems or short stories). Teachers have a preconceived notion of the content of the composition and deal mostly with grammar and spelling. Because most teachers themselves were students of rote teaching, the prompts in composition-writing classes are generally cliché. Therefore, writing in general is cliché, as students know exactly what ideas they are expected to present.
I believe this is a common problem for most students who have grown up in countries where courses are memorized and where authority-hierarchy-obedience play an important role in the culture. In this essay I will try to describe how to conduct creative writing workshops, based on my teaching experience in Turkey, with students coming from societies with rote teaching. I have come to strongly believe that in order for creative writing lessons to be effective for these students (both adults and young students), three teaching methods should be combined: (1) The “standard” creative writing workshop as it is conducted in Western countries — focused on genre, plot, character development, dialogue, use of language, writing skills, grammar, and so forth; (2) parallel to the workshop, creative and critical thinking methods should also be taught; (3) students should actively be taught and encouraged to internalize “freedom of expression” — meaning, taught the courage to say and write what they think. Only if these three methods can be intertwined and made homogeneous can any one of them have meaning.
Rote Teaching, or Memorization-Based Education
It might be worthwhile to see how rote teaching works, how it limits the mind’s potential for using language as a tool for self-expression — and how it restrains creativity. Memorization is black and white: if I recite a poem by heart, there is nothing blurry; I either recite it correctly or I make a mistake — I am either right or wrong.
We memorize through repetition. If I am repeating a text again and again, gradually I lose the meaning of the words. It’s like reciting a morning prayer: If students were asked to explain in their own words what they just recited, I wonder how many of them would be able to convey the message in the so-well-memorized set of sentences? I recall from my childhood how, during the memorization of a history or geography book, a grammatical or spelling mistake in the book could be memorized exactly as it appeared.
Students do not just memorize information in school books, but also the words and sentences, that is to say, the language patterns used to convey that information, the mode of expression in those sentences. As they never have to show any effort to communicate information using alternative words or sentences, their minds can become lazy in terms of language-use skills. If there is a certain sequence of words in a memorized sentence, when students are asked to use one of those words to create a sentence giving a new meaning to the word, very often some get clogged up. Therefore, perhaps during lessons or exams, students could be asked to respond to the questions without using the words or sentences in the book. In fact, maybe all courses’ exams could be done in this way. If students were asked to try to explain even a sentence such as “water boils at 100 degrees” with different words, if they were to get into the habit of explaining with their own words and sentences, then, even if their ideas may not be very original, their language skills would definitely develop.
Moreover, in memorization-based education, in their exams students duplicate the exact ideas forwarded in the books — this is what is expected of them. They aren’t writing their own mind but “the book’s mind.” This often causes them to think only in clichés, only in the learned patterns of thinking. This, in turn, makes it very difficult to think critically and/or creatively. Ultimately, and in line with all of this, as their language becomes cliché and deficient, students may gradually lose the ability to express their own most vital needs, to express themselves. Even their most personal emotional sentences resemble nothing more than memorized, cliché sentences; they cannot come up with anything more creative than “I love you madly” to express their love.
Playing Games
In English, the verb to play means both playing a game as well as playing a musical instrument.* Playing (games) is both fun and the simplest way to stimulate creativity, not to mention the most direct and enjoyable method of learning. However, for students coming from societies where courses are memorized, games play very little role in education. Even music lessons aren’t much fun, because what is done is not playing, but rather the memorization of notes — solf ège.**
So, obviously, how can writing be playful or creative or fun?
I play the piano: I started with a piano teacher in Ankara as a child, and as a young girl was invited as a guest student to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hanover, where I continued my piano lessons for four years. Whenever I wanted to just fool around on the piano, I was told that would be “harmful for my technique,” for the way I hold my wrist, hands, and so on — I could get into “bad learning habits.” In short, like most people who have learned to play an instrument through sheet music, I wasn’t allowed to “play” with music.
Once a person has learned music through memorization (learning through written notes and playing with sheet music), unless he or she is extremely talented, even a virtuoso who can play the most difficult pieces by heart can’t improvise. I love jazz, and today would love to be able to sit down and improvise and unlearn everything I have learned — but I can’t! I can imagine that a very large percentage of musicians who have gone through a classical music education in the conservatory are in this state.
