As a creative writer myself, will I become a more creative teacher?

As a creative writer myself, will I become a more creative teacher?

A three year study points to constraining forces upon teachers' creative thinking and practices as teachers of writing. During their experience of a twelve week course final-year pre-service teachers reflected upon their struggle to find a voice as novice writers of poems, short stories and play-scripts. Data on their troubling and transformative experiences of becoming writers are juxtaposed against participants' planning and reflections on their teaching of writing in primary schools. Educators as writers expressed a need for discovery approaches, using thinking time for gestation rather than outlining and multiple redrafting of a work. However, as teachers of writing the majority engaged pupils in process methods of mapping, planning, and redrafting of creative works. The few who challenged this habitus used discovery methods, finding space for creative thinking and writing to support pupils' enthusiasm for writing. The implications for curriculum developers and educators are that to encourage learners' joy in writing that is fresh and original there is a need for flexible curricula and diverse teaching methods.

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