For my tenure self-study, I will focus on my own creative writing practice. This year, I am specializing in the teaching of English/Language Arts rather than Humanities as a whole. This means I am designing new curriculum and a major focus of the year for me is the teaching of writing, both expository and creative writing.
I have a fairly well developed expository writing curriculum thus far, but haven’t had as much time to teach creative writing in previous years, so it’s an area for growth and development. This year, I am committed to allocating more time to creative writing. This aligns with my values and reasons for becoming a teacher because through creative writing, a student can find their voice, build confidence in themselves, solidify identity, and develop empathy for the stories and voices of others. My own creative writing practice has long been a passion of mine, however, in recent years I have had to put it on a back burner. I notice that this impacts me in a variety of ways. For one, I am not fully expressing a creative part of myself that is an important part of my identity. Also, I am a bit removed from the student’s own process. I hope that being able to fully put myself in my students’ shoes will make me a more effective teacher. Also, accessing my own creativity and giving space to my own voice will allow me to be more fully present during a stressful pandemic year.
I plan to participate in a writing workshop. I will challenge myself to put myself in a situation where I will be given deadlines, feedback, and be required to fully engage in the revision process in the ways I expect my students to do. This will require time, practice, and perseverance.
Key Questions
- How will I balance teaching with my own creative process so that I have time and energy for both?
- How will expressing my own creativity impact my stress level?
- How will being more creative impact and improve my teaching practice?
- Since it’s been a while for me, I wonder what it will feel like to have to write on a deadline.
- What will it be like to receive feedback from peers?
- How might I modify my teaching of writing after going through the process myself?
Goals
This is a challenging year in that we are 18 months into a global pandemic. There is ample stress on adults and students alike. I hope that taking this creative time for myself will reduce my stress and invigorate my approach to teaching.
I also hope to develop and improve my creative writing practice further. I want to learn more about myself as a writer and learner. I hope that by being in touch with my creative practice I will be better able to support my students in theirs. My goal is to become a more effective and empathetic teacher, learner, and listener.
Suzanne, I think this is a really rich line of inquiry and situates itself perfectly as a self-study project. It provides a space for you to engage in authentic personally relevant work that will also resonate for how you design learning experiences for students. It will likely raise important questions about your own practice and point to new avenues for growth. You may already be thinking about this, but I think it is important not only for you to engage in this writing experience with others in the workshop, but also to think about how you can share these learning experiences with your students . This will provide a powerful model for them in their writing; it also has the potential to simultaneously decenter your position as teacher as it strengthen your role as a co-learner with your students.