I spent six weeks this summer at an intensive writing workshop (Clarion West). Fortunately, the students were all writers of talent with a good deal of competence, so a lot of the problems you’re dealing with didn’t come up.
Thinking about that experience, though, I want to chime in about a few things I thought worked there, and a few things that you might consider changing slightly in your approach.
First off, I want to agree with the poster who suggested a format for the critiques. Three things you liked and why, three things you think need work and why. For one thing, critiquing is pretty hard, especially if (as is true of these students, I’ll bet) you’re not used to it. A prescribed structure does two things–it gives them a starting point, and it mandates some “negative” comments. It’s helpful, I think, to point out that even the masters aren’t perfect and there are things to criticize in the most acclaimed works in the canon. You can give guidelines for the “things to work on” section–specifically explaining that criticizing the author is not allowed, and saying until they’re sick of it that the suggestion that your characters could be better thought out, say, is not a criticism of the author’s worth as a human being. These were inflexible rules at Clarion West, and I found them really, really helpful, for both giving and getting crits.
I do think that asking them to determine the best or worst story in class is counterproductive. Yeah, college puts them in competition. But I don’t think writers are (or should be) neccesarily in competition with each other in quite that way, and I don’t think approaching critiquing from that direction is at all helpful. That’s just my two cents.
With a room full of eighteen year olds you’re never going to completely escape the “but I meant it to be pointless, and I was inspired when I wrote it and it’s genius” thing, but really clear ground rules and formats for the crits might help mitigate it.
Okey - encouraging students to think and react critically to another student’s writing isn’t “ganging up” on the student whose writing is being examined. I’m guessing that each and every one of the students gets their own personal turn on the hotseat. Critical peer review is a part of learning to be a good writer. And I mean “critical” in the academic sense as opposed to the snarky and negative sense. Encouraging the other students to think objectively and rationally about a colleague’s work is a part of their education in creative writing - just as learning to hear objective and rational criticism (and learn to self-criticize in the same fashion) is a part of learning how to be a writer.
Getting the other students past the whole “But it’s mean to say bad things about Nessa’s work!” mentality is a part of their education. If they’re not capable of being objectively and rationally critical of someone they know (as opposed to someone they’ve never met - like Steinbeck or Hemmingway or Shakespere), then they’re certainly not capable of being rationally and objectively critical of their own work.
Further, pointing out to Nessa that she might not want to keep what she’d already written is also perfectly valid and probably necessary. One of the things fledgling writers need to learn is that sometimes you have to just scrap what you’re working on and start over. This is not a notion that tends to occur naturally in the human brain. It might not be the preferred option for Nessa’s work, but it is one of the options, and pointing it out is a perfectly normal thing for a teacher to do. Particularly in the context of a style assignment for a writing class.
Although I can easily imagine this problem happening, I took a creative writing class as an undergrad and it went wonderfully.
Not anonymous, the authors read a few paragraphs of their stories (after the class had read them at home). The teacher gave her comments and then any student who wanted to could. A majority did.
We used the sandwich form of critique (positive-negative-positive) and also were made to write at least a one-paragraph response to each story to give to the writer. We spent at least one (maybe two) class period at the beginning talking about how to critique and why negative as well as positive critiques were important.
Some of the negative critiques were watered down, but generally as the class went on and we got more comfortable around each other, they became more honest.
In other words, it doesn’t HAVE to be that way. Is there a way to require the students to read the stories before the class in which you will be discussing them, and then write a response? I found that helped to solidify my critiques.
I don’t see anything “lame, passive aggressive, or vague” about this. The piece in question was an assigned exercise; it was OK, but needed more work. It was up to the student herself to decide if she wanted to spend her time perfecting an assigned exercise or something she may have been more interested in, like a short story or poem she’d been working on.
Why is it lame, passive aggressive, or vague to point that out?
Oh, and I want to agree with this. The leap between “you may or may not want to continue to work on this” and “this is junk” was entirely Nessa’s, to judge by the OP, and throughout the conversation as reported she seemed to be actively looking for that sort of thing. Maybe a talk is in order about not reading too much into criticism?
Getting crits is hard. They make me feel like I’ve been beaten up afterwards, even though I know not to take them personally and I know that listening to them and thinking seriously about what my critters have to say will be helpful to me in the end. These kids have to learn to get to that place, or they’ll never get anywhere.
One of the reasons for the “three good things first” rule is that it helps the rest of the crit go down better, btw, and maybe that idea would be helpful to apply not just to the crits, but to the whole class–a gentler approach may let you slip in the harder stuff as they get more accustomed to the idea of actual criticism.
That sounds like reasonable criticism. If there is little effort put into the project or the project is not that promising, and it shows, why not give them the **option ** to stop and begin something different. Why have them continue on the project. If they really want to continue they are not being forbidden.
From your previous post I get the impression you are one of those folks who “enables” (God I never thought I’d use that word) the attitudes the students seem to be demonstrating.