In creative writing lessons, the difficulty is very similar to teaching a classical player to improvise and play jazz: just like notes and musical sentences, the use of the native tongue is being presented in “casts” or “moulds.” This may eliminate the need to produce new and original forms, causing the mind to become lazy, because the student has not been allowed to play with language, with words. The student’s linguistic intelligence has not been given the opportunity to develop. Essentially, memorization-based education can harm the “original” use of language, because when we don’t have the ability to produce new modes of expression, new forms, our language can become ordinary and dull. In addition, if we always talk in clichés, we become unable to express our ideas in a refined way and, worse, unable to think in an elaborate and sophisticated way.
“Point Zero”
Whenever I start a new creative writing class, I find it necessary to deal with creative and critical thinking first. I introduce a term, “point zero,” by which I mean “unlearning” — being stripped of all the information and values we have learned so far, like a baby discovering the world from scratch. I have my students play certain “enlightening” games and give them examples regarding point zero. One of which is this: Years ago, I read a personal essay by a woman in Reader’s Digest. Her husband had been born blind. He had learned the Braille alphabet, been sent to special schools, eventually finished university — and met the author. She was physically unattractive — bad figure, bad skin, asymmetrical features. They fell in love and got married. She was always at his side — a totally devoted wife. After many happy years, a medical breakthrough was made, and with surgery, the man could gain his eyesight. (The author described her panic: on the one hand, she naturally wished her husband to see, but on the other, “What happens when he sees me?”) When the day came when he could actually see, his wife’s face was the first thing he saw, and to him, it was beautiful, because he was at point zero.
I try to get my students to understand what it means to approach everything unbiased, as though it were the very first encounter with the concept. But they often find it very difficult to let go of preconceived notions. Therefore, in the first few weeks I give my students really silly and unexpected prompts that render them speechless, that later make us all laugh when the writing is read aloud. This serves to shake their beliefs about what always happens in a classroom and to give them the message that here in this workshop, everything is allowed. Also, I believe humour in a classroom is the most efficient binder and relaxer.
One exercise that I demand of my students on the first day of a creative writing workshop is to have them imagine they love eating (and here, one can insert anything one likes — be it coal, pencils, paper, shoes, candles, matches …) and to write a text describing the great taste of whatever has been chosen, and the great pleasure they get out of eating it. It is an exercise in “unlearning”: describing as delicious something we have grown up believing would taste disgusting.
One year, on my first teaching day, I had to combine university personnel and students in the same workshop. My prompt was: Imagine you love eating cigarette stubs. Describe the taste and the enjoyment you derive from eating stubs in such a persuasive way that, when you read out aloud what you have written, we should wish to have a taste! All the participants looked at me in disbelief; some laughed, some smiled, some said “Yuck!” and all were at first very reluctant to write. “Just five minutes!” I told them (as usual). “Just do your best and try to write this for five minutes. Disregard spelling or grammar mistakes, don’t look back at what you have written, write as fast as you can, and don’t think. Let go. The purpose is to get really silly. Show us how incredibly silly you can get.” Five minutes later they were all still writing like mad, so I let them write for ten. The most unbelievable texts came out of some of the students. One described in detail chewing the filter like gum, and the pleasure of the bitter nicotine trickling down her throat. Another one had fried the stubs and described the process as if it were a recipe: “… but the paper should turn just slightly pink, otherwise the fried stubs may become bitter!” Another one ended his text as follows: “Yes, stubs with yoghurt and garlic is my favorite dish, but nobody can cook it like my mother can!” Yet another one had ended: “Nevertheless, if you ask my opinion, stub salad should be eaten sec …”
Interestingly, none of the university personnel had imagined eating the cigarette stubs! Most of them had written compositions and philosophized: “When I look at these stubs, I try to guess the lives of who may have smoked them.” I was curious: Were the staff members unable to “eat” the stubs because they had become so rigid they were no longer able to imagine or think creatively? Or had they become shy and self-conscious and censored themselves, afraid the students may find them weird if they wrote too realistically? That is to say, Did they lack the courage to write as they would have wanted? This wouldn’t be hard to understand. In an education system where there is so much talking and writing around the same clichés, how can a person find the courage to express a really original idea that has come to his or her mind, in a small classroom environment? The students are probably afraid of me as an instructor as well, as there is the constant fear of reprimand and authority. To break this fear, I always write together with them and share what I have written, doing my best to go to extremes in absurdity and goofiness.
