The Importance of Reading in Creative Writing

Volume 3 June Issue 1 2016 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 The Importance of Reading in Creative Writing Yagouta Beji Assistant in the Higher Institute of Languages Gabes, Tunisia PhD candidate at the Faculty of Letters Sfax, Tunisia yagoutabeji@gmail.com Abstract It is of utmost importance to shed lights on the issues related to ‘writing’. There are in fact many reasons for such an interest on the part of both the teacher and the student. Writing represents, first, one of the major criteria of assessment of any student who is supposed to interact with subjects, topics, problems, theses, hypotheses, analyses and discussions while s/he ‘writes’. Writing for a student is, therefore, a necessary daily activity that reflects his/her ideas and understandings for the issues the curriculum proposes or for any other issue. Writing, secondly, is a hindrance for many students who find certain difficulties in conveying the appropriate meaning using the appropriate linguistic structures. This paper will present the effects of reading on writing and try to provide a clear and plain definition of creative writing in a way that will help students or writers in general to overcome the problems they may have in writing or to improve their linguistic production. Keywords: reading, creative writing, problems, solutions. http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 247 Volume 3 June Issue 1 2016 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 In Guide to Writing, Harris & Cunningham said “Constructing a text, whether you are a reader or a writer, is an interactive, meaning-making process that involves both the written text and your mental image of that text. The interaction between your mind and the text creates meaning” (Harris. J& Cunningham.D, 1996:23). This assures, in fact, the existence of a tight relationship between reading and writing since they complement each other and embody a “process that involves movement back and forth between a written and a mental text” (Harris. J& Cunningham.D, 1996:23). Through the analysis of the essay ‘Creativity in the classroom’ (cf appendix) for Earnest L. Boyer (Spack. R, 2007: 82-89), I will apply the idea that urges the need for time between drafts in order to allow what in a reader’s head shape his written text and allow his written text reshape what is in his mind. In other words, this paper explains how readers, like writers construct texts. Regarding reading, there should be a structured plan, or as Lynn Quitman Troyka calls it ‘reading systematically’ (Troyka L. Q. & Hess. D, 2007). Students are used to use a structured plan for writing and not for reading. However, previewing in reading gets a student ready and keeps him away from reading inefficiently, which is the case for planning in writing. Similarly, to move through the material/the text and try to grasp its meaning in reading recalls drafting processes in writing. Reviewing in reading and which basically takes the student back over the set of information and ideas in the text to clarify a fine tune and to make it thoroughly his own is similar to the revision process in writing. At a practical level, previewing is the step that precedes the text reading and in which the student discusses in class the overall theme in order to raise awareness of, and interest in the topic. This is mostly done orally as a major step towards framing the issue in the text. So, generating background knowledge of the text from the title, the headings and subheadings, the words in boldface, charts and illustrations etc help, in fact, to predict the context and lead to a deeper understanding of the text. Understanding the text or, ‘core reading’ (Gardner. PS, 2005), comes after a reading, and most of the time a second reading of the text. Usually, students and teachers refer to the given questions for the text understanding which, in fact, help students tremendously disambiguating certain matters sometimes or highlighting the major ideas in the text. Another major strategy that “involves recording ‘of the student’s’ understanding of and reactions to what ‘he’ reads” is annotating” (Spack. R, 2007: 7). Annotating a text is held through the creation of headings and categories to identify sections, writing their summaries, stressing the significant sentences that bare clue ideas, expressing one’s own attitude towards a point in the text, asking questions about any topic that seems confusing for the student etc. Annotating can be realized differently through some other more general techniques such as clustering, double-entry notes and taking notes. Clustering ideas consists of selecting a word that stands for the major idea in the reading and writing it at the center of a paper. To this word the student is to cluster all the related words and expressions from the reading and connect them with lines in the way that shows the “significant relationships among the ideas and details in a reading selection” (Spack. R, 2007: 8). A double-entry notes is a technique that helps the student/reader to consider the text from two perspectives. One entry, on the lefthand margin for example, serves the summary of the author’s ideas, and the other entry, on the right-hand margin serves to record the reader’s reactions to what he has just read. The third major step in advanced reading and writing is the post-reading activity or specifically, ‘making connections’ which leads the student to the syntheses of the information http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 248 Volume 3 June Issue 1 2016 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 that is presented in the reading. At this stage, he combines ideas, facts and beliefs to construct his own opinions and judgments about the issues. A student’s strategies might vary to include for example comparing and contrasting the author’s ideas – or parts of the ideas – and writing techniques, imagining how he, as a reader, might answer the writer in some of his queries, applying concepts discussed in the reading, arguing about an idea in terms of its definition, interpretation, application or use, criticizing the author’s interpretation at any measure etc. In fact, we can consider a journal entry activity as the first practical type of exercise that helps the student to “capture his reactions to a reading” (Spack. R, 2007: 10) and move in a smooth way from an active reading to a reflective type of writing. A journal entry/writing is a free non-verbal communication activity that does not go beyond ten minutes writing nor necessitate a formal language. It is used to communicate and test out thoughts and ideas in a free way, in that there are no set of rules for how a journal entry should be written. “How you respond to what you read is shaped by the content and style of the reading selection and by your own experiences, beliefs, and values” (Spack. R, 2007: 10). A student might describe what went through his mind as he was reading, explore the issues he liked and interested him, and those he did not like about the reading and found confusing, expose what he agrees or disagrees with in the reading, link his own ideas and experiences to the text, raise questions in cases he does not understand all or a part of the text, choose a short passage that struck him for some reasons and explain why he selected it etc. The text ‘Creativity in the classroom’ for Ernest L. Boyer raises a list of challenging issues students can develop referring back to their own college or university experience. This