English Subject Centre Mini Projects
FINAL REPORT
Supplementary Discourses in Creative Writing Teaching at
Higher Education Level
Authors:
Project supervisor was Dr Robert Sheppard of Edge Hill
College of Higher Education
Project assistant (responsible for part one of the project)
was Dr Scott Thurston.
Feb-Sept 2002, March 2003
1
The English Subject Centre
Royal Holloway, University of London
Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX
Tel 01784 443221 Fax 01784 470684
Email esc@rhul.ac.uk
www.english.heacademy.ac.uk
English Subject Centre Mini Projects
This report and the work it presents were funded by the English Subject
Centre under a scheme which funds projects run by departments in Higher
Education institutions (HEIs) in the UK. Some projects are run in collaboration
between departments in different HEIs. Projects run under the scheme are
concerned with developments in the teaching and learning of English
Language, Literature and Creative Writing. They may involve the production
of teaching materials, the piloting and evaluation of new methods or materials
or the production of research into teaching and learning. Project outcomes
are expected to be of benefit to the subject community as well as having a
positive influence on teaching and learning in the host department(s). For
this reason, project results are disseminated widely in print, electronic form
and via events, or a combination of these.
Details of ongoing projects can be found on the English Subject Centre
website at http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/explore/projects/index.php. If
you would like to enquire about support for a project, please contact the
English Subject Centre:
The English Subject Centre
Royal Holloway, University of London
Egham, Surrey TW20 OEX
T. 01784 443221
esc@rhul.ac.uk
http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk
2
Rationale and Scope
While there has been considerable debate, teaching and learning
development and curriculum innovation in ways of teaching and assessing
creative writing, very little attention has been paid to the varieties of discourse
that creative writing tutors ask higher education students (from BA levels 1, 2
and 3, M level to postgraduate research) to produce to accompany,
complement and/or supplement such writing. Words such as self-assessment,
reflection, critique, commentary and poetics, are all used to describe this
discourse. It was decided to adopt the term ‘supplementary discourses’ to
encompass these types of writing in this project and report. In essence they
are pieces of written work submitted, either as items of coursework in their
own right, or directly accompanying creative work, for assessment purposes,
although some might be non-assessed. Anecdotal evidence, validation
experience, and external examining experience suggest that there is little
uniformity over the value, principles, aims, techniques, level descriptors or
assessment patterns and weighting, or even amount, of this writing. There
appeared to be no uniformity of view as to the influence of this (usually)
separately assessed discourse on the reception and assessment of the
creative elements.
Aims
The aims of the project were to determine the range and extent of the
discourses listed above, and to evaluate the functions of such discourses in
terms of pedagogy and level.
At a time of expansion of, and diversity in, creative writing provision it was
thought vital to collect quantative and qualitative data, from interest groups,
and to draw conclusions and make recommendations for the current and
future development of the discipline.
Method
The research was conducted in three parts.
The first involved the distribution of 60 questionnaires to a range of higher
education centres known to teach creative writing. The questions concerned
factual evidence as to the range and extent of the supplementary discourses,
and sought to determine some basic attitudes about the functions of the
discourses in terms of pedagogy and level, and to separate the possible
functions of the discourse for different groups: lecturers, examiners, and
students. Each respondent was a practising tutor. Eighteen centres replied, a
return rate of nearly 30%.
3
The second involved five face-to-face interviews with respondents to the
questionnaire. Practitioners were selected in terms of the variety of courses
and/or institutions at which they taught. The interviews followed up on
qualitative issues raised in part one concerning the range, extent, function,
and future development of the discourse. There was opportunity, therefore, for
interaction, and interviewees were encouraged to raise issues that had not
been covered by the questionnaire.
The third part involved a simple questionnaire distributed to groups of creative
writing students at levels 1,2,3,MA and PhD. Following the discovery of a
range of demands and assessment patterns of supplementary discourses, it
was decided to limit the research to the students of a single institution (and in
the case of the first three levels of a single Writing programme). It was also
considered essential that, given the openness of the questions, students at
each level of the sample should be responding to the same varieties of
supplementary discourse, which could be succinctly described.
At each successive stage conclusions were drawn and these influenced the
development of the project. For example, the need for part three became
apparent after it was clear that the interest group of students had not been
consulted thus far.
Facts and Views About the Purposes and Functions of Supplementary
Discourses in Creative Writing Teaching
Basic Data on Questionnaire Sample
The range of responses to the questionnaire described in 1.4 reflect creative
writing taught at all levels from levels one to three, through to MA and PhD
level, through a variety of means of delivery, including single and joint
honours, pathways and individual modules on English programmes. The
majority of responses indicate that the teaching of creative writing at
undergraduate levels is via modular delivery. In the sample 11 out of 18
respondents indicate that their institution has been engaged in teaching
creative writing for ten years or more; six of these report a history of twenty
years or more.
4
Quantative Data on Supplementary Discourses
All tutors indicate that they ask students to produce supplementary discourses
to accompany their creative work, except in two cases where students at the
introductory levels are not required to produce supplementary discourses, and
one where an introduction to assessed creative work is unassessed and
optional.
There is great divergence in what these supplementary discourses are called,
although the most popular terms, ‘commentary’ and ‘journal’ could be
described respectively as reader-centred and writer-centred. Other terms
(such as ‘reflection’, ‘self-assessment’, ‘critique’) suggest the importance of
the analysis by students of writing produced or of the student’s process (or
both).1
Most students are asked to reflect on individual pieces of writing and just over
three quarters of students are asked to reflect on their progress over a
module, programme or year.
Under 70% of centres have formally validated criteria/academic rationales for
supplementary discourses expressed in course documentation. Most of these
criteria are held in module handbooks, with a third of institutions holding them
in validation documents.
Most centres assess supplementary discourses, with just over a quarter
awarding a separate grade to it. A third do not award it a separate grade. The
reason for this ranges from a lack of separate assessment criteria for the
discourse, through to attendance requirements that demand that nonassessed work is completed as evidence of attendance.
1
The full list of terms is: reflection (4), self-assessment (5), critique (6), commentary
(8), journal (7), poetics (1) (numbers in brackets indicate number of nominations).
Other terms specified include combinations of the former: critical commentary, selfreflective essay, self-reflexive commentary, critical preface, reflective essay,
critical/reflective essay, reflective commentary and critical response. Some responses
simply identified essays, dissertations, synopses, a ‘personal writing project’ and a
‘self-evaluation document’.
5
There is a penalty for non-submission of supplementary discourses at most
centres, although this is expressed variously, from simple loss of marks to
outright failure as a rubric violation.2
Where supplementary discourses are assessed by the institution the
weighting of this in relation to marks awarded to creative work can be clearly
expressed in most cases. These range, at undergraduate level, from a
surprising 67:33 ratio between supplementary discourses and creative work to
20:80, although 30:70 is the most common proportion. 25:75 is the most
common at MA and PhD level although 50:50 is often found at PhD level.
A minority of centres think that the concept of proportionality is inappropriate
for courses on which supplementary discourses are assessed as part of a
global, overall mark and is not assigned a separate percentage of marks. One
tutor thinks this too simplistic: ‘I assess on “package”.’
This raises the question of whether students at these centres (possibly a third)
have a clear sense of the value of their supplementary discourses to their final
assessment.
There is little uniformity over the length of any given piece of supplementary
discourse, although we can see that wordage is not left to the discretion of the
student at most centres. The range is 500 words to 2500, but this reveals
little, given that the exercises involved might range from a self-assessment on
a short piece of writing to a major act of manifesto-writing! At PhD level the
discourse ranges between 20000 and 30000 words.
2
Other respondents indicated a combination of approaches, based on a differentiation
between undergraduate and postgraduate work:
UGs: 1% penalty for each (of 3) commentaries not produced for final
assessment. MA: synopsis & essay of genesis of novel form part of a
portfolio which is pass/fail (i.e. not numerically marked) at the end of the
year. This module must be passed.
By subtracting the percentage given to the commentary e.g. in a first year
course the creative work is valued at 80%, the commentary at 20%. After the
first year, the absence of the commentary counts as a non-submission.
At BA level, the supplementary discourse is a necessary part of the portfolio
of work submitted: the student is required to present/reflect on the work
submitted. At MA level, the supplementary discourse is a necessary part of
the coursework for the two core courses. In addition, it constitutes the 4th
mark – in the shape of a dissertation.
6
Views on the Roles and Functions of Supplementary Discourses
The perceived roles and functions of Supplementary Discourses for tutors and
students, and the assumptions made by tutors about students’ perceptions of
the discourse, are live areas for debate. They cut to the quick of what the
discourse is doing for students who produce it and use it, and tutors who
consume it and assess with it.
Functions of Supplementary Discourses for tutors
Most tutors agree or strongly agree that the function of the discourse is, for
them, to assess students’ creative products and processes, although nearly a
quarter have no view. This reluctance indicates a possible resistance to the
conflation of process and product, particularly where one or the other is
conceived as being the chief object of attention in the supplementary
discourse. (See 2.61 for more on this.) ‘Not sure,’ one respondent muses, ‘ –
process yes – but product is assessed via the creative piece’. Nearly all agree
that it exists to facilitate discussion with students about their creative products
and processes, and although most agree that one function of the discourse
might be to monitor the originality of students’ work and combat plagiarism,
17% disagree.
While 11% estimate these functions vary between levels of tuition, 11% think
they remain constant. This suggests that the profession is clear as to the
discourse’s function, and receptive to the discrimination of level in terms of
hoped for degrees of sophistication. One tutor remarks: ‘At basic levels, there
has often been no previous reflection as the task may be of little value’,
implying that for the writer at lower levels reflection is less likely to be
productive (possibly while the student is learning to produce it, and, in some
centres, being taught to produce it ). Another tutor comments: ‘Student’s work
should become more ambitious as they gain writing experience. Therefore the
commentary will gain in complexity.’ This comment expresses some faith in
the symbiotic relationship between supplementary discourses and creative
writing in writerly progression.
This project has not unearthed unbridled hostility to supplementary discourses
(any centre not requiring such work from students may not have replied to the
questionnaire). However, one respondent both expresses both scepticism
about writerly poetics and a paradoxical affirmation of faith in its efficacy in the
pedagogic context alone:
A good writer likes to write rather than talk about how to write – but
the commentary can speed the gestation process and learning curve.
I explain this so that they can see the purpose of the commentary.
Our outstanding writers also produce excellent commentaries. I liken
the commentary to speeding up the “put it in a drawer for the year”
philosophy.
7
Functions of Supplementary Discourses for Students
An overwhelming majority of tutors feel that the function of the supplementary
discourses for their students is to enable the students to explain their creative
products and processes. Slightly fewer think the function might be for students
to evaluate and analyse critically their creative products and processes.
Perhaps the suggestion of using ‘critical’ skills associated with academic
English might account for the difference. However, nearly three quarters feel
that the function of the supplementary discourses is to learn about literature
through writing. Three quarters also agree or strongly agree that to speculate
on their future practice as writers is a function. One tutor indicates a
disagreement with the idea of evaluating creative products but agrees with the
idea of analysing creative process, a distinction which will be examined in
2.62.
On questions of level, just under a half of tutors think that level makes a
difference to the production of quality supplementary discourses, while just
over a quarter felt it did not. Yet again, tutors thought, for example, that ‘One
would expect that the higher the level, the more sophisticated, analytical and
knowledgeable the discourse would be.’ Student ability will develop but the
basic function of the discourse might not change.
As a device for demonstrating to students the value of toil and endeavour
such activity and writing seems valuable, in the eyes of those who tutor them.
One speaks of the discourse demonstrating ‘how important process is, what a
myth “inspiration” is, the necessity of hard work.’ Another speaks of the
relationship between reading and writing as developmental activities and the
relation of that work to the world of literary production.
The supplementary discourses give students ways of discussing and
understanding contemporary poetry and art – and ways of developing
their own practice as a result.
Although asked to consider the issue from the student’s point of view, tutors
(inevitably perhaps) emphasise aspects of assessment and monitoring in the
discourses’ functions: to record attendance, to combat plagiarism, to
demonstrate a record of reading by including a bibliography, to demonstrate
research and scholarship or to ‘situate their work in relation to current debates
in the field’.
But some of their concern for issues of assessment has student achievement
at its heart, as when one tutor emphasises that ‘the commentary safeguards a
student in that it allows the student to gain credit for working practices and
specific experience gained, even if the creative work is not very successful.’
However, another clearly sees the discourse as speculative:
Students sometimes discover the clue to their piece of work which will
allow them to redraft it to a professional level after assessment. Selfknowledge. Realisations of how a creative piece could be
strengthened.