For the problem of using the same language patterns, I use brief writing exercises aimed at expanding vocabulary: “Imagine you have a friend who lives in a landlocked village with no TV, who has never left the village, has never ever seen the sea, even in a movie. One stormy night you were walking by the seaside. Giant waves were hitting the rocks. Describe to your friend on the phone only the sounds that you hear. Don’t forget — this friend is at point zero, so you too must be at point zero in order to communicate.” At the beginning, students find the exercise very difficult. Some say “a very big noise,” “an enormous sound,” and can’t seem to get away from these words. But as they force themselves, other ideas and words start to appear. They begin using more specific verbs (roaring, moaning, exploding) and similes (“like the sound you hear when you shake a kilim from a balcony,” “like the sound you hear after you shake and shake a soda pop and suddenly open the bottle”).
In creative writing workshops aimed at students who have gone through rote teaching, it is important to devise such prompts that students can’t resort to cliché words or ideas, even if they want to. But there are always traps: it is well and fine to demand our students be at point zero — but we ourselves may not be there (both when we choose a prompt, as well as when we are grading what has been written). When devising a prompt, we as teachers may have conventional expectations, we may succumb to stereotypes. These limitations may make it difficult for us to assess student writing fairly. For example, a writing prompt in a Turkish high school may well be something like, “Write about what National Sovereignty Day means to you.” Sentimental texts centring around the glory of the country are expected, and all students know this. I tell Turkish literature teachers at seminars, “If a student has written about a family picnic he or she attended on National Sovereignty Day — if it’s a well-structured text, how you grade it will serve as a litmus paper as to your own expectations.”
Sometimes, things can be more complicated: I had a student who wrote an essay on how she abhorred dark people with a certain kind of accent, and tried to keep a distance to those kinds of people. She was obviously referring to Kurds. Yet another student had mentioned how she shuddered when a woman in a headscarf accidentally touched her. These were shocking to hear, but our students often — even if unknowingly — test us, and I believe it is very important not to be abruptly judgmental. Problematic issues such as discriminatory texts should definitely be discussed, but not at that moment; perhaps a few weeks later, within another context, approaching the issue in a roundabout way. I later brought up the topic “conscientious objection” and got the class to discuss militarism, the Kurdish issue, what the Kurds want, and other matters, asking questions designed for my students to see from the Kurdish point of view. Another time, I asked my students to think of a person they definitely wouldn’t wish to share their dorm with. I then instructed them to write a story about that person visiting a psychiatrist. What is the person confiding? What’s troubling her or him, or giving pain? Creative writing can be a great way to coax feelings of empathy without making students defensive.
The biggest challenge I face in a workshop is getting my students to understand that there is no “right” or “wrong,” there is no “mistake.” Turkish students expect the teacher to direct them so they can please the teacher. Therefore, it is important that the teacher not offer any clue at all as to his or her personal preferences or expectations (if he or she has any). In improvisation, there is no “mistake,” no “wrong note.” Just as there can be “bad jazz,” but not “wrong jazz” or “shameful jazz,” there can be no “wrong” in creative writing.
Another example: I was giving a lecture on teaching creative writing to a group of Turkish literature teachers. One of them asked, “But what if the students use swear words in their writing?” “Of course they will,” I answered. “But then you can ask natural questions like, ’Is there a function for that word?’ ’Does it move the story forward?’ ’Would that character use that word?’”
By its nature, in order for creative thought to exist, it is necessary to deviate from what everyone knows as “the right track.” Students need to be consciously taught, in fact, actively encouraged, to write divergent works, to not fear “mistakes” and think freely.
Writing courage is fragile. Even as professional writers we all have an internal censorship board that is constantly in force. I always have to keep reminding my students, “Whenever we hesitate to write something or feel a reluctance, or wish to go and grab a coffee, or refrain from writing, we should know that the subject matter we are resisting is the very subject or theme where something is boiling, where there is dynamism. That is exactly what we should force ourselves to write about. If we refrain from writing whenever we feel resistance, all we can produce will be shallow texts.”
I am grateful to be able to teach creative writing as something more than a skill: in my mind, it is a way of living — and I judge the success of my workshops not by how many authors I’ve produced, but by how many students I have enabled to think creatively and to love writing.
* The same applies to French — (jouer) and German — (spielen). This is understandable, because playing an instrument is pleasurable, just like playing a game.
** In Turkish, there are two seperate verbs for “playing an instrument” and “playing a game.” Interestingly, though, the verb oynamak means playing a game, as well as performing a (theatrical) play and dancing to a folkloric tune.