Teaching Journal

Hesse, Douglas. “The Place of Creative Writing in Composition Studies. ” College Composition and Communication : SPECIAL ISSUE: The Future of Rhetoric and Composition 62.1 (2010): 31-52. ProQuest Education Journals, ProQuest. Web.  11 Apr. 2011.

In this article, Douglas Hesse argues that even though creative writing and composition studies have typically been studied in separate programs, and composition scholarship has not paid attention to creative writing, composition studies should pay more attention to the potential relationship between the two fields.  He argues that these two areas have common interests that should bring them together to present a more well-rounded, coherent view of writing for students, scholars, and policy makers.  As new media and digital technology increase and expand the distribution and definitions of written texts, Hesse argues that composition scholars and educators should focus more on the craft of writing in contexts that go beyond responding to rhetorical situations and writing for academic audiences.  The author discusses the different approaches that these two fields take towards writing after attending professional conferences in each field: the Associated Writing Programs (AWP) and the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC).  He says that the AWP highlights the technique and crafts of writing, including readings of creative works by authors, while including fewer presentations on teaching and administration issues.  The CCCCs is the opposite—with teaching and administration being in the foreground and writing techniques being more marginalized.  Hesse compares these differences to the differences in the ways that creative writing and composition are situation within the academy and he argues that composition programs would benefit by connecting with creative writing more so for more coherence and consistency programmatically and also for students’ understanding of writing as well.