8
The deepest difficulties for the efficacy of the discourse would be if the
students producing it were antagonistic towards it or could not see its
supposed value. Part three of the research project (see section 4) was
devised precisely to question students on their views of the necessity of this
activity, but the views of tutors are relatively encouraging. Well over half do
not think that students see the activity negatively, although just over a quarter
are worried that students do not see any point in producing supplementary
discourses and do not take ownership and responsibility for them. But as one
puts it, ‘The students who don’t, tend not to take responsibility for any part of
their degree – thus it is a symptom of a particular kind of student, not of a
particular task / module.’
Supplementary Discourses and Internal and External Moderation
The third audience for supplementary discourses is internal and external
moderators of various kinds, who also perhaps exert an unacknowledged
pressure on tutors (and, through them, on students). Asked to consider the
role of supplementary discourses in internal moderation and in presenting
teaching and learning to external scrutiny (externals, QAA etc), half of those
questioned confirm that supplementary discourses are a part of internal and
external moderation processes. Supplementary discourses play a prominent
part in any kind of second marking where the original tutor (who can perhaps
construct the context for the seminar exercise or the workshop discussion) is
absent. ‘Supplementary discourses are essential: the portfolio is almost
impossible to mark without the journal,’ says one, in a comment that is echoed
by others.
While these practical considerations assist the smooth running of the
assessment of work by others (internally and externally), and while there are
no negative comments about the roles of external examiners and others
within the profession (which is encouraging), there are clearly strategic
concerns about those beyond it.
Supplementary discourses have an important role – I don’t think the
team would have considered the module unless I had elements of
supplementary discourse in the documents. Also, it wouldn’t have got
past externals/QAA etc. I’m certain of that.
9
Another tutor makes the revealing remark that ‘supplementary discourses are
the only way of persuading colleagues hostile to creative writing that it has
some “academic” probity’. Both of these (rare) remarks suggest that extrinsic
pressures upon a subject that might not be regarded as ‘academic’ by some
within the institution or department are partly met by the presence of
supplementary writing of some kind (one suspects that more traditional forms
of discourse are encouraged here, essays perhaps rather than journals). ‘But
it’s not for that reason that I include it,’ concludes the first of the two tutors. It
is encouraging that primarily the functions of the discourse are regarded as
intrinsic to the writing course or to the activity of writing more generally.
The Influence of Supplementary Discourses on Assessing Creative
Work
The presence of a supplementary discourse, whether assessed or not, may
influence the reception of the creative work it accompanies. Sixty one percent
of tutors appeared to agree with this, although around a third thought its
presence did not. ‘I can’t think of instances where the supplementary
discourse has changed the evaluation of the creative work,’ one states.
Looking at it objectively, surely the presence of another discourse will
influence the reception, but perhaps these tutors are denying that they are
unduly swayed in terms of the mark given. The nature of this influence,
whether, for example, a supplementary discourse can validate work positively
(such as explaining techniques not immediately clear to a reader) or
negatively (such as puffing up mediocre work by copious references to
published writers, schools, theories) has to be considered.
This revolves around the issue of the supplementary discourse being a means
whereby students can make their intentions for the creative piece clear, so
that, should the creative piece be unsuccessful, the tutor is able to judge it
against those intentions. It seems that one of the inherent assumptions here is
that it is acceptable to have intentions that one then fails to realise and that
this is a way of safeguarding students whose ambitions for their writing may
exceed their competence. But it also raises the question (again) of what is
being assessed, the process or the product. ‘The commentary should not be
used to explain a piece of work but is a commentary on the process of writing.
10
The creative work should stand alone,’ states one tutor, although the research
aspect of process (non-writerly process one might call it) is recorded by the
accompanying writing, an explaining that is still not requiring the student to
read his or her work: ‘It explains individual elements such as biographical
sources, personal reading habits, self-awareness, writerly discourse and
familiarity with this’. Clearly the protection of the process against inadequate
product is effected here. 3 A typical response, matching fitness to purpose is
Mainly, it can ensure I know what the student is trying to achieve in
terms of market/genre, and so enable me to apply apt criteria. Also in
the case of ‘glorious failure’ the student can demonstrate how much
they’re learned despite a highly defective finished product.
Another adds a caveat, which brings to the fore not merely questions of
process and product, but of risk and achievement. The supplementary
discourse ‘can influence you slightly (favourably) if you see a student has
taken a real risk that hasn’t actually paid off’. The shortcomings of current
performance are justified if questions of future competence are raised: ‘If the
student in question shows an awareness of the ways in which her work has
failed, & speculates on the way in which this might in future be rectified.’
More sceptical tutors are aware that some students are manipulating their
responses, that the writing of a supplementary discourse is a rhetorical
exercise that can be dishonest or misleading: ‘One has to beware reacting to
student praise or condemnation of one’s own module – I’m sure some
students do this strategically.’ Another spoke quite precisely how a student
might fall foul of specific assessment criteria in the production of an
inadequate supplementary discourse.
A bland or overly-positive self-assessment can lower the student’s
grade. This is particularly noticeable at a borderline, of course. If they
are bland or vague, they haven’t learned the basics of a creative
writing workshop, in my eyes, thus they fall down on one of the
learning outcomes.
However, others feel that it was not usual to find ‘the creative work authentic
and convincing until one reads the critique and then it falls in one’s estimate –
in nearly all my experience the critiquing works in the student’s favour.’
This points up a tension between the promotion of a theoretical text like Barthes’
‘Death of the Author’ and the long-standing investment in Wimsatt and Beardsley’s
intentional fallacy that one also finds in the teaching of English literature in higher
education. It seems that when one is invested in the teaching of writing (and the
reading of one’s own writing) the consideration of the author’s intention is highly
relevant, whereas in the teaching of literature it has become unfashionable to do this.
3
11
The Relationship Between Supplementary Discourses and Creative
Writing
The relationship between supplementary discourses and creative work is an
issue that raises a number of questions. As one tutor put it: ‘I think this is a
key issue – there seem to be a wide range of possible relationships, ranging
from an intimate and personal account of process to an utterly separate “lit
crit”’. Some tutors feel that supplementary discourses are ‘not supplementary.
The study of writing is, and should be, on an equal par with the practice of
writing.’ Another asserts: ‘The major emphasis must be on the writing itself,
and not on critical skills which are attended to everywhere else in the
syllabus’. Both of these responses raise the issue of the relation of the
discourse to that of literary critical discourse of English as an academic
subject, which is attended to more fully in section 2.9 Between the poles of
account and analysis, between process-oriented and product-oriented
responses, there are a number of views. ‘Supplementary’ (it is proposed by
two tutors) might be better replaced by the term ‘complementary’ or even
‘symbiotic’. As one tutor puts it: ‘We place a VERY strong emphasis on
reading, research and scholarship equal to the so-called creative process.
The discourses, for us, are in no way “supplementary”.’
Writing and Analytical Skills in Relation to Supplementary Discourses
and Creative Writing
Students of creative writing are often asked to demonstrate a variety of writing
skills (and, as such, this might be one vocational rationale for the subject). In
the case of creative work and supplementary discourses, with their various
functions, there are two related but separate types of writing. It would not be
unreasonable to suppose a discrepancy in students’ ability to produce these.
Tutors seem broadly divided between those who suggest that there is
generally a parity of quality between students’ creative work and
supplementary discourses (‘In my experience, very few students produce a
marked quality difference in their creative and reflective work’), and those who
acknowledge disparity and who reflect on the implications of this for
pedagogy.
Some tutors describe a relationship of compensation between both elements
in this case: ‘The supplementary discourse is a safety-net’; poor work with
good intentions but demonstrating ‘a bad creative decision’ may be rescued,
and adventurous process rewarded. ‘Supplementary discourses sometimes
allow you to reward the creativity of an otherwise less obviously able student,’
writes another.
The question of assessment is crucial here. ‘Except where there are separate
grades for the two, I don’t let bad quality supplementary discourses bring
down the grade. I once had a student who wrote an indifferent radio play with
a splendid writer’s diary to accompany it. She got a good mark overall.’ This
perhaps is an argument for a separate grade to ensure that such a student is
routinely rewarded.
12
A number of tutors emphasise that good quality supplementary discourses are
a reasonable expectation of students at university, making a fair point about
graduateness, but possibly making a problematic identification between
literary-critical skills and writing supplementary discourses:
I really feel that it’s the quality of the writing itself that should count.
Students should be able (if, that is, they’re taking an English degree)
to discuss their own work ably, having acquired the skills to produce
sophisticated critical discourse; but they should not feel that such
discourse can make up for deficient creative work, or that the clearest
and most fluent statement of intention is tantamount to the intention
actually being realised!
At one centre where ‘creative work appears only in the third year of the
degree, students are likely to have quite advanced critical and theoretical
skills/knowledge, while creative work of the kind required by the course can
be less advanced. Accordingly some students can produce supplementary
discourses ‘superior to the creative work’.
It is clear that analytical and critical skills of a traditional English Literature
kind are demanded here. Some tutors speak of other kinds of reflective
practices. It should not be thought that any of these discourses is a naturally
acquired discourse, or that personal reflection or writerly poetics is easier than
exercising traditional literature skills. As one tutor noted, ‘Many produce good
creative work and poor commentaries initially. Commentary writing needs to
be taught, we find.’
The Focus of Supplementary Discourses in Relation to Written Product
and Writing Process
One powerful view is that ‘the supplementary discourse can be seen as a lens
through which to read the creative work’. Although this privileges the reader
(tutor), such a formulation could be used for self-developmental purposes,
particularly in discriminating between process and product. Another states
that ‘the commentary is a tool, aiding self-reflection. The creative work is a
product. The commentary is of less importance in some ways, though it can
develop skills that lead to more sophisticated creative writing.’ This preserves
the status of the writing as a product but permits process to be dealt with by
the supplementary discourses, which then feed back into future writing
processes. Supplementary discourses ‘allow the creative writing tutor to
stress the function of writing as process rather than the product of genius
which appears miraculously on the page without the need for editing,’ as
another tutor puts it. But the importance of criticism is paramount here.
‘Students really only improve when they listen to criticism, and that includes
listening to criticism from themselves,’ as yet another puts it.
13
There are however, those who wish to limit and even exclude such
discourses, and their revelation of process, either because of time constraints
or because the skills needed to produce a ‘commentary’ are assumed to be
those of analysis taught by English literature and hence already acquired by
the students.
At best supplementary discourses are illuminating of the creative
work. At the very least they are an insurance policy. On the other
hand, I have sympathy with those students who say, “I have written a
slim volume of poems and I want it to stand or fall on its own merits.”
This suggests that the ‘lens’ is irrelevant to the reading experience, or is a
kind of cheat, an ocular short cut. One could have sympathy with such a
student who wishes to present product – it is a highly professional thing to do
- but still feel that the tracking (and therefore assessment) of process,
achievement, or value added is not visible from the creative product alone. It
is perhaps instructive to recall that the word ‘writing’ can operate as a verb, a
processual activity, as well as a noun, the thing produced.
The Relative Pedagogic Importance of Supplementary Discourses and
Creative Writing
In being asked to consider the relationship between what might be thought to
be two types of writing (at least) with separate conventions (that will vary from
centre to centre) tutors are faced with the question of primacy and
secondariness, essence and supplementariness. Common sense dictates that
the discourse of a ‘commentary’ is ‘secondary’ or at most ‘complementary’.
One such response runs:
They can and should be secondary – at least in a creative writing course –
though it is possible to visualize contexts in which they were more
important. But that would feel to me like a reversal of the normal values - a
course for would-be writers who began by accepting defeat.
This is an interesting response, but one that is slightly frustrating, since it not
demonstrated what the ‘contexts’ might be that would reverse this assumed
normative situation. Neither is it inherently clear why such a view might be
‘accepting defeat’ if reflection were privileged. Both responses suggest that
creative writing needs protecting against this invasive other (perhaps here
betraying a distrust of the English literature skills prized by others). However,
other tutors not only visualize the contexts, but spell them out. ‘If one is
assessing process, then the supplementary discourse is the primary method,’
asserts one practitioner, but clearly making the ‘primary’ method the servant
of creativity. Another asserts ‘that the commentary is secondary as it can only
be read as a reflection of the primary product’. One unusual exception to this
is provided by the intervention of the enthusiasm of particular students:
14
We have a module called ‘proposition module’ where students
propose issue or problem – sometimes it happens they get so
interested in the issue and research & that part of the process, that it
takes precedence for them.
