Creative Composition

A WebQuery for 12th Grade

Dale Johnson

johnsondal@cwu.edu

Introduction

Creative nonfiction, drama, poetry, and fiction are all valid forms of creative writing writing. There is a catch though, when it comes to creative writing; each form of creative writing conveys a certain message, and a different set of values. What one person says with creative nonfiction, another might be able to say in a poem and vice versa. As students, it is easy to fall into the rut of producing the same paper format over and over and over for history, speech, or even my class! This is an opportunity to break the cycle.

Here is a chance to explore the multitude of mediums and methods of writing. Explore and experiment folks, there's more to writing than persuasive essays and position papers!

Task

Your job is to explore the many facets of creative writing and discern what makes each genre different:

Creative nonfiction
Poetry
Drama
Fiction
Novel
Epic
Short story
Collaborative Composition

In order to complete your assignment you must complete 3 of the following:

a short story of no longer than 3 pages type-written
a piece of creative nonfiction of no longer than 4 type-written pages
two poems of different format (i.e. rhyme scheme, stanza length, etc.) and no less than 16 lines
a collaborative composition (to be completed with a partner)

The Process

Each of you will take a different path to finish the assignment. If you get "writer's block" or are creatively stuck, here are a few prompts to assist you in the completion of the assignment.

Where should you start? With examples? Research? Definitions of the genres? You decide.
Can the task be broken down into a few smaller tasks?
If this is a group project, how can the smaller tasks be divided among the group members?
After defining each genre, what stories and poems have you encountered in your lifetime that represent that genre?
What kinds of information will you need?
What genres do you like most? least?
Is something missing? Certain perspectives?
Have you found the most accurate representation of each genre?
Will you merely mimick an author's style of production?
Will you create a new product from scratch?
Are you going to choose the parts of the assignment that you are most comfortable with? or will you try something new? (after all, this is creative writing!)
Have you thought about what you will write and if the genre you're choosing to produce it in fit together best?

Resources

There are abundant resources on the internet and in the library in hard copy that can be used to complete this assignment. The following links give an array of characteristics, examples, and ideas which entail the essence of the assignment. A word of caution: there are more resources than what I have named here. Use your favorite search engine to search a bit on your own to find more ideas and examples (perhaps on a particular topic in which you are interested).

Writing.com Here at this website you can create a free profile to both exhibit your own work and browse other unpublished authors such as yourselves. Other users can view your work and provide feedback––a great resource for the devoloping writer.
Wikipedia Wikipedia provides a brief overview of the genres. This is a quick reference guide and is not to be considered the foremost authority of the genres.
Writing Prompts This weblink takes you to a site based in the U.K. where someone has already gone through the trouble of gathering writing prompts. For our purposes here, some prompts may not pertain to your age group, and yet some will!
More Writing Prompts This is another mainstream site where a group of people have put together a series of prompts.
Elements of Style in Creative Writing This link takes you to a webpage sponsored by Duke University that provides a brief overview of the elements of creative writing.
Short Stories Here you can find online short stories to look over as examples of this particular genre of creative writing.
PIZZAZ This site is a wonderful resource for poetry expression and templates of specific types of poems.

Evaluation

You will be graded on a 100 point scale. Follow the link below to browse the rubric. The rubric is a great tool to use to make sure you understand your objectives in completing this assignment.

Rubric

Conclusion

Now that you have researched the various genres of creative writing and experimented some on your own, you have a better understanding of the similarities and differences among the normal, every-day, and mundane things we read in class. Hopefully you gained something from this assignment! Perhaps you found your favorite means of fiction expression. Perhaps you learned something about writing that you had not encountered before this assignment. Though this assignment is complete, the journey has just begun.

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