text can be divided into two major sections. The first part deals with the problems and the causes of the absence of creativity in colleges and the second part represents the author’s alternatives and suggestions for such an obstruction. Among the major problems that have an effect on creativity in the classroom are the mismatch between the faculty and the students expectations, absenteeism, short attention span, high interest on grades and exams and not on the information, distance and lack of attention of teachers and irrelevance of their material, passivity and unwillingness of students to work, ‘beating the system’ through cheating or buying on assignments, and class size. The solutions the author considers to improve the state of colleges and education in general and creativity in particular are the following: better class conditions (class size), omission of the recitation system, creating conferences and seminars, new conceptualization of lectures and discussions, equality between men and woman in class, creating competitive climate in the classroom, cooperation and collaborative projects, encouraging students, coaching them and as Boyer put it: “command of the material to be taught, a contagious enthusiasm for the play of ideas, optimism about human potential, the involvement with one’s students and –not least- sensitivity, integrity, and warmth as a human being”. The he adds “when this combination is present in the classroom, the impact of a teacher can be powerful and enduring” (Spack. R, 2007: 89). As a matter of fact, the hitherto presented issues that the author raised in this essay stand for his own understanding and therefore interpretation of ‘absence of creativity in the classroom’. The student, whose stand point is normally different from that of the author, as the former lives within the system and might be the victim and the ‘unconscious eye-witness’, (he) might argue, criticize, agree with some issues, add some other points the writer cannot grasp from his standing point as a scholar and analyst. http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 249 Volume 3 June Issue 1 2016 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 Since “reading always involves an interaction between what is in the reader’s mind, what is in the writer’s mind, and what appears in the written text” (Harris. J & Cunningham. DH,1996: 19) and after summarizing the text and retaining the basic form and issues, the student might then represent the different roles and positions that are in some way affected by the issues. The student’s judgment and evaluation of the text comes after the analysis which includes drawing inferences or implied meanings, bias, recognizing its tone/s that can emerge basically from the word choice. The tone can be formal, informal, pompous, sarcastic, and so on… A student’s interaction with Boyer’s essay might take the form of another essay that foreshadows/exposes his opinions towards the issues the writer raised. He might also add some other factors that he considers responsible for the absence of creativity in the classroom and that the writer did not care about or did not consider them. Among those issues one can mention the social and personal factors that were almost absent in this essay and that can be considered a logical hindrance for creativity. In this essay, a student might also agree with some ideas, identify with and prefer to explain them referring to his personal experience for example. He might disagree as well and follow the previously mentioned procedure. The issues, for instance, can be related to the overgeneralization strategy that Boyer uses in depicting a student as being passive, lazy, in grades pursuit, misbehaver etc. In brief, he draws a totally negative portrait for a college student. As for the solutions that the writer suggests, the student can agree or disagree with them, explain his point of view, and add, maybe, some other solutions like to concentrate as teachers on ‘what should be taken out’ rather than ‘go into’ the student, or to help them to open and reveal the riches within them as they are according to Sydney J. Harris like ‘oysters’ (Spack. R, 2007: 5). The student might also talk about the structure of the essay and therefore, studies the linguistic texture, the figurative language, the tone and so on… in relation to the meaning and criticize their efficiency in this essay. The alternatives can be given aftermath in his own essay. By the end, the student’s own essay will relate Boyer’s text and experience after testing them against his own experience. One of the challenges of composing such an essay is to determine the truth or validity of the author’s ideas. Regarding the essay structure, it should abide by the same writing requirements. It must first be build upon the same outline which forcedly contains an introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion. The writing process needs also to include an assessment for the writing situation, exploration and planning for the topic, drafting, revising, editing and proofreading. The third requirement in writing is to use and refer to sources in that the student can refer to sources, locating, evaluating, documenting or taking notes from. His appropriate and effective use of multiple sources provides him with different viewpoints and more information that reinforce, develop and support his own viewpoint. A reader does, in general, comprehend and react to a text that contains other sources in a different ways than he does when he reads a text that does not include outside sources. The text ‘Creativity in the classroom’ includes six major references, with a varied rate of quoted sentences, and a list of reported ideas that exceeds twenty three. This elevated number of sources helped to build credibility and to support his ideas with more than two examples from students or from teachers and professors, who all of them present a complete image of the college life. In the same way, the student needs to refer to other sources to strongly sustain his ideas and create http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 250 Volume 3 June Issue 1 2016 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 persuasiveness and win credibility. He can at the same time evaluate the reading text sources, their accuracy, their relevance and their bias. http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 251 Volume 3 June Issue 1 2016 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 References Gardner, PS. (2007). New Directions: reading, writing and critical thinking. USA: Cambridge University Press. Grabe, W & Kaplan, RB. (1996). Theory and practice of writing. London: Longman. Harris, J & Cunningham, DH. (1996). (2nd ed). The Simon and Schuster: Guide to Writing. USA: Prentice-Hall, inc. Spack, R. (2007). A cross-cultural reading/writing text. USA: Cambridge University Press. http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 252 Volume 3 June Issue 1 2016 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 The Appendix is taken from: Harris, J & Cunningham, DH. (1997). The Simon and Schuster: Guide to Writing. USA: Prentice-Hall, inc. http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 253 Volume 3 June Issue 1 2016 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 254 Volume 3 June Issue 1 2016 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 255 Volume 3 June Issue 1 2016 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 256 Volume 3 June Issue 1 2016 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 257