One tutor considers situations in which the supplementary discourse becomes
primary as a speculative poetics, looking towards work in progress or future
work, while remaining formally secondary in terms of assessment:
They are secondary in terms of the mark received for the overall
creative writing portfolio, but they may be primary in the sense that
self-reflection on the piece of work/s just completed may help the
student to produce a better piece of creative work in the next
instance. In seminars, students have commented that they found the
supplementary discourses extremely useful to think about what they
might write next, taking on board any ‘blind spots’ that they noted in
the previous piece of writing.
Some tutors are even more sceptical of the dichotomy; ‘It depends on what
you mean as secondary and primary.’ begins one tutor, before relating (again)
the experience of a student, who opens up another debate about
professionalism. ‘One of my students, in her reflective essay, acknowledged
that she’d never be a professional writer … but she did say she had gained in
overall confidence, both in writing and reading. That is primary, in my book!
Fantastic! She got a middling 2.2, but for her that didn’t matter.’ If we are
producing professional writers then the discourse will be secondary in an
important sense (but still valuable); but not all of our students will be. They
may indeed take themselves very seriously as writers during the course, but
the transferable skills they develop by producing supplementary discourses
and by responding to reflection, may be the most important legacy of their
education. These students may also find the focus upon process over product
valuable in assessing their cognitive and experiential experience.
In a similar light, perhaps with an eye to English subject benchmarking, which
is it sometimes difficult to relate to this kind of practice-based learning, one
tutor wishes to step out of the primary-secondary dichotomy and spotlight
understanding:
Supplementary discourses can help students to understand the
implications of formal practices – and to develop their own formal practice.
They can thus be integral rather than secondary – operating at the same
level as formal understanding.
Ultimately the distinction may collapse in another, more radical way: ‘The
student can do an excellent commentary which is a piece of creative writing in
its own right,’ which explodes the hierarchical dominance of ‘creative’ over
‘supplementary’.
15
Other Forms of Reflection
Tutors generally indicate that they give students opportunities to reflect on
their work in ways other than the writing of supplementary discourses. These
other forms of reflection include workshop discussions (unanimously),
although various forms of peer assessment practices are also mentioned.
These practices, which relate to traditional workshop design, include writing
‘an extended critique of a peer’s original writing submission’; the annotation of
others’ work and ‘filling in a peer-assessment form’. One tutor reports that
‘students are paired, and expected to have regular meetings with their partner
to discuss work in progress,’ which extends the workshop beyond its physical
bounds. It would seem that these formal exercises are designed to simulate or
supplement the kinds of in-depth discussions that occur during workshops,
between tutors and students and between students, about student creative
writing. Whether creative writing courses are better at evaluating or even
assessing seminar discussion and student-response than any other subject
area is not clear. That would depend on how the profession rewards the
constructive sensitive reader of other students’ work. From one angle, this is
an oral activity beyond the scope of this research. From another, it is perhaps
the most vigorous and useful ‘supplementary discourse’ that occurs in
creative writing teaching.
Other opportunities for less formal reflection include the use of Web
Communications Technology – one respondent indicating that ‘students put
poems, mail, criticism, [and] comment on peer and published poems’ via this
medium. Logs, journals and ‘self-diagnostic questionnaires’ are also used, in
an unassessed way.
Tuition for Writing Supplementary Discourses
Eight out of ten tutors indicate that they provide tuition for writing
supplementary discourses; one out of ten does not. One respondent
indicates: ‘Suggestions perhaps, but no tuition.’
Materials and activities specified range quite widely from brief discussions in a
first workshop, to the presentation and study of examples drawn from ‘craftoriented’/‘how-to’ writing .4 Other specified activities are: master classes,
workshops, one-to-one surgeries, seminar discussion, preparatory essays
(unassessed), general guidelines (written down in student handbook), tutorial
discussion, self-assessment questionnaire (and brief discussion of same),
informal tuition by group discussion, a hand-out for guidance, and feedback
on previous reflective essays. Some centres provide a ‘mock commentary on
pieces written in the workshop’ or ‘written sample commentaries’.
These included texts such as The Writer’s Handbook, (ed. by Newman, Cusick, La
Tourette), The Agony and the Ego (ed. Claire Boylan), How Poets Work, How
Novelists Work, The Art of Fiction (ed. Janet Burroway) and Writer's Workshop.
4
16
Others work by demonstration, tutors showing the genesis of their own
creative work (an activity that reinforces the role of the tutors not just as
creative practitioners but as fellow self-evaluators, showing that the discourse
is not a bolt on, but is – whether formalised or not – part of normal writerly
procedure).
Others adapt the tools of English literature (or other academic arts
disciplines) to the creative writing context.
In both the BA module and the MA programme, students are required
to engage in reading that includes both theoretical work (e.g. on
gender) and poetics. (“poetics” would include writing by poets but
also work relating to, for example, to site-specific art-work).
Or as another formidable list puts it: ‘Structuralist analysis / critical realist
methodology / self analysis / creative practice analysis / activities related to
imitative work / reader response.’ It is not clear how much discussion there is
about the applicability of such methods to creative writing, although clearly
these modes do not see writing merely as the acquisition of skills. Neither are
these students reading their own work (see 2.9).
Links with Other Discourses: ‘Eng Lit’/‘Theory’
Nearly 80% of practitioners see a link between supplementary discourses and
literary-critical and/or theoretical discourses. Just over 10% see no link.
However, this should not be seen as an overwhelming endorsement of
English Literature as a necessary co-practice for creative writers. The link, as
one tutor puts it is ‘by contrast. It is important that students see why lit-crit
approaches to their own work is inapt and unhelpful’. But another states, with
a revealing opening adverb:
Obviously in introducing their own work students will be using literary critical
skills and knowledge of whatever type they possess and develop in other
parts of the syllabus.
There is a clear disagreement here over whether literary critical skills are
useful or whether they are unhelpful as a model for supplementary discourse
writing. However, it is clear that the kinds of theory that are employed might
not be used to read or ‘explain’ the students’ work. The sources that are most
often cited are those that theorise writing or readership at a general level,
such as the theories of Barthes and Bakhtin.5 One centre was quite clear that
the discourses and poetics utilised were
Roland Barthes’ work was cited 4 times, including ‘The Death of the Author’ (2),
Image-Music-Text (1) and S/Z (narrative codes) (1), alongside two mentions of
Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogical principle and two references to Russian formalism.
5
Other examples are worth listing: scientific discourse; Aristotle’s Poetics;
authors/writers/poets’ self-reflections (eg, Seamus Heaney, etc.); stylistics;
Shklovsky’s ‘Art as Technique’; Todorov; Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with the
17
1) various theoretical discourses – including, for e.g. gender, identity,
space
2) various critical discourses – including criticism of contemporary
poetry
3) works of poetics – writings by poets / on poetry
4) contemporary discourses relating to art practices.
Presumably the students are using such discourses to produce their own
poetics to feed directly, through reflection, into their practice, not as analytic
skills to read or explain their work. But analysing one’s own work with such
tools is a categorically different activity, arguably even an impossible one.6
Thousand Faces; gender issues; theatrical history (expressionism, epic, social realism
etc.); autobiographical discourse; reader-response; feminism; structuralism;
poststructuralism.
6
The present author has explored this issue in his The Necessity of Poetics
(Ship of Fools: Liverpool) 2002. On pp. 13-14, in the section, ‘Don’t Explain’
I write:
None of the above poetics explain works of art. They permit. Explanation is not to the
point of poetics. But why do I think that poetics cannot, or better not, describe? Part
of the story, as I’ve hinted above, derives from the forward-looking usefulness of
poetics; but there is another, perhaps deeper, reason, that we should consider. As CG
Jung stated:
Being essentially the instrument for his work he (the artist) is subordinate to it
and we have no reason for expecting him to interpret it for us. He has done the
best that is in him by giving it form and he must leave interpretation to others
and to the future.’ (Jung, p. 9)
Being the self and in its tightly scheduled now, how can the writer provide this kind
of discourse, or be the work’s reader? As I read, as I do, poetry magazines from cover
to cover, I obviously come upon my own work. Something happens as I read it. Try as
I may, I cannot get it to inhabit the same space as the poems that surround it. I cannot
read it, partly because as I read I read every design decision I made to complete it.
There are palimpsest versions beneath the text. It is like trying to look at the back of
my head; I cannot map it with the freshness reading requires.
Writers are notoriously bad at reading their own work; indeed, that they
deliberately misread it in the service of speculating about future works is a constituent
of poetics. This can be very productive, but is baffling for critics (and for students),
who expect the kind of match they themselves might provide.
There have been a few examples where artists have been compelled to become
their own works’ explainers. I would like to mention one of the most notorious of
these. In 1946 Malcolm Lowry, faced with a hostile reader’s report and the threat of
non-publication, was forced to write Jonathan Cape a 30 page letter, explaining,
chapter-by-chapter, the meaning of his novel, Under the Volcano, and was forced to
evaluate it, and write like this: ‘The chapter is a sort of bridge, it was written with
18
This is not to say that there is not a relationship, but there is evidence
that the relationship is not one of the dependence of creative writing on
English Literature to ‘know itself’ through discourse. As one respondent
writes: ‘In general, students often say that they gain more understanding of
how literature works by doing imitative and creative writing themselves than
by reading critics.’ One imagines a rich mix of theory, criticism, practical
examples and reflection upon process melding into a new kind of literary
criticism.
Innovation in Supplementary Discourses
The above imagined hybrid discourse would be a considerable innovation in
both creative writing and English Literature. However, this project has
investigated a number of ways practitioners hope to innovate, all of which
convincingly demonstrate active practitioner research and development and
indicate an increasingly significant role for supplementary discourses in
creative writing teaching. Nearly 40% of tutors said they were improving their
work in this area, although half suggested they were content with their
teaching, delivery and assessment procedures as currently validated. The
changes contemplated include procedural amendments, such as ‘integrating
supplementary discourses much more into coursework.’ Another admits to
wishing to differentiate in the assessment of the discourses.
We’re looking at increasing the importance of commentaries of
undergraduates – we’d like to be better able to penalise students who don’t
produce supplementary discourses or put much effort into them, &
acknowledge those who do.
extreme care.... It is an entity, a unity in itself, as are all the other chapters; it is, I
claim, dramatic, amusing, and within its limits I think is entirely successful.’ (p72. )
This strikes a false note with me, the false note of the impossibility of this sort of
thing. Indeed, the letter and the novel together might constitute an anti-model for the
novel PhD as I envisage it: a text and commentary by an exegete who is also the
writer. Put thus, does it not sound narcissistic? And if not, then possibly harmful?
Especially when it is recalled that, unmentioned in the letter, which is factual, while
not being non-emphatic, Lowry attempted suicide with the anguish of this epistolary
nightmare.
The letter ends, though, with a piece of writerly poetics, one which actually
shows the futility of the exercise (and indeed it deconstructs the notion of the
monologic reading): ‘For the book was so designed, counterdesigned and interwelded
that it could be read an indefinite number of times and still not have yielded all its
meanings or its drama or its poetry....’ (p 88) And not all of those meanings are
accessible to one reader, let alone the writer, with his or her unique memories of
having written it.
19
However, this same tutor refined this, to express his hope that the
supplementary discourse would enable a greater revelation of process worthy
of assessment:
It’s not so much the commentaries, it’s the work that’s undertaken on the
creative piece after workshopping (& obviously the revised or new
commentary would give a view of this). This is what we want, & what we
want to be able to acknowledge (or penalize!).’
There clearly has been some thinking on the question of level descriptors, one
comment reflecting the way practices filter down from MA level (a number of
centres began teachijng at M Level before developing undergraduate courses
and programmes):
I want to put much more emphasis on the use of critique for the
student looking to their future practice as writers. This element has
been crucial in MA work & hitherto not so essential to BA work – I
now think it is essential to all learning.
This comment also suggests the learning from experience that is occurring as
the subject develops. Another centre was considering practices at the
introductory level. Possibly the notebook might not be thought a variety of
supplementary discourse, but the recording of (if not the commenting upon)
process seems ancillary. Indeed, armed with such a notebook, a student may
have much more to say, or more coherent things to say, about their
processes.
We are foregrounding the notebook in our first year classes in order
to inculcate independent writing skills in our students rather than
rushing to the finished product, which we believed was shortcutting
the process and causing work to be thin, underdeveloped.
Interviews with Selected Tutors on the Range, Extent, Function and
Future Developments of Supplementary Discourses in Creative Writing
Teaching
General Introduction on the Interviewing Process
The five interviewees shall remain anonymous. Each was asked
approximately the same questions, and read or had paraphrased some
passages from the interim report (that is, the earlier draft of 2-2.10). See
Appendix Two for the text of the sheet.
