Creative Writing: The Patrick Method (Final)

If I were to teach Creative Writing in 2013 to a group of uncooperative obstreperous students, there are a few keys things that I would do. According to Beth Sunny and Vera Marbles, uncooperative students tend to have two traits, the ‘I’m smarter than you’ and the ‘I don’t see the value in this’ attitude. These disruptive kids may need special treatment to encourage them to cooperate. In order to meet each student’s individual needs and to take on this class as their new teacher, my style of teaching will have minimal hands-on material, lots of visual stimulus throughout the classroom, and deep conversations with engaging topics. I will endeavor to be an adaptable, humorous, relatable, and respected instructor. Additionally, I will look for changes in how conversational, inspired, and motivated my students become.

Very much like Mr. Keating in the Dead Poets Society, my classroom will not have distracting hands on material like props and coloring books, it’ll be pure verbal and written work instead. The main focus will always be the subject at hand. If my students are allowed to have their cell phones or play with their fancy pencils that take video and glow in the dark, then they and I both will be distracted. Having engaging material that challenges and demands the attention of the students is key to motivating them.
To be an engaging Creative Writing teacher, my assignments “must be meaningful to them,” says Kevin Bibo of ‘How to Be an Engaging Teacher’. “Once you do [learn who your kids are], you can begin to tailor the assessments to fit the interests and experiences of the kids.” Class conversations and assignments can be about their own experiences, family life, friends, interests, and goals but also can include things that the students are quite familiar with. For example, a conversation or assignment could be outlined by the subject ‘unicorns’, and the objective of the pupil is to write a myth on how unicorns were first brought into this world. The student may not be familiar with the original legend, but will create instead their own version. The task given isn’t a personal experience, but is enjoyable and refreshingly different.
An atmosphere with posters, paintings, drawings, and a hint of color, can enhance the way students come up with ideas. Those who work hard at coming up with their own ideas may take the visuals into consideration. If a student says that they can’t think of anything, I’ll encourage them to look around the room and write about something that catches their eye. This leaves no excuse for work not completed and promotes motivated active learning.
Why do kids do what one teacher asks but not another? One teacher may even ask the same thing of the same students but another teacher may not get any result. As an instructor, I will be stern, relatable, and humorous when appropriate much like Keating in Dead Poets Society. In the movie, Mr. Keating said, “We're not laughing at you - we're laughing near you,” is an attitude I’d adapt that reveals very much how I’d approach my class; with authority but also lightheartedness. Mike Rose, author of I Just Wanna Be Average, also points out the same trait in one of his favorite teachers, Mr. MacFarland. “Even MacFarland’s barbs were literary. If Jim FItzsimmons, hung over and irritable, tried to smart-ass him, he’d rejoin and flourish that would spark the indomitable Skip Madison - who’d lost his front teeth in a hapless tackle - to flick his tongue through the gap and opine, “good chop,” drawing out the single “O” in stinging indictment” (6).  MacFarland found a way, even with students who were irritable and hostile, to intellectually turn a conversation around with his “brandished linguistic weapons.” With that, however, comes the most difficult task of a new teacher; earning respect.
How will I make my students respect me? Well as Edna Sackson said in 10 Ways To Get Your Students’ Respect, “Respect your students. Don’t talk down to students. Model mutual respect.  Don’t have double standards. Give what you’d like to get back. Know every child’s story and treat each as an individual. Cater for different learning preferences, strengths and weaknesses.”In other words if I, as the instructor, don’t acknowledge my own students as individuals, then I shouldn’t expect that in return. This might even mean tailoring my assignments and learning style to fit the needs of the class as a whole and each student individually. I have an assignment that is called ‘Coffee Shop Name Poem’ and the goal is to go around one’s hometown and create a poem based on the coffee shop names. But there is one student of mine that lives on a 40 acre farm. As his teacher I could ask him to look up names online or in a phone book. This kind of ‘customer service’ for an individual student enables him to be challenged regardless of the circumstance.
I will ask for two things in the entirety of the class. The first pertains to the participation grade, that each student grow in their conversation involvement and quality of discussions. That means if a student joins into a classroom discussion and adds something constructive or meaningful on a regular basis, they receive full participation points. The second thing I ask for is quality writing, which requires that each student should put forth effort, and develop their ideas throughout their writing so that they may reflect broad or narrow topics and describe them in ways that are comprehensible to others. I will not ask for a ‘standard of learning’ that each student must cross or meet, as Freire, author of the Banking Concept of Education, elaborates, “Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor... This is the ‘banking’ concept of education” (99). As Freire is opposed to a teacher telling his students what is absolute truth and insisting that they comply, I ask that my students find their own truth through their papers. As Keating expands, “Now we all have a great need for acceptance, but you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular, even though the herd may go.” The only form of assessments I will give are paper assignments, usually short story or poetry. This is to reinforce the notion that grammar and punctuation are important, however in a Creative Writing class, it is more important to focus on good plot development. I will define these expectations clearly on the first day of class, and will expect them from each student.
Creative Writing is quite possibly the most lenient type of class out of basic core subjects like English, Math, or Science. To have a coherent method of instruction and encourage vigilant pupils that work toward development of their own written and verbal material means that, as a teacher, I have to scrutinize work that is late or of low quality. But I will strive to help them achieve their full potential. Techniques that I feel will be successful in a Creative Writing class include the following: less distraction, deep conversation, visual aid around the classroom to stimulate original though, a light humorous atmosphere, and looking out for each and every student.

Works Cited

Bibo, Kevin. “How To Be An Engaging Teacher.” Teaching.Monster.com. Where Teachers Meet and Learn. Web.

Dead Poets Society. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke. Touchstone Pictures, 1989. DVD

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2007. Print.

Rose, Mike. “I Just Wanna Be Average.” Lives on the Boundary. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. Print.

Sackson, Edna. “10 Ways To Get Your Students’ Respect.” WhatEdSaid.com. What Ed Said. Web. 28 August, 2010.

Sunny, Beth. “Encouraging the Uncooperative Student to Be Cooperative.” IgnitePoint.com. Showing How To Ignite Your WOW!, 2001. Web.