Excuse the rant, but I’m sick of a generation being told that they can do no wrong and can be anything they want.
If someone lacks talent they should not be encouraged to keep on going because “one day you may make it”. It is silly to heap praise on everything a child does to protect teh self esteem. It is counter productive because it has the effect of making them more vunerable to real world criticism of poor work.
All you have to do is watch the first few episodes of dreck like American idol and you can see what that gets you: A group of untalented people so oblivious of their short comings that they argue and rail that it is the judges who are blind to their obvious talents.
Criticism has somehow become a bad word and as a result there seems to be too many fragile folks who are unwilling to judge or be judged lest hurt feelings are generated.
We are not all writers, we are not all singers or artists or for that matter craftsmen. There are talents and skills required. You can’t succeed with only one half of that team. You must be talented, and you must have the skills to manufacture something from that talent to succeed.
I’m not saying people should quit completely. You want to write bad poetry on your own time go ahead express yourself just don’t expect everyone to like it as much as you do and accept whatever limitations you have.
I hope this doesn’t come across as egotistical, but I’ve frequently considered going for a degree in Creative Writing, but the reasons I never have include:
1- $ (of course)
2- I’m in my late 30s and don’t want to be surrounded by 19 year olds who think Dan Brown is innovative
3- I don’t want to listen to anybody’s poetry
4- I don’t want to listen to people whose 8th grade teacher told them they were talented reading doggerel about Grandpa and the Fair while their fan club cheers
Athena, it is vague and lame because it does not tell her why he thinks it sucks and what she needs to look at and correct. Therefore she learns nothing except that this teacher thinks her writing sucks and now the whole class knows it. It is passive aggressive because the teacher beats around the bush but the underlying meaning is “it sucked.”
My main point is that the class sounds like it has a negative atmosphere stemming from the teacher. Who wants to take any class much less a creative writing class in a discouraging atmosphere? A good teacher can teach all those wonderful thinking and writing skills in a positive way. No, you can’t teach creativity but you can encourage it and I do believe that that should be the number one goal of a creative writing class.
Whoa man, I feel your pain. I was a film student. There is nothing on this earth worse than student films. Except for hearing other students talk about them afterwards as if they wern’t the worst things they’ve ever seen. A word of honest critism in that class was like calling the president a “motherfucker” at a press conference- it just wasn’t going to happen.
Oddly, my poetry classes went great. We worked on a format where we would read drafts in a small group, get critiques, and then present a rewrite to the whole class the next meeting. The rules were you were not allowed to talk when people were critiquing you- no explainations, no “I meant that to be confusing”, just a lot of listening to what people actually got out of it. The idea wasn’t to see how good your writing was, the idea was to see if you conveyed what you meant to convey. Everyone gave real critism because we were partially graded on how much we changed when we rewrote, so you knew that by pointing out places to work on you were actually helping them out a lot. It worked out really well.
As someone who took two great undergrad creative writing classes I agree completely with Satasha. You are the problem, not your students.
We need the sandwich criticism, we need the list three good things and three bad things and we got a copy of the story of the day a night before and critiqued it at home for homework and then gave the marked up copy to the author at the end of class so they could read all of our comments.
It was a fantastic class and by the second round of story critiques everyone was completely comfortable with everyone else and some serious shredding totally went down. And it was all accepted as part of the process.
If I could go back to college for just this one class I would.
But that’s not the underlying meaning. “This needs more work, and you may or may not want to work on it further” does not equal “This sucks.” Not by a long shot. That’s something that Nessa read into those statements, and it seems to me that you’re reading into them as well.
I agree (as I’ve said above) that based on the OP there are things that might improve the atmosphere of the class, but I honestly don’t think this exchange was passive-aggressive on the OPs part. For one thing, the OP likely gave her his specific criticisms before this particular part of the conversation. For another, as I said, he’s not telling her it sucks, he’s telling her something else entirely and she seems determined to interpret it as “this sucks.” Frankly, I was feeling frustrated on pseudotriton ruber ruber’s part just reading the exchange–he was saying what he meant in plain English and the student is determined to get something entirely different out of his statements.
Sampiro, whether you go for the degree in Creative Writing or not, please don’t stop writing! I enjoy your stories so much!
As for the degree, I went to grad school straight out of college and had a few older students in classes with me. Their different world views made classes much more interesting, and the world views of the younger students were suprising and sometimes refreshing for them. I’d love to take a creative writing class with you, but then I’m older than you are!
I have to agree with Sampiro poetry of college students should be avoided at all costs.
I have a writing assignment that should jazz up the class and bring out their imaginations: Murder Your Creative Writing Teacher.
We did this in high school for our english teacher and I scored some high points because I shoved my teachers dead body peice by peice down the garbage disposal.
Could be interesting. Or it could stir up trouble.