With the exception of Oxbridge, all sectors of higher education are
represented. However, the exercise was not to demand that the interviewees
represent the sectoral, institutional or departmental view of the subject, but to
20
invite them to speak personally as active members of the creative writing
fraternity who had answered the questionnaire, and who were willing to follow
up on issues raised there. This furnished an opportunity for a freer exchange
of views and for the emergence of more ‘qualitative notions; your attitudes,
feeling, intuitions, hopes, fears, hunches and plans’ as it was explained at the
outset. The text derives from notes made during, and summarised
immediately after, the interviews.
A works at a University College (that had only recently converted from
being a college of higher education), B at one of the 1990s new universities
(i.e., a former polytechnic), C at one of the 1960s new universities, now quite
prestigious, D at one of the colleges of a large collegiate university, and E at a
traditional redbrick university.
Standardisation of Teaching and/or Assessment of Supplementary
Discourses
The suggestion that there should be some form of standardisation of
supplementary discourses (or of any other aspect of creative writing) is
rejected by all the interviewees. It is thought essential that each centre should
develop its own rationale, and clear assessment criteria, but that they should
be flexible enough to withstand external pressures.
However, there is clearly thought to be a cohesive role for external
agencies: the system of external examiners, the existence of English
Benchmarking statements, and less formal exchanges within the subject
community. Whereas the subject may have been ‘isolated and self-isolating’
as C puts it, increased networking, or ‘healthy interchange between increasing
numbers of institutions’ has recently expanded these opportunities, which are
considered stronger, but more responsive, than formal external scrutiny.
Only D had ever thought consensus on standardising was desirable,
but attendance at a conference on the pedagogy of creative writing had
convinced him that standardisation might lead to a separation of so called
‘academic’ work from the creative. He emphasises that if the philosophy of
supplementary discourses is to enable students to respond to their practice in
whatever way they see fit – and it is best generated by the student writers
themselves – you cannot and should not standardise between centres. (He
thought, by analogy, that the analytic component on art and design and music
degrees is similarly not standardised.) Ultimately D thinks this is an ethical
argument: that one has no right to dictate a standard mode of response for
students between centres.
Since a certain amount of internal direction must exist in these centres,
it is the external nature of the issue that is threatening. The development of
Personal Development Profiles may also impose some unity upon
supplementary discourses, since they are modes of reflection.
The Function of Supplementary Discourses for Creative Writing Tutors
Tutors must be used to explaining to colleagues and students the purposes of
supplementary discourses, since the interviewees succinctly list functions in
21
terms consonant with those of part two of this report. While D gives an
overview of function in terms of past, present and (interestingly) future
development – supplementary discourses give ‘a complete picture’ of ‘where
they are up to’, ‘where I am’, ‘where I am going’ - A offered an enumerated list
of functions for the tutor:
to give credit to hard work in drafting
to examine the students’ learning processes
to enable students to discuss drafts, to quote from them
to discuss changes of voice and form
to emphasise craftspersonship and skills
to investigate the inspiration or source of the text
to credit research (both from experience and from book research)
to lay bare the processes of transformation of materials (which might
be invisible in the project)
to speed up the process of development (which has the luxury of being
slower in non-student writers).
C adds that another function might be to avoid plagiarism (if students have to
account for process, though as B points out, the drafts are more revealing of
this). B added another list of functions for the discourse, using metaphors
used earlier in the report:
to provide a ‘lens’ through which the tutor can see/judge the work
to provide a ‘safety net’ for unachieved experiment or ambitious writing,
to redeem an aesthetic ‘failure’
to judge intentions.
He adds that the supplementary discourse should be used to monitor and
show evidence of student reading, to which the profession is not paying
enough attention.
B adds the supplementary discourse should be: a defence of, or
manifesto for, the work, giving it a larger cultural remit, one that could only
derive from wide reading and the student locating herself in the field of literary
production.
E is constructively sceptical about the function and value of
supplementary discourses. Part of this is pragmatic. Creative writing is taught
at his institution as a small but popular part of the English programme at level
3. Given the brevity of the course he feels it important to concentrate on the
creative writing side. (There is also the question of how there would be time to
teach reflective skills.) However, students are encouraged to write an
introduction to their portfolio, for the benefit of an hypothetical ‘new reader’.
E’s experience as an external examiner (to a teacher education course
involving creative writing) reinforces his scepticism. He was asked to examine
rather ‘self-satisfied’ supplementary discourses that seemed as carefully
constructed as the creative work. They tended to confuse intention and
attainment, to ‘rescue’ or even to ‘replace’ the literary work. He is not sure
22
whether he saw these as acts to deceive the examiner or as acts of selfdeception. He thought the students capable, as English Literature specialists,
of writing a convincing supplementary discourse.
We have here expressed as a negative – the rewarding of intention,
the rescuing of failure, the level of care in the production of the discourse –
attitudes which are regarded as positive elsewhere. There is also an
assumption that the possession of English Literature skills is adequate to a
task which, for good practical reasons, E does not make compulsory in his
own centre. His description of the ‘lack of dissatisfaction’ on the part of the
students he examined, is worrying. C is less worried by this. She observes a
tendency to ‘try to impress’ in the supplementary discourses, but points out
that the ones that actually impress are the good ones!
The Relationship of Supplementary Discourses to other English subject
discourses or the Uniqueness of the Discourse
Most creative writing courses in higher education grew out of contexts of
English teaching, usually Literature. (Peter Redgrove’s teaching at Falmouth
College of Art from the 1960s onwards is one early exception.) It may seem
immediately obvious that students of Literature should be able to ‘describe’ or
‘analyse’ their own work (should this be thought desirable), but some
reflection will suggest that the actual tasks that students are asked to
undertake, at the very least, involve ancillary skills, or, at the most extreme,
might involve completely different tasks and skills. (The difficulties of
describing one’s own work are underestimated; see footnote 6.) Clearly the
degree of connection to English may be institutionally determined. Thus A can
state that her students ‘learn to read’ well studying English, but the courses
are ‘tied in’ together thus offering opportunities for integration. Writing
programmes completely autonomous from English (or taught in creative arts
contexts) are not at all rare.
C sees the positive effect of the ‘marriage’ between the subjects in
terms of the advantage that writing students possess. They write better than
literature students, particularly with economy; they ‘use their poetics to read
other writers’. Pastiche is one mode of apprehending literature that is open to
them. They understand literary creation both from the inside and from the
outside.
D also sees a bifocal aspect that creative writing-English students
possess. He encourages students to produce supplementary discourses that
take alternate ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ takes on the creative writing. Firstly
to speak of the work as a process, an experience; secondly to speak of it as
something ‘found’, to speak of it in the same way they would of ‘published’
work. The students are encouraged to move between the subjective, which is
what the students want to say, and the objective, which is what they need to
find out, because they find it difficult to ‘articulate much’ in the first attempt,
although it is not clear how the sophisticated code-switching needed for the
exercise is to be developed (or taught).
B sees a similar division between supplementary discourses and the
journal (a form which has been discussed surprisingly little in this project.).
While the latter might remain unassessed – it is essentially private, so also
unmonitored – the former is more demanding, and can enable students to see
23
the results or writing as ‘text’, not as self-expression. Notebook or journal
materials are there for ‘transformation’.
A recognises that it is ‘odd to theorise your own writing’ and
encourages students to trace contexts and influences in their own work. This
is sometimes harder for the well-read student than the lesser-read. In
common with B, A uses the term ‘Reading as a Writer’ to describe work which
details, for example, ‘how poets work, interviews which open up the process’.
This is recognised by both as a distinct ‘student-centred’ activity from
traditional English Literature. In B’s case this is reinforced by the presence of
non-English graduates on the MA course.
E again provides the sceptical but most instructive voice. In
enumerating the elements of the introductions he allows to accompany
portfolios as ‘a discussion of themes, an evaluation of strengths and
weaknesses, and an element of course evaluation’, he realised that the
modes of analysis required were not fashionable ones in literary studies. His
realisation that the discourse is to some extent sui generis led immediately to
his assertion of the fact that (if compulsory and assessed) it would have to be
taught.
Supplementary Discourses and the Processes and Products of Creative
Writing
In part two of the report there is some evidence of debate within the
profession over whether the supplementary writing was addressing questions
of the process of writing (as a verb) or the products of writing (as a noun), or
of both. Obviously the variety of discourses at a variety of levels means the
focus will vary, but the issue points to larger issues of the philosophy of writing
teaching itself, and to external factors, such as transferable skills and
vocational rationales.
C demands economically written prose (‘a general introduction and a
separate paragraph for each poem’) and states that this represents a ‘test of
process and intention’. Perhaps ‘product’ is measured against the intention.
Most tutors believe there is a relationship between the two, of course, but
disagree as to the balance between them. A states that, in the final analysis,
the supplementary discourse is ‘about assessing the process which builds the
product, which is then also assessed, and which is primary’. Others confirm
this careful formulation. B states that he is ‘primarily assessing product’, which
remains ‘“supreme”. But the process is monitored’, which means that it might
be un- and less assessed.
E had experimented with un-assessed ‘journals’, but students
discontinued the practice, suggesting the importance of assessment, but he
also considered another kind of process, the process of workshop discussion.
There should be a way to record and ‘reward on-going course inputs’ with
some analogous device to a reading log. But ultimately his faith is in the end
result, in that the ‘product represents’ or incorporates ‘process’. This raises a
question of how visible this ‘process’ might be if it is not commented on. (The
existence of rough drafts and notes is of course equally important here.)
Others see the distinction between process and product in terms of
level. ‘The process is primary in the first year (which emphasises the
notebook as a self-generated piece of work which is given a pass/fail,’
24
comments A. D takes a longer view and sees all undergraduate work as
concerned with process, whereas as MA and PhD writers are professionalized
and therefore concerned primarily with product. There needs to be some
distinction, she says, between these ‘levels’, particularly as the MA at a centre
such as UEA, has become the ‘Rolls Royce of courses, like the MFA in the
United States’. It is not clear what is the terminal level for the subject.
Supplementary Discourses as Primary or Secondary
Indeed, it is at the postgraduate level that the possibility of the
‘supplementary’ part becoming complementary or primary, and D relates this
to the distinction between the PhD and the MA. The ‘critical’ part of a PhD
could be primary in that it could be thought of as separately publishable in the
same way as chapters of English literature PhDs. B encourages students to
not ‘comment’ on their creative work, but to produce an independent work of
literary scholarship or piece that researches for content: archival background
for a historical novel, for example. This separates out research fro content and
research for context. It is clear talking about postgraduate levels that the
distinctions are not certain. This is negative in determining any sense of what
supplementary discourses might entail, but it can lead to experimentation, a
dialogue between the two not necessarily dependent parts, a complementary
relationship. B referred to one commentary as ‘an artwork in its own right’.
At undergraduate level there are instances of ‘complementary’ work
such as essays, but most tutors are happy with the supplementary nature of
the discourse.
The Various Modes of Supplementary Discourses
All tutors agree that, allowing for hybrids, the following four categories,
allowing for hybrids, cover the modes of supplementary discourses with which
they have come in contact:
1. Text accompanying writing or reflecting on courses
which refers directly to the works produced;
2. Journals and notebooks
which are usually undirected, unassessed and student-centred;
3. Reading as a Writer
which involves learning from other writers (which could include other
students’ work, of course);
4. Poetics
which is a term to describe a speculative discourse on writing in
general that can be found occasionally in the other three.
D does not insist on any of these modes, but allows the student to determine
which discourse encourages ‘a student-centred responsiveness’, but a
response from their positioning as a writer (not as a version of English
Literature). C is clear that journals should be ‘owned’ by the students, and
25
would contain working notes and thought-experiments. Direct text
accompanying texts is only confined to level one at his centre, ‘to warm them
up’.
Both A’s and C’s students are encouraged to debate poetics (in the
public questioning of visiting writers), but not to produce it. There may be
questions of level here. B sees what she calls the ‘manifesto’ as being
relevant to MAs and PhDs alone. (but remember the filter down effect in cw)
E’s caveat about the assessment of workshop process is perhaps not
generally considered as a type. Even the suggestion that students might
critique one another’s work in a supplementary discourse (a Workshop Report
or in peer-review schemes) did not quite reward the ‘participation, response
and on-going constructive process’.
Innovation in Supplementary Discourses
The final point above indicates one area of development for the discourse.
Another suggests a resistance to the traditional workshop and its inherent
danger of ‘committee group decisions’. Could supplementary discourses not
be used more to get students to listen to ‘their inner voice’ as A puts it? Could
commentaries also not be delivered as short presentations, so students share
the benefits of supplementary discourses more.
B wants to develop the
discourses as a ‘learning contract’, as a dialogue between tutors and
undergraduate students, by focussing them on what the students want the
tutor to comment on, and also be demanding of the student that staple
question of poetics: ‘What kind of writer do you want to be?’
