Imaginative Writing

Janet Burroway's bestselling Imaginative Writng: The Elements of Craft explores the craft of creative writing in four genres: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Creative Nonfiction. A trade author as well as a professor of creative writing, Burroway brings her years of teaching and writing to this book. "Try-This" exercises appear throughout each chapter. Provocative and fun, these exercises help writers develop the specific writing skills discussed within the text. "Working toward a draft" exercises encourage writers to develop their ideas into complete drafts. In response to reviewer requests, the preface "Invitation to the Writer" has been expanded into a full chapter. This new chapter introduces writers to important skills such as reading like a writer, journaling, and participating in the writer's workshop. This book offers lots of ideas and encouragement at a great price!

Writing and sharing fiction allows adolescents to glimpse other lives The current curricular emphasis on analytical writing can make it feel risky to teach creative writing in ELA classrooms. But the opportunity to write fiction in school opens many doors for young people: doors the author argues are critical to the