Sorry, your prescription will almost certainly result in a crop of very creative people who can’t write for shit. Writing is revising, and revising means looking at your stuff and seeing the flaws in it. The most valuable thing I learned from my critique group was how to look at my writing as other people would. It is not negative to tell someone that a piece they spend a few hours on needs work. If they don’t understand that, they haven’t learned the first thing about writing. If you are not self critical, how are you going to apply all the lessons on plot and character etc.? No one is going to get it right the first time.
PRR, did you teach critiquing in your class? In my experience it is easier for a critique group to fall into the trap of loving everyone else’s work than hating everything. It takes a certain amount of team building to get people comfortable enough with each other to criticize fairly and honestly, and to take criticism.
I dunno… I also got the feeling from the OP that there is a negative “us vs. them” mentality in the class. The students are circling the wagons, making them closed to honest (and needed!) critque from both teacher and peers.
I’m not suggesting these students be encouraged at all costs. I was very involved in Theater in college and there we had a saying: “Just because you worked really hard on something doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.” However, CLEARLY the instructor is not happy with the way the class is unfolding – ergo something should change. Several suggestions have been made, some several times. If the OP wishes for the class to go in a different direction, perhaps he will apply some of the suggestions. If he wishes for things to remain exactly as they are, he will change nothing.
I am not a creative writer. I have been firmly entrenched in non-fiction since the (self) publication of my first opus, “All About Cats” at age 7. I am a teacher however. There is no one correct way to learn anything, including creative writing. IMHO the OP’s need to teach things in exactly the way that they were taught to him is hampering his ability to communicate effectively with this group of students.
There’s a hell of a lot of difference between “this needs more work” and “this sucks.”
I’ve taken my share of creative writing classes, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you have to have a thick skin. Anyone who hears “this sucks” when what’s said is “this needs work” is doomed to be a shitty writer forever.
Buck up. Even in the creative realm, you have to grow at least a medium-level (if not thick) skin and realize that the lastest writing/painting/song/etc that you came up with is rarely a work of genius until the 10th or 100th or 1000th revision.
And, if it makes you feel better, the first several revisions of whatever you’re writing do, in fact, suck, regardless of what the teacher says. You should be happy that most teachers say “this needs more work” and not “this sucks”, because it does suck. Trust me. It ain’t gonna not suck until you rewrite it a couple dozen times.
I definitely agree with those who suggest that having students prepare critiques of the works on paper before class is a good idea (assuming they don’t do this already). It both lets students prepare and frame their criticisms, and holds them accountable for having actually thought seriously about the piece (um, sorry Prof PRR, um, I didn’t write any critiques down… but, um, I still liked it. Yeah.)
I think in any intro college creative writing, 99% of everything that comes out on paper will be marginal at best. Learning how to critique others’ writing is maybe the most important piece for a beginning writer. If you can’t approach things you read with an informed and critical mind, how can you possibly have any clue about your own writing?
I’d even suggest that a large portion of the grading system should be based on critiques and possibly revisions. Being a good reader is step number one in being a good writer, IMHO. Otherwise, ignorance abounds.
This thread has brought back such annoying memories. My fellow students tried to help–I really believe they did–but lacked basic reading comprehension. Every critique would go like this:
“I think you should’ve added a space to show you were changing POVs.”
“I did.” looks down “Oh.”
“Since there are two mothers, I think you should’ve had their kids call them different things.”
“I did.” looks down “Oh.”
Even when I got helpful comments, I’d be steamed over having to explain everything and never quite sure what was my writing problems and what was their reading problems. (The teacher couldn’t follow her own instructions, so no help.)
That is why you can’t leave it up to them to critique. Chances are you love to read, which is why you have the job. Chances are, they don’t, like most people. That means their skill set is nowhere near yours. Until they’re more advanced, they can’t help each other.
Also, I think everyone’s ganging up on Satasha without really reading what she had to say. I disagree with her that the problem is the prof’s negative energy, but she does make a good point that, at least in the dialogue provided here, there wasn’t much guidance except for vague suggestions that Nessa could, if she choose, not work on her piece any more. Particularly from here on out:
At this point it becomes not a discussion about what the paper needs or doesn’t need, or what things about it could use more work, but it becomes an exercise in getting a student to accept that something she wrote isn’t very good. Which, of course, may very well be true, but to make that suggestion before any criticism or intelligent conversation about the piece takes place does nothing but stop the critical process dead in its tracks. It’s no longer about improving her poor writing, but about implying somehow that her writing was bad. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that students need to understand that they’re not kings and queens of the universe, but it what they need are the tools with which to think critically about things, not just to be told their work is no good. If they can’t understand why it’s no good, they’ll just get defensive and will make no progress. The big challenge here is to teach them how to talk about why things are good and bad, and how to recognize it.
This isn’t the coddling, encourage them at all costs type of teaching, and those who are suggesting it are bringing in a huge strawman. By all means, communicate that the writing needs a lot of work. You can even be blunt about it. But, if the discussion stops there, then nothing constructive or educational has happened.