Rather than poetics, C sees the ‘rebirth of rhetoric’ as a possibility, as a
complementary discourse. In combining creative writing not with its traditional
partner English but with business, science and IT (where creativity is valued in
research and development), it might bring to the fore the question that ‘all
forms of writing and knowledge are creative’. This envisages a melding of
writing in an interdisciplinary practice in which supplementary discourses
could be absorbed in a manner quite distinct from the manner of the hybrid
PhD described above.
D favours this hybrid development, so that eventually the subject will
be ‘robust enough not to need supplementary discourses’. There would be no
split between the ‘critical and creative sides’ but an emergent ‘Derridean’
discourse which replaces it. He sees this as part of a developing confidence in
the subject and in tutors’ expertise that would allow the creative writing
community to ‘resist being dictated to by publishers. We are experts too’.
Both of these possibilities see the transformation or strategic withering
away of the discourse in a confident future for creative writing. The previous
responses see developments that might be made sooner, and locally, in the
manner of course development and revalidation.
Miscellaneous Remarks
In the course of discussions with the project supervisor other matters were
raised which do not fit the categories listed above. This was part of the
intention of the face-to-face meeting. These points are listed below, along with
26
those elicited at the end of each interview, when the interviewee was given
the opportunity to raise any issues he or she felt were not raised.
C pointed out that supplementary discourses (as well as creative writing) are
produced at his centre under exam conditions, where students have to
answer questions on praxis. I have not come upon this arrangement
elsewhere.
D pointed out that in internal moderating Literature staff might be asked to
mark creative writing. Although the criteria for English are not used ‘writeracademics’ have different criteria, although this was unspecified.
E pointed to the uses of a reflective discourse, which might depend for its
efficicacy on what investment a whole syllabus/programme, has made in
‘reflection’. Being introduced at Level 3 it is difficult to support and develop it.
Perhaps the spread of Personal Development Plans through higher education
will aid this; either way, it is clear that supplementary discourses need to be
taught.
D thinks that a danger to supplementary discourses lies in the institutional
desire for writing to develop (perhaps as a cash-cow saviour of English
departments) and for publishing opportunities to be seen as primary. A thriller
will be valued above a piece of experimental writing with an excellent
supplementary discourse by the institution.
The Views of Creative Writing Students on the Practice and Function of
Supplementary Discourses
General Introduction on the Data Collection Process
It was thought important to collect the views of students upon the
supplementary discourses they are asked to produce. Experience shows that
students often have very different notions from tutors as to what is required of
them in academic work, and it was thought that this area might be open to
those misinterpretations and misunderstandings. The responses can be
compared to those in 2.32 of the report, where tutors express their sense of
the function of the discourse for students. It was also thought necessary to
examine student responses by level to see whether an increased
sophistication was observed.
It was decided that rather than conduct the research across a number
of institutions it was more cogent to focus upon one centre, where the types of
supplementary discourse for each level could be described. The
questionnaires were distributed and collected during Semester One. This
means that certain module or year supplementary discourses had yet to be
experienced.
The students at undergraduate level are studying on a modular degree,
with the Writing programme forming either a joint or minor of their degree. It is
not compulsorily jointed with English, although this remains a popular
combination.
27
The students were asked the same, simple, but open questions, at all
levels:
1. What do you write about in these kinds of writing?
2. Why are you asked to produce it as part of your studies?
3. What is its use to you as a writer?
Students at Level One
Students at level one are asked to produce a Self Assessment and an
Annotated Bibliography with each piece of creative writing. They are
penalised for not producing it, but it is not separately assessed. No wordage is
stipulated. They will also be introduced to the practice of reading as a writer
(but had not at the time of questioning). They will also produce an overall
reflection at the end of the year but students in the sample were probably not
thinking of this, although they were reminded of the kinds of discourse asked
of them.
Questioned about what the students produce, one respondent writes
evaluatively, ‘Self-Assessment is “my own feedback”’, a term which usefully
sees the intra-textual nature of the exercise. Unanimity is shown on this point.
Students write about their approaches to tackling the task set, and about their
processes and choices. They express their opinions on their relative success
or not (most balanced weakness against strengths). (Only one thinks it is her
duty to point out what she has enjoyed doing.) Most see the self-assessment
as being a chance to speculate on future work; a number saw it as a forum to
ask for specific ‘feedback’ from, dialogue with, the tutor.
Students tend to comment on the annotated bibliography separately
and see its function as revealing the textual ‘inspiration’ of the creative work; a
few see it as a chance to compare their own work to that of published authors.
Most see this as a discourse produced for their own benefit, although
about half realise it has a function for the examiner.
‘We can teach ourselves,’ states one first year; ‘ … can see what we
have done wrong before it is handed in,’ which also admits such work has a
function alongside the creative and could contribute to changing the creative
writing before assessment. Another sees it as part of the machinery of being
able to see work ‘objectively’. The respondent who says a self-assessment
‘gives the work a more substantial feel’ may be suspecting that the discourse
is open to abuse or manipulation, but the replies were mainly innocent of the
power of the tutor or of the discourse’s persuasive power over the tutor.
Writing self-assessments is seen also as a conduit of communication
with the tutor, a means of explaining the students’ development. The student
may express opinions on strengths and weaknesses but this process allows
the tutor to help the student.
This group of first year students is very clear that the process assists
them in the writing of pieces of work submitted and in the general assessment
of their progress through their new course. Some are clear that the process of
writing a self-assessment could be useful after a first draft (i.e., not as a
28
retrospective on a finished piece), or even that the process might be
cumulative by looking at a number of evaluations over time.
Students at Level Two
Students at level two (and also at level three) are asked to produce a Self
Assessment and an Annotated Bibliography with each piece of creative
writing. They are penalised for not producing it, but it is not separately
assessed. No wordage is stipulated. They will have an exercise in reading as
a writer. They will also produce an overall reflection at the end of each module
or year.
Second year students use more terms to describe their work in supplementary
discourses than the first years. The achievement and the process are
described, along with problems, but elements such as technique, the genesis
or stimulus of the writing, and also its development, are charted. One student
writes of tracing the development through successive stages of re-drafting. A
holistic sense of reflection upon more general skills acquired during the
module, not just in the piece of work being discussed, emerges in a couple of
responses.
One clearly sees that supplementary discourses have a function for
markers and examiners and that he could influence them, by outlining ‘what
ideals and ideas that I include in my writing that I may feel need explaining or
defending for the purposes of marking’. Another comments: ‘It’s a good
opportunity to indulge myself in ego’, seeing the discourse as a chance to
either praise unreservedly or to commit acts of mea culpa self-criticism. But as
a whole, the students are less concerned with a simple identification of
success or failure in a piece of work.
Annotated bibliographies are seen in terms of tracing ‘influences’ from
reading, including books on craft. One criticises the ‘annotations’ to the
bibliography, another questioned the necessity of a bibliography. Two think
the bibliography is irrelevant, because ideas for literature do not derive from
reading. They clearly have yet to encounter intertextuality.
Some students are clear that the exercise of Reading as a Writer is
about a personal response and examining the making of a piece of writing;
others confess to finding it difficult to keep off the style of literary criticism, but
recognise the existence of a difference. Reading as a writer is only singled out
once, not for the obvious reason that reading affects writing, but conversely
because being a writer can offer one ‘different perspectives’ as a reader.
Students at level two write of the need to ‘demonstrate’ and ‘show’
through their supplementary discourses, indicating that it is for the tutor’s
eyes, but very few mention assessment as a factor. It merely helps the tutor
follow the development or even – as one put it- allows the student to explain
unfamiliar styles and techniques to enable a tutor to discern the student’s
intentions.
Most, however, see the necessity of the discourse as deriving from its
function for the students, to allow them to become more aware of progress
and redrafting skills, and of choices made.
One student talks of learning to use this self-knowledge ‘to our creative
advantage’. Another writes of learning from this demand to ‘understand (her)
29
role as a writer’. Only one thinks it has any direct bearing on forcing students
to read more.
This group is absolutely clear that this mode of ‘self-analysis’ (which
one called ‘invaluable’) is a tool for reflective problem solving. What comes
over very strongly is the value of consciously understanding processes,
progress and strengths and weaknesses. One speaks of a ‘clarity of thought’
created by ‘verbalising abstract concepts’, as he puts it. Almost as strongly
recognised is the role of the exercises in allowing writers to ‘expand’, ‘stretch
your technique’, try things out, and ‘experiment’. It is clearly seen as an
explorative developmental tool for writing itself.
Students at Level Three
As they had in earlier years, third year students write of their ‘approaches’,
influences, successes, and achievements. They chart changes made, their
problems and progress. But there is more talk here of development as a
possibility. They will discuss sources of texts. They use a variety of terms to
discuss the process of writing in their discussions of self assessments. They
write of methods, and terms like ‘construction’ and ‘structure’ are used with
assurance. ‘Research’ is mentioned but remains undefined and one writes of
recording how techniques can be introduced and adapted to the students’
own purposes. Another writes of discussing alternatives or ‘rejected ideas’.
These may involve drafting, of course, but decisions about drafting are not in
abundance. At this level questions of the effect of a piece of writing are raised.
One sees the discourse in terms of explanation, as an ‘opportunity to clarify
what it is that I have created, and hopefully clearly answering the question
why?’
Reading as a writer is addressed briefly, and the problem of
differentiating it from literary criticism arises again. The end of year Reflection
is seen as a large scale Self Assessment (perhaps missing the chance it
offers to reflect generally on the skills the individual has developed).
Questioned on the function of the discourse, many sounded tentative,
but, in fact, these students assign a larger function of the discourse to tutors,
and are clear about what they perceive the discourse to be doing for
themselves.
Most regard the discourses’ function in terms of self-development and
reflection, as they had at earlier levels, but there was a greater sense of
generality. Progress is something to ‘chart’, processes are definitely in the
plural. Even though they are near the end of their university course, their
sense of future development is strong, and the reflection is a guide to later
revision. One writes even of gaining an ability to ‘give a mature, writerly
opinion on mine and others’’ writing.
There is a clear sense that students are justifying their work, or
explaining intentions, and they are, at this level, aware of to whom they must
explain. These students realise that offering a guide to their writing is
important for a tutor, who may wish to match performance against intention, or
against certain taught techniques which the work is attempting to
demonstrate.
Annotated bibliographies are not much discussed, but remain
unpopular, and are dismissed in some cases as merely having a policing role
30
to make sure students do some reading, but in one case is seen as a guard
against plagiarism. (This reluctance perhaps reflects that these students were
not required to produce these in their first year.)
This group seems very clear that the act of producing various kinds of
supplementary discourse involves a Janus-headed process of retrospection
and speculation. Reflection matches a sense of experiment (though less so
than the second years). There is the sense that the process of doing the self
assessment crystallises ideas that are otherwise implicit and that this results
in ‘heightened awareness’, consciously to state what is clearly learned and
intended. There is an acknowledgement of the importance, but also of the
difficulty, of writing supplementary discourses (not recorded elsewhere).
Some feel such reflection gets in the way, since it is demanded after the
writing process, but one realises the role of the self assessment in making
‘last minute changes’. One refusenik interestingly pointed out: ‘I feel we
should only be marked on our creative writing. The interpretation of our writing
by ourselves is of little use to the student. I feel it is a gimmick and
superfluous.’ No other student thought ‘interpretation’ was the name of the
game, but one saw that she was producing a persuasive rhetorical document
that had a clear audience and a clear, but limited, function: It ‘helps me “sell”
my work to the tutors – I can’t tell them how to read it but I can guide their
appreciation of it.’
Students at M Level
The students will be knowledgeable to different degrees as to the discourse of
poetics, as a speculative discourse upon work produced and upon work in
progress. Assignments may be creative, critical or a mixture of the two. The
students questioned were just beginning to think about their final dissertation,
which comprises of creative work plus a ‘commentary or work of poetics’ (to
quote their handbook).
While some MA Writing students see their poetics in terms familiar from levels
1-3 (achievement, success, approaches) there are some additional
perspectives from this group (who had not necessarily experienced levels 1-3
of formal writing tuition at the same (or at any) institution). Interestingly,
notions of objectivity and alterity surface in the opportunity given to take (and
be forced to take) an academic/outside view of one’s work. Another sees the
exercise as a discussion with oneself. Several, as the course would suggest,
see the relation of creative work to theory as being important. Reading as a
writer as a notion is not particularly prevalent. One wrote passionately of
connecting writing with ideas ‘out there’, and of using the process of modelling
to ‘meld’ his writing with ideas.
A number wrote of discussing future work.
