A Tokyo JALT and LiLT SIG Collaborative event
Creative Writing in Language Teaching Contexts
Five speakers will share their expertise on creative writing in workshops and interactive sessions. The sessions will be interactive and include practical suggestions for classroom activities. We welcome all those who are interested in teaching or learning more about creative writing.
Date & Time: Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 12 noon-5pm- Location: Online via Zoom
- Fee for JALT members and non-members: Free
Guest Speakers
- Creative Writing in the EFL Classroom, by Suzanne Kamata
- A Bit of a Character: Building Voice in Fiction with L2 students, by Iain Maloney
- Reading to Write, Writing to Read, by Cristina Tat
- How can Literary Linguistics Facilitate Discussion in the Creative Writing Workshop? by Luke Draper
- Creative Writing in the Era of COVID-19 Pandemic by Atsushi Iida
Abstracts
Creative Writing in the EFL Classroom
Suzanne Kamata
Creative Writing can be a fun and dynamic component of language learning. Additionally, writing poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction can help students of all levels achieve academic goals set forth by MEXT, such as developing critical thinking skills, and increased learner autonomy. Creative writing can be incorporated into group activities and pair work, as well as individual projects. Sharing creative writing in groups has the potential to improve students’ self-esteem, problem-solving abilities, self-awareness, and communication skills, among other benefits. In this session, author and instructor Suzanne Kamata will share activities in creative writing that she has successfully used in Japanese high school and university EFL classes. This session will be conducted in part as a writing workshop. Bring a notebook and pen.
Biography
Suzanne Kamata is an associate professor at Naruto University of Education in Tokushima Prefecture where she teaches writing and general English courses. Kamata is the award-winning author or editor of thirteen books in various genres, including most recently A Girls’ Guide to the Islands, a travelogue for literacy learners, the novel Indigo Girl, and the memoir Squeaky Wheels: Travels with My Daughter by Train, Plane, Metro, Tuk-tuk and Wheelchair. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.
A Bit of a Character: Building Voice in Fiction with L2 students
Iain Maloney
Moving from autobiographical writing to fiction can seem like a big leap for L2 students. Writing fiction often means building characters, plot and worlds from scratch. Students may never have written in a voice other than their own before, and the steps required to build a believable character may seem insurmountable. Whether deciding on first or third person narrative or simply what flavour of ice cream a character likes, there seems to be endless choices and these can seem overwhelming. By breaking a character down into constituent parts, and approaching voice outside the boundaries of the story, the process can seem more manageable and even fun. This workshop will focus on a lesson conducted with third year English majors at a Japanese university. Iain Maloney will outline the thinking behind the lesson and textual analysis students undertake, before guiding participants through one of the activities, and then looking at some outcomes. Pen and paper required.
Biography
Iain Maloney works at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies where he teaches creative writing.He is a published author, with three novels, a book of haiku and a memoir to his name. The latter, The Only Gaijin in the Village is about his life in rural Japan. www.iainmaloney.com
Reading to Write, Writing to Read
Cristina Tat
This presentation will describe an elective course that has been introduced with the aim of encouraging university students to read for pleasure and to become more actively engaged with texts by developing their writing skills. The required English courses in this EAP program focus mostly on intensive reading and academic writing and students` reading progress is actively tracked through MReader and Xreading. This setup had led to students viewing reading and writing as the necessary “obstacles” they have to overcome in order to pass and very few of them read in L1 or L2 in their spare time. It is hypothesized that through experiencing the process of creative writing, students can develop audience awareness from instructor and peer feedback, and also that they can use short works of fiction to develop their writing skills. It is the instructor`s hope that they will become more critical readers by learning to be better writers. The basic outline of the course as well as students` responses to surveys about their reading habits at the beginning and end of the course will be described in the hope of generating discussion and sharing ideas for further course development.
Biography
Cristina Tat is an Assistant Lecturer of English in the School of Policy Studies at Kwansei Gakuin University. She is a graduate of Vassar College and Baruch College Marxe School of Public and International Affairs. Her research interests include extensive reading and comparative education. tatchristina@hotmail.com
“The Description of the Crocodile was Real Good:” How Stylistics can Facilitate Discussion in the Creative Writing Workshop
Luke Draper
The creative writing (CW) workshop, where members are urged to share their writing and both receive and provide constructive criticism, has prompted much critical commentary in recent years. Some have criticised the practice for failing to evolve from its mid-century Iowa workshop model, with its emphasis on ‘toughening up’ writers for a career of oftentimes harsh reviews, while others lament the irresolute nature of workshop interactions. the failure of workshop members to articulate precise elements of craft perceived to require revision, this talk argues, can be attributed to inadequate narratological and stylistic awareness. Basic fluency in the metalanguage of these fields may facilitate more detailed and focused discussion within the workshop, thus constructively impacting members’ revisional processes and writer identity.
This talk will first adopt a practical approach by exploring literary linguistics with a writing prompt and a brief linguistic textual analysis, underscoring how this field of study can be implemented into creative writing study and/or pedagogy. It will then discuss the sociohistory and current state of the CW workshop in higher education, warts and all, while inquiring into the impact literary linguistics may have on interactions within them.
Biography
Luke Draper is a PhD student at the University of Surrey (UK). His thesis is on stylistic instruction in the Higher Education Creative Writing classroom and its impact on workshop peer feedback interactions and revisional decisions. He is an Associate Lecturer of English at Kwansei Gakuin University and specialises in writing pedagogy, material development and EAP teaching. He is interested in the potential function of literature in the language classroom and Creative Writing education for non-L1 speakers of English.
Creative Writing in the Era of COVID-19 Pandemic
Atsushi Iida
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our approach to teach and learn English as a second or foreign language. In such a challenging situation, what do we need to teach in the English classroom? What really matters to our students when learning English in the COVID-19 pandemic? The aim of this presentation is to discuss the role of creative writing in the era of COVID-19 pandemic. This presentation will first discuss some issues related to English language teaching in the current pandemic situation and explore how poetry writing can make students’ learning more humanistic and meaningful. Then, the presenter will share his experience of teaching poetry writing online in the Japanese EFL university context. This session will end with a discussion of how poetry writing can be taught and what needs to be taught in creative writing.
Biography:
Atsushi Iida is Associate Professor of English and the Chair of Foreign Language Education at Gunma University. He was awarded his Ph.D. (Composition and TESOL) at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include second language writing, poetry writing, and literature in second language education. He has published his work in various journals including Assessing Writing, System, Qualitative Inquiry, and Scientific Study of Literature.
Event organisers: Mary Hillis and Tara McIlroy