These students all see the production of poetics as connected to them
as Writers and as helping them identify themselves as writers. There is a clear
sense that they are being asked to explicate overtly what might be only
personal, unexamined or implicit. A couple write of being forced to consider
why one writes at all, and where one is positioned as a writer. The academic
(or theoretical) side (while sometimes being thought of as separate) teaches
them to ask whether their own work is ‘postmodernist’, for example, to
31
position themselves in the field of literary production. ‘Reflection is part of
creation,’ one asserts. Another said it ‘changes ‘me’ – particularly it opens up
the rooms in the literary mansion that I’m prepared to enter’.
Less schooled as a group in the processes of supplementary
discoursing than undergraduates, one student at least found the process of
reflection initially ‘false’, only discovering value in it later. Another realises that
all ‘good’ writers indulge in poetics. Another summarised many when he said,
‘Self –analysis leads to self-improvement.’ Retrospection moves towards
projection. One questions whether the process of writing or the product is
important. (Both were, she decides.) Also on a longer course, over two years,
the discourse can be useful to ‘get back into’ a piece of writing. There are,
however, some individual remarks which are interesting. ‘I think the poetics
can come closer to what it is you are looking for in your writing rather than the
piece of writing itself’. Even stranger: ‘It enables me to take off the mask
labelled “writer” that I used to see as being central,’ to become more
adventurous in writing. But there were warnings from two students who were
also both emphatic that supplementary discourses help one approach
‘objectivity’. They feel it can prevent creative or instinctual writing by
foregrounding self-consciousness.
PhD Level
There is some variety, in this understandably smaller grouping, between those
hoping to present a piece of creative writing and a commentary, through to
those who intend to research some aspect of contemporary writing alongside
their own developing work, through to one candidate who intends to
contextualise his own published and performed work and to present it as part
of an historical movement.
There are, as one might expect of ‘blue sky’ research, the most individualised
responses (six in all). The research projects vary and so what is demanded
varies. They felt they were writing:
A commentary on one’s poetics; and a study of a genre;
an essay on Genesis: how ideas and practice merge in a process to reach the
finished piece of work;
a Self-examination and reflection ‘leading to differing critical thinking’;
a study of the relationship between practice and the poetics of published
contemporary writers;
To question and clarify assumptions that underlie the creative work.’ To write
something that comes from the same territory as the poems, on the border
between the creative and the theoretical.’
More enigmatically one states: ‘a doing + a thing done’, matching process and
product.
32
This group is clear that the supplementary discourse is related to the
requirements of a research degree. So one muses that it will ‘prove’ that
enough work and thought has gone into the literary production for it to
‘deserve’ a PhD. Others ventriloquise the regulations and write of ensuring
that the work is an ‘original contribution’ to scholarship or an ‘innovative’ piece
that adds to the understanding of current literary practice. One wrote of its
enabling ‘control’ over one’s work, but the sense of the discourse is directed
outside of the institution and its supervisors to the awarding body.
At this level there is a tendency for poetics to be speculative or to even
be an object of study, though reflection upon, or interrogation of, practice is
still primary. So that students write of a permission to experiment, but this is in
tandem with a study of the poetics of other writers or of the writing they are
involved with (i.e., looking at poetics as a discourse). There is an evident
straining towards making ‘changes in habitual, extant practice’ in several. One
saw it quite consciously as a bridge between creativity and critical thinking.
Conclusions
General Introduction
It has been decided to present the conclusions in four parts, three of them
pertaining to parts 2, 3 and 4 of the report, respectively, and the final part
suggesting some brief areas of comparison and contrast between them. The
three parts of the project pertain to the three stages of the project, and since
the second stage is largely premised upon the conclusions to the interim
report (i.e., the early draft of part two), it seems wise to separate them in this
way. As part four wholly concerns student perceptions, these might make
interesting separate reading.
As already stated, the initial sample of the questionnaires, which
informs part two, is quite small; the follow up interviews, focussing on five
respondents, is narrower still (although these individuals ‘represent’ the range
of institutions at which creative writing is currently taught). Part four, for
purposes of level comparison, only focussed upon students in one institution.
While these ‘snapshots’ arguably display a good range of practices and
attitudes, they cannot claim to be totally representative. This must be borne in
mind when reading the conclusions.
Conclusions to Part Two of the Report
The sample is drawn from comparatively veteran centres, the overwhelming
majority of which require students to produce supplementary discourses for
which they have many names. They ask students to reflect both on individual
pieces of work and on complete(d) modules or courses.
Despite some scepticism, all of the centres are committed to some
degree to the discourse, and have clearly thought about its function. The
discourse is still emerging, and its practice (like much in undergraduate writing
teaching) is filtering down from M Level to undergraduate levels. Such filtering
down requires readjustment. (The question about how a PhD fits this pattern
is attended to in 5.3 below.)
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Supplementary discourses are not always separately assessed (or
assessed at all), or supported by formal criteria, which suggests an
unsystematic approach to its production, function and assessment. It could, of
course, demonstrate the encouragement of developmental, non-assessed
journal or notebook work. The wordage demanded varies. Some centres allow
the absence of supplementary discourses to go unpenalised. Put more
positively, it is not universally compulsory. Other centres regard it as equally
weighted with creative work (or in some cases theoretically more). There is a
sense that the quality – but not the function - of the discourse will vary
according to level, the complexity of reflection increasing by level, but formal
level descriptors are not referred to so it is impossible to assess this.
While these local variations reflect differing practices, the tendency to
assess ‘on package’ as one tutor puts it, to not assess supplementary
discourses separately and award it a separate mark, might not make the
process and its function transparent to students. Its presence is a useful
weapon against plagiarism.
There seem to be three interest groups using the discourse for different
purposes, the first two of which has been the main object of attention.
1. Reader/tutors-assessors
2. Writer/students
3. Internal and External Moderators and Assessors
Supplementary discourses play a valid part of moderation, charting processes
that the absent examiner did not perceive in the workshop or seminar.
Additionally it is clear that the presence of supplementary discourses (their
academic rigour, their demand for skills of student reflexivity) has helped in
the validation of writing courses. Supplementary discourses are not, however,
seen as an academic ‘bolt on’ to justify the ways of writing to unsympathetic
validation panels. Indeed, what comes over very clearly is the development of
a self-conscious and reflective profession of creative writing teaching
professionals who are capable of establishing the agendas, on supplementary
discourses (as on other matters).
For tutors, the importance of supplementary discourses for assessment
– even if not separately graded – is clear. There is evidence that the
supplementary discourses are regarded as a statement of the writers’
intentions for a tutor’s judgement as to appropriateness as to market,
publication, genre – as well to match performance in terms of success and
failure against stated aesthetic intentions. This, at its most positive and
enabling, allows students to establish and state their own benchmarks for the
piece.
Supplementary discourses are often seen as ‘safety nets’ in terms of
the assessment procedures, so that intention can be rewarded if execution is
inadequate. This immediately throws up the question of whether process
and/or product is being tracked and rewarded. Centres clearly have differing
views on this. Some stress the recording of process to dispel residual illusions
of inspirational theories of composition, but still favour assessing the account
of product, for example. Depending on the nature of the supplementary
discourses, students are able to track larger processes over a course or
34
module, and to speculate about future work and the writing processes’
connection to larger social and aesthetic forces and to theoretical concerns.
The supplementary discourse – even if unassessed or not separately
assessed – clearly influences the awarding the final grade to a piece of work,
since it reflects upon that work. No tutor can un-read it, although some claim
not to be influenced by it. Clearly if process (which might be visible partially
through the drafting process) is assessed then the supplementary discourse
will be important. Again, it might make the process transparent to the
assessing tutor as well as to the assessed student.
Tutors see the function of the discourse for students in a reciprocal
way. They stress the function of students explaining and evaluating
retrospectively, but they also see a speculative function for the discourse, in
that it might be part of the students’ own developmental progress.
There is clearly some fear that the discourse is used by students to
unduly influence tutors. Some tutors feel able to resist.
Many – but not all – writing courses are taught in relationship to, or as
part of, English literature as an academic discipline. Every writing tutor
stresses the relationship of the activity of reading to the practice of writing, but
this is not to say that studying English literature and practising writing share
the same symbiotic relationship. One assumption made about the nature of
the supplementary discourse, that its production consists of the exercise of
the same critical skills employed by literary critics, the same skills taught by
teachers of literature. There is still perhaps a residual sense that the function
of writing on English programmes is to teach literary appreciation by other
means. While this may be true, or at least possible (if not universally accepted
as desirable), this does not mean supplementary discourses use the skills of
literary analysis in the same way (or, in the view of some, at all). In short,
there may not be a developed concept of ‘reading as a writer’ (a term now
used quite widely) whose skills would not be identical to those of a critic.
Student writers are sometimes expected to read their own work as though
they were reading the work from the outside, or they were ordinary readers
rather than its unique originator. It is arguable that it is unhealthy (or
impossible) for writers to achieve this. It is one thing to chart the process of
composition or the philosophy of composition, but another to interpret one’s
own particular text for a reader. It is not clear what use there is to a
developing writer in this exercise.
It is not clear whether all writing students are asked to write on other
works (either of published writers or of there peers), or how we might expect
that to be different from an English Literature students’ work, particularly on
courses taught within English degrees. Discussions of craft, facture and
intention are not favoured in literary discussion, while they are common in
writing discussions. This kind of writing might not be thought to be
‘supplementary’ at all, as some tutors have suggested, but ‘complementary’.
It is clear that the discourse, along with any other assessed practice,
should be taught and that it might have specific needs as a form of reflection
and speculation upon literary production. The danger of literary critical
materials in analysing one’s own work has been raised. Other art discourses
and critical theory are also sometimes used, but they apparently feed into
literary production or into discussions of the literary field of production. These
35
theoretical perspectives are being used to teach the nature of writing,
textuality, literariness, more generally.
It is a surprise to find some tutors stating that supplementary
discourses might be (or become) primary. Common sense dictates that they
are secondary. But they could be said to be primary in one important sense:
that the writing to which they refer is not yet in existence, that their purpose is
to help to bring the work to fruition. There is another sense of primary, of
course: that the commentary on process and product might be more important
than the creative work; as an essay on creativity it might be a valuable
exercise, particularly if writing is taught within an English degree. The degree
of autonomy of the discourses increases by level, particularly at postgraduate
level.
There seem to be 4 modes in which the discourse appears (along with
mixed modes between them) as described in 3.7: text accompanying writing
or reflecting on courses; journals and notebooks; reading as a writer; and
poetics.
It is clear that these written forms are supplemented by seminar and
workshop discussion (some of which may be assessed and rewarded), of
which there are two main types: the tutor led series of workshops with
exercises and the Philip Hobsbawm style tabling work and discussion. While
this is the same for any classroom based academic discipline, it is clear that
the two types of workshop, particularly the second, are important parts of the
production and reflection of student writing. This report acknowledges
variations of these and some modes of recording and extending workshop
discussion. Supplementary discourses may not merely be supplementary to
the product and process of writing but to the mechanisms of the syllabus and
curriculum.
There is little sense that a supplementary discourse might be produced
before the creative work is produced; a journal might be a discourse produced
alongside creative work, for example.
Innovations proposed include developing aspects of recording process
and tightening up procedures, rewards and penalties. There is attention paid
to level, and evidence of the filtering down practices from longer running MAs
to undergraduate programmes.
Conclusions to Part Three of the Report
The standardisation of the provision and assessment criteria for
supplementary discourses is not approved of; there is, however, a trust in the
formal and informal exchanges within the subject community to develop
standards.
In fact, there was some agreement as to the function of the discourse,
suggesting that much of this exchange has already been effected. The rules
of the language game of describing and assessing the discourse are well
established, although there is local variation in practice. One suggestion was
that the discourse should be concise and brief.
One negative function observed in student work is the uncritical
elevation of students’ work by themselves. The opposite could also be a
possibility.
36
There is some debate concerning the kinds of skill required to produce
such a discourse. In institutions where there is a connection with the teaching
of English Literature there are often assumptions about the courses sharing
analytic skills. However, although there exists a shared vocabulary, the kinds
of reflection on the students’ own work, or the kinds of reading as a writer (of
published or of peer assessed work), relies on different skills. It is not clear
how these are taught – in the main they are - particularly where there is little
time to teach this skill on a programme where writing is only an element.
A general question remains concerning the nature of this reflection
sufficiently distinct from the kinds of reflection students are asked to
undertake elsewhere on their courses. I am thinking of the introduction of
Personal Development Profiles (as well as even aspects such as course
evaluation). While the developments of PDPs may be of assistance to the
cause of reflection in general, they have the potential to confuse. If there are
no other kinds of reflection available to the student, if the institution or
department is not committed to forms of student reflection, it is difficult to see
how such habits of projective introspection as reflection or poetics may be
inculcated successfully, without specific tuition.
A specific question concerns whether students are reflecting upon the
process of writing or the written product. The answer to this question seems to
be one of level, since there seems to be a passage from the description of
process to the consideration of a finished project between level one and M
level; there seems to be a similar development in terms of whether the
supplementary discourse can ever be conceived as primary. It can be seen
that the supplementary discourses become more autonomous at each level,
rising to complete autonomy (or even elision with creative work) at PhD level.
Likewise poetics as a speculative discourse upon the philosophy of writing, or
even as a manifesto is found in its most developed forms at the higher levels.
However, it is also clear that the issue of what determines a PhD
supplementary discourse is as yet unresolved, and is perhaps not clearly
differentiated from that of an MA. This is a matter for university regulations,
and validations of programmes, but it also depends on what level is regarded
as the terminal one for writing as a subject.
The question of whether supplementary discourses – perhaps of
specific kinds of assignments like logs or peer-appraisals – can fully reward
the processes of workshopping is worthy of further research and
development. The role of assessed reading logs and un-assessed journals
and notebooks is being evaluated, in their relationships to, or integration into,
supplementary discourses.
The question of whether the discourse can deal with the perceived
negative consensual nature of the workshop experience is another unresolved
issue.
Suggested innovations are of two types, the specific and the far
reaching. Specific innovations include attempts to make the supplementary
discourses more of a dialogue between tutor and student. The far reaching
includes an investigation of the interdisciplinary uses of writing, beyond the
traditionally creative and beyond the realms of English Literature.
It is interesting to note the complete absence in the interviews of any
sense that supplementary discourses exist to ‘justify’ creative writing as an
‘academic’ subject. As the subject becomes more confident in its procedures
37
and judgements and in its resistance to institutional and commercial
pressures, it might develop discourses that combine the so-called creative
and so-called critical.
Conclusions to Part Four of the Report
These results should be encouraging for centres committed to supplementary
discourses at undergraduate level. The students are clear about the reflective
functions of the practice of writing about their own work for their own
continuing practice. They see that it is part of an ongoing process of reflection,
and not simply a retrospective valorisation of their work. It has a role in
determining what Ezra Pound called ‘the next job’. Some even see that it can
influence the piece that is being produced, that they can make last minute
changes. This raises the question of whether the practice of self-commentary
might not be made less retrospective to enable the process of drafting, rather
than simply being an account of the process of drafting and of the products of
writing.
The vocabulary used to describe the discourse (and presumably the
vocabulary in the discourse) increases in sophistication with level. One
surprising element is that only a minority at realise that the exercise is a
rhetorical exercise. For students who often are trained to think about the
audience of writing, they show little awareness that the discourse might
influence the mark they receive by persuading a reader about the creative
work, although this awareness decreases by level. However, the positive
effect is that there is little sense that the discourse is designed to ‘puff’
inadequate work. There is little evidence of the lack of ‘dissatisfaction’ that
one of the interviewees of part two observed when he was an external
examiner
There were very few mentions of the journals the students are required
to keep, and this alerts one to the discussions about tying journals in with
supplementary discourses more (it is the view of this study that it is one
already).
The students were happier with commenting on their own work than
with exercises that involve reading.
The concerns about the reading as a writer exercises in terms of
students having difficulties with the influence of ‘Eng Lit’ training is surprising,
given the course is not necessarily tied to English (but the students could be
referring to past experience of the subject). This confirms an uncertainty or
anxiety in the profession about the role the formal study of literature has with
regards to these students.
Annotated bibliographies are unpopular. Students resent the ‘policing’
of reading described by some tutors. They are defending their lack of reading
in various ways. This is where a lack of ‘dissatisfaction’ is clearly
demonstrated as they do not realise, or do not wish to accept, that a writer is
a reader who writes.
MA students oddly show a lack of understanding about the rhetorical
role of the discourse, and see it as student-centred. But they are happier to
explore issues of poetics, a term this group of students is expected to use
extensively, to examine issues of text and technique and text and context.
38
PhD candidates mirror some of the perceptions of the writer-academics
who run these fast developing programmes nationally. They are more
extrinsically motivated than other groups, aware that regulations should inform
them of their responsibilities and the divisions between the ‘creative’ and
‘critical’ parts. Some see the discourse as being a tracing of writing process
(which gives it problems as ‘original research’). Some see the relationship
between the two in terms of a writerly poetics. None sees it as autonomously
publishable or as absorbed into the creative work, as has been suggested by
academics interviewed.
General Conclusion
It has to be noted that while one would expect broad agreement between the
conclusions to part two and part three (the contributors to the latter were, after
all, drawn from the former) it is pleasing to see a broad agreement as to the
function of supplementary discourses between the wide range of tutors and
the more narrowly selected (but more numerous) group of students. The
students were, however, less aware of the rhetorical nature of the discourses
with relation to assessment. They tended to emphasise the function for their
own self-development. In a world obsessed with measurement (which
proposes that you can fatten a pig by measuring it) this is reassuring.
Recommendations
These recommendations are addressed to the creative writing teaching
community in higher education for further consideration. It is clear that there is
already much debate about the nature of the practice of supplementary
discourses and these recommendations are intended merely to open areas of
debate. I am not suggesting that none of the suggestions below is happening.
Indeed, this list may be of particular benefit to new centres. Only my first
recommendation is intended to be dogmatic.
It is recommended:
1 That the term ‘supplementary discourses’ is not used to name the various
practices. The rich list in 2.2 and in footnote 1 suggests how well
nomenclature reflects the nuanced tasks different centres set.
2 That questions of level be considered with relation to the discourses. The
development of specific level descriptors might be advised. (See Appendix
Three for the present author’s initial attempt to schematise this).
3 That the nature, scope and amount of the discourses at postgraduate levels
(and between its three levels) be defined. At PhD level the increased
autonomy of learning suggests that the accompanying discourse may be
autonomously publishable.
4 That centres consider adopting formal criteria and the separate awarding of
a clearly defined mark to substantial supplementary discourses, so students
will be more aware of their function in assessment processes. This should not
damage its speculative functions for students.
39
5 That centres are clear about whether process or product (or both) is the
object of self-reflexive forms of supplementary discourse, and whether (or
how) this differs by level (i.e., whether there is more focus on process at level
one).
6 That tutors consider ways to diminish the uncritical elevation (or
condemnation) of students’ work by themselves, perhaps by closely defining
the tasks set to avoid this possibility. This may be one area in which delimited
brevity and concision in the production of the discourse may help.
7 That the question of the relationship of supplementary discourses to the
discourses of English Literature be clarified. This may appear to be settled
structurally, in that writing may be an integrated part of a given degree, but it
is clear that, although there might be a shared vocabulary, the skills needed
and the analytical tools used are different. Questions of intention, success and
reflection need to be considered. Students might have to unlearn certain
processes. However, certain kinds of critical discourse or theory seem wellplaced to teach the nature of writing, textuality and literariness. (The kinds of
inter-departmental struggles between ‘theorists’ and ‘writers’ experienced on
US campuses are to be deplored. Useful avenues of combining and
contrasting distinct approaches should be encouraged, perhaps by developing
supplementary discourses of a new kind.)
8 That the wisdom and usefulness of asking students to ‘explain’ or analyse
their own work as though it is produced by another (although justifiable as
parts of larger possible strategies) needs careful attention.
9 That tutors consider the spread of the practice of ‘reading as a writer’ (both
of published and peer work), in order to encourage reading as an integral and
assessed part of writing teaching.
10 That tutors across the discipline share both the practice of developing
supplementary discourses and of ways of teaching it as a specific discourse
with demands of its own.
11 That specific forms of supplementary discourses are developed to
encourage further ‘dialogue’ between tutors and students.
12 That tutors consider further ways of rewarding participation in workshop
discussion as a development of the scope of supplementary discourses.
Workshops are a major mode of teaching and learning. Supplementary
discourses could be used to strengthen individuals against the negative
‘consensual’ effects of some workshop situations.
13 That tutors consider the development of supplementary discourses that
can be more speculative in terms of either existing before creative work is
completed as theoretical prospectuses, or by developing a poetics for future
works.
40
14 That tutors consider the development of supplementary discourses that will
serve as practical devices for changing the work in the process of drafting, not
just as a record of that drafting. Perhaps the development of journals or logs
as a variety of supplementary discourse might help, despite the fact they are
difficult to assess or monitor.
15 That as ‘reflection’ becomes more demanded of undergraduates more
generally, centres and tutors clearly define the role of reflection within their
courses with respect to institutional demands for Personal Development Plans
and other schemes. Reflection on the processes and/or products of writing
and reflection on general scholarly progress might be best separated or
integrated, depending on the quality of institutional practices.
16 That interested parties be encouraged to develop ways of combining
critical and creative exercises in a hybrid discourse of its own, or of the
investigation of the relationship of creative writing with disciplines other than
English literature. Either might finally render the term ‘supplementary
discourses’ irrelevant.
41
Appendices
Appendix One: the questionnaire
SUPPLEMENTARY DISCOURSES IN CREATIVE WRITING TEACHING
I.
Basic information on Creative Writing teaching in your institution.
1.
At what levels is Creative Writing taught at your institution?
Level I
Level II
Level III
MA
Ph.D
□
□
□
□
□
2.
By what modes of delivery is Creative Writing taught in your institution?
Module
Pathway
Single Hons
Joint/Combined Hons
MA
Ph.D
□
□
□
□
□
□
3.
How long has Creative Writing (at any level) been taught in your institution?
□ years
II. Information about Supplementary Discourses
By supplementary discourses we mean pieces of written work submitted,
either as items of coursework in their own right, or directly accompanying
creative work, for assessment purposes. We would argue that a primary
function of this discourse is to encourage students to reflect on their creative
work in a variety of ways. Some of the most common terms for these
discourses we have come across are: reflection, self-assessment, critique,
commentary, journal, poetics.
42
4.
a) Do you ask your students to produce supplementary discourses (in
whatever form) to accompany their creative work?
Yes
□
No
□
b) If not, why not?
5.
a) Do you give your students opportunities reflect on their work in other ways,
such as by peer assessment or through workshop activities?
Yes
□
No
□
b) If so, please specify:
6.
At what levels do you ask your students to produce supplementary
discourses?
Level I
Level II
Level III
MA
Ph.D
□
□
□
□
□
7.
What do you call these supplementary discourses?
Reflection
□
Self-assessment
□
Critique
□
Commentary
□
Journal
□
Poetics
□
Others (please specify):
43
8.
In supplementary discourses do you ask students to reflect on
Individual pieces of writing?
Yes
□
No
□
Their progress over a module, programme or year?
Yes
□
No
□
9.
a) Do you provide any tuition for the writing of supplementary discourses?
Yes
□
No
□
b) If so, please specify any materials or activities you use:
10.
a) Do you see any link between supplementary discourses and literary-critical
and/or theoretical discourses?
Yes
b)
□
No
□
If so, which literary-critical/theoretical discourses?
44
11.
a) Are there formally validated criteria/academic rationales for supplementary
discourses expressed in course documentation?
Yes
□
No
□
b) If so, where are these criteria held? (e.g. validation documents, module
handbooks?)
IF YOU WISH TO MAKE RELEVANT EXTRACTS AVAILABLE TO US
PLEASE PASTE INTO AN ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT AND SEND TO
XXXX@edgehill.ac.uk
12.
a) Are these supplementary discourses always assessed?
Yes
□
No
□
b) Are they always given a separate grade?
Yes
□
No
□
c) Are they assessed but not given a separate grade?
Yes
□
No
□
d) If they are not always assessed, what has influenced the department’s
decisions about which pieces of work to assess or not to assess (please
include details about level etc)?
45
13.
a) Is there a penalty for not submitting supplementary discourses?
Yes
b)
□
□
No
If there is a penalty, how is this expressed?
14.
If supplementary discourses are assessed, what is the proportion, in terms of
assessment weighting, of supplementary discourses to creative work as a
percentage of an overall course/module grade? (e.g. 20% supplementary
discourse to 80% creative work).
%
Supplementary
discourse
%
Creative
work
Level I
Level II
Level III
MA
Ph.D
5.
What is the wordage of supplementary discourses in relation to creative work
(if applicable)?
Please express answers in wordage and as percentages:
Supplementary
discourse
wordage
Creative
work
Wordage
Level I
Level II
Level III
MA
Ph.D
46
%
Supplementary
discourse
%
Creative
work
III: Issues about Supplementary Discourses
In this section we want to find out your views about the functions of
supplementary discourses in Creative Writing teaching, and issues around its
relationship to assessment and to creative practice.
16. SUPPLEMENTARY DISCOURSES AND STUDENTS
a) Please could you indicate the extent to which you agree/disagree with the
following statements:
Supplementary discourses allow students:
i) To describe and explain their creative products and processes
Strongly
agree
Agree
No view
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
ii) To evaluate and analyse critically their creative products and
processes
Strongly
agree
Agree
No view
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
iii) To speculate on their future practice as writers
Strongly
agree
Agree
No view
iv) To learn about literature through writing
Strongly
agree
Agree
No view
b) Do you think that i-iv vary according to levels? (e.g. strongly agree with ‘i’ at
Level I but not at Ph.D)
Yes□
No□
47
c) If they vary, how do they vary?
d) Are there any other functions of supplementary discourses for students not
included here?
17. SUPPLEMENTARY DISCOURSES AND TUTORS
a) Please could you indicate the extent to which you agree with the following
statements:
Supplementary discourses allow tutors:
i) To assess students’ creative products and processes
Strongly
agree
Agree
No view
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
ii) To facilitate discussion with students about their creative products and
processes
Strongly
agree
Agree
No view
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
iii) To monitor the originality of students’ work and combat plagiarism
Strongly
agree
Agree
No view
b) Do you think that i-iii vary according to levels?
Yes□
No□
c) If they vary, how do they vary?
48
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
d) Are there any other functions of supplementary discourses for students not
included here?
18.
a) Does your assessment of supplementary discourses influence your
assessment of creative work it accompanies?
Yes
□
No
□
b) How? For example: can a supplementary discourse validate work positively
(e.g. explain techniques not immediately clear to a reader) or negatively (e.g.
puff up mediocre work by references to published writers, schools, theories)?
19.
Do some students produce high quality supplementary discourses and bad
quality creative work? Or vice versa? What implications does this have for
assessment?
20.
a) Are you concerned that some students do not see any point in producing
supplementary discourses and don’t take ownership and responsibility for the
discourses they produce?
Yes
□
No
□
b) If so, can you suggest ways to change this?
49
21.
How would you characterise the relationship between supplementary
discourses and creative work?
22.
Do you think supplementary discourses are always inherently secondary; or
can they, in some cases, be a primary element of student progression?
23.
What role do supplementary discourses have in internal moderation and in
presenting your teaching and learning to external scrutiny (externals, QAA
etc)?
24.
a) Are you planning to make any changes to the way in which you use
supplementary discourses in teaching and assessment?
Yes
□
No
□
b) If so, could you tell us about the changes you are planning?
50
Appendix Two
Notes for the interviews
Prelude
1 The three stages of the project outlined
2 anonymity
3 The interview will move from structured to open
4 I hope you will respond to not only to what you do, but to what you see
around you, and what you’ve seen in part one of the questionnaire. I am
interested in qualitative notions; your attitudes, feeling, intuitions, hopes,
fears, hunches and plans. I want to move out from my conclusions.
1. On the standardising of assessment nationally. Do you think this a
good idea? I wrote in the conclusion of the interim report:
Supplementary discourses are not always separately assessed (or
assessed at all), or supported by formal criteria, which suggests an
unsystematic approach to its production, function and assessment. It could, of
course, demonstrate the encouragement of developmental, non-assessed
journal or notebook work. The wordage demanded varies. Some centres allow
the absence of supplementary discourse to go unpenalised. Other centres
regard it as equally weighted with creative work (or in some cases
theoretically more). There is a sense that the quality – but not the function - of
the discourse will vary according to level, the complexity of reflection
increasing by level, but formal level descriptors are not referred to so it is
impossible to assess this. Or is this formalisation only there to validate the
subject?
2. What do you think the function of the supplementary discourses are
in terms of assessment, for tutors. Are there hidden functions (such as those
to do with plagiarism?) I have concluded:
The importance of the supplementary discourse for assessment – even
if not separately graded – is clear. There is evidence that the supplementary
discourse are regarded as a statement of the writers’ intentions for a tutor’s
judgement as to appropriateness as to market, publication, genre – as well to
match performance in terms of success and failure against stated aesthetic
intentions. This, at its most positive, allows students to establish and state
their own benchmarks for the piece. This is highly enabling for the student, but
it may be philosophically dubious from any respondent’s point of view. Is
fulfilling intentionality the sole guarantee of a writer’s worth? Such a view is
long invalidated in literary theory and this issue is worth visiting in the
evaluative part two of the research. The profession may be teaching creative
writing, but is it practising creative reading?
51
What do you think?
3. There are clearly questions about the relationship of the
supplementary discourses we ask students to submit and other discourses
(theoretical, eg.) and skills and other educational courses and contexts. I
wrote:
There were some assumptions made about the nature of the
supplementary discourse, that its production consists of the exercise of the
same critical skills employed by literary critics, the same skills taught by
teachers of literature. There may not be a concept of reading as a writer,
whose skills would not be identical to that of a critic. Student writers are
sometimes expected to read their own work as though they were reading the
work from the outside. It’s not clear how much Writing students are asked to
write on other works, and how we might expect that to be different from an
English Literature students’ work, particularly on courses taught within English
degrees. This kind of writing might not be thought to be ‘supplementary’ at all.
Is this a unique discourse with rules of its own, a hybrid one? Are we
supporting other analytical skills directly?
4. Are we examining Process and/or Product through supplementary
discourses? Is the resultant discourse primary or secondary? Does this
change at PhD level?
There was little sense that the supplementary discourse might be
produced before the creative work is produced. The insistence that the journal
might be a discourse to be produced alongside creative work is worth
examining in part two of the research.
It was a surprise to find some people stating that supplementary
discourses might be (or become) primary. Common sense dictates that they
are secondary. But it could be said to be primary in one important sense only:
that the writing to which it refers is not yet in existence, that its purpose is to
help to bring the work to fruition. There is another sense of primary, of course:
that the commentary on process and product might be more important than
the creative work; as an essay on creativity it might be a valuable exercise,
particularly if Writing is taught within an English degree.
5. There seem to be 4 modes in which the discourse appears (there
are mixed modes between them of course):
5. Text accompanying writing or reflecting on courses
which refers directly to the works produced;
6. Journals and notebooks
which are usually undirected, unassessed and student-centred;
7. Reading as a Writer
52
which involves learning from other writers (which could include other
students’ work, of course);
8. Poetics
which is a term to describe a speculative discourse on writing in
general that can be found occasionally in the other three.
Do these categories suggest anything to you? Do you want to comment upon
them?
6. Do you have a sense of innovation in the discourse? How might it develop
to become more efficient or solid. Less of a bolt on? What pedagogic
materials or strategies need developing?
Centres are saying things like: ‘I want to analyse what we aim to assess by
supplementary discourses, and then change the supplementary discourses to
be a good instrument for such measurement. This would also involve
integrating supplementary discourses much more into coursework.’
‘I want to put much more emphasis on the use of critique for the
student looking to their future practice as writers. This element has
been crucial in MA work & hitherto not so essential to BA work – I
now think it is essential to all learning.’
‘We’re looking at increasing the importance of commentaries of
undergraduates’
‘I have refined my list of reflective essay titles from an open “reflective
commentary” to a mixed “critical/reflective” emphasis.
‘We are foregrounding the notebook in our first year classes in order
to inculcate independent writing skills’
7. Are there other burning issues? Things that have remained unsaid. Things
that have occurred to you whilst marking after responding to our questionnaire
or reading the interim report?
Appendix Three
Discriminating Levels of Discourse Accompanying Creative Writing
Assignments (creative critique, reflection, self-evaluation, commentary,
poetics, etc...)
53
The following are some suggestions for discriminating between levels and
attempts at defining modal attainment. The principle of level description is that
higher levels of attainment must be more autonomous and will move from
mere description, through stages of analysis to a work of poetics or other
discourse upon the art practised. They cannot simply be longer versions of
the same thing.
I have made use of two important guidelines to generic level descriptors,
those of the South East England Consortium for Credit Accumulation and
Transfer (1996) and those of the Northern Ireland Credit and Accumulation
and Transfer System (1998). So relevant are they that I have taken the “Selfappraisal, Reflection on Practice” from the SEEC document intact, and
reproduced them below, and the “Autonomy” descriptors from the NICATS
descriptors for Accountability.
While levels 1-3 (I shall convert NICATS’ 7 levels) are definitely apprentice
levels of creative writing (whatever the quality of the writing), at M level and
higher, the work is of a higher, even professional, level. At these levels one
might expect a greater level of generality and autonomy. While apprentice
writers might benefit from attempts to analyse their own work, a professional
writer should never be in this position. There is, in any case, a certain
impossibility about this, since the writer can never be a reader, for reasons I
have explained elsewhere.
Level One
SEEC: The writer ‘is largely dependent on criteria set by others but begins to
recognise own strengths and weaknesses.
NICATS: The writer will operate ‘under general guidance’.
At level 1 the student will be able to describe processes of composition and
the various skills employed to achieve this, to evaluate success and failure in
relation to task descriptions and assessment criteria or other external criteria.
The accompanying discourse should contain descriptions of writerly process,
and may relate to received notions of appropriateness and literary value,
which will have arisen out of the learning process.
In relation to creative work this discourse will be largely descriptive and
therefore secondary.
Level Two
SEEC: The writer ‘is able to evaluate own strengths and weaknesses: can
challenge received opinion and begins to develop own criteria and
judgement’.
54
NICATS: ‘The ability to ... take personal responsibility for planning and
delivery is required’.
At level 2 the student will be able to evaluate own strengths and weaknesses
in relation to both tasks and assessments and will begin to use tutor feedback
to develop their own criteria for judgement of aesthetic value and artistic
success.
The accompanying discourse should contain descriptions of process, and
evaluations of strengths and weaknesses in both process and product. It will
begin to formulate judgments of a general literary nature.
In relation to creative work this discourse will be evaluative of processes used
and work produced to achieve or attempt success.
Level Three
SEEC: The writer ‘is confident in application of own criteria of judgement and
in challenge of received opinion in action and can reflect on action’.
NICATS: The writer will accept ‘full responsibility and accountability for all
aspects of work and learning’.
At level 3 the student will be able to develop and apply own criteria and a
poetics of writing (or philosophy of composition) that reflects on the value and
success of the processes undertaken and the work produced. The criteria will
also evaluate and challenge received notions of literary value.
The accompanying discourse should contain criteria and poetics are both
specific to tasks undertaken and general to genre, or literary value
judgements generally. It will not necessarily itemise process. Form may begin
to reflect the emergent poetics.
In relation to creative work this discourse will be analytical at a specific level,
and speculative at a general level, but will not particularly deal with processes,
unless relevant to larger issues. The writer may profess ownership of the
document and its ideas and ideals.
M Level
SEEC: The writer ‘engages with a critical community; reflecting habitually on
own and others’ practice in order to improve own/others’ actions.
NICATS: ‘Accountability is usually to peers rather than to superiors. The
learner is responsible for initiating supervisory and peer support contacts.’
At M level the student will be able to reflect on own work and that of others,
with a speculative discourse upon writing, that is related as much to future
work and to criteria that have emerged from the writerly community (both local
and outside the course of study).
55
The accompanying discourse should contain poetics that is analytical and
speculative, that situates the writing achieved (and writing projected) in terms
of the field of literary production, both locally and outside the course). Form of
such writing may reflect the developed poetics. The writer will own the
document and its ideas and ideals.
In relation to creative work this discourse will be able to move from the
specific to the general, situating the writing in the literary field. It will offer
intellectual arguments, but will be permissive of further experimentation.
PhD: not a level, but pure research
At PhD level the student will be able to produce a discrete document out of
the experience of the process of writing the creative work. While it might refer
to the creative work, it won’t operate as a commentary or reflection upon it,
even less constitute a critical reading of it, but a freestanding essay in genre,
or a document of poetics, for example. It will refer to the practise of others.
The accompanying discourse should contain an intellectual argument that is
germane to the issues of the creative work, and amount to a developed
poetics of writing, for work and genre, placing it in national (and international)
literary, social, intellectual contexts. It will potentially challenge the field of
literary production, or even construct a fresh literary context for the work. At
this level it is difficult, indeed wrong, to prescribe content. Its form is permitted
to reflect the poetics it embodies.
In relation to creative work this discourse will be an autonomous piece of
work, dealing with issues raised by the creative work, or providing its
intellectual and other contexts. It will not be secondary to the creative work,
but is speculative, permissive of further experimentation, and in no way be
regulatory or prescriptive of the creative work. It will be of publishable
standard. Its audience will be therefore peers.
Robert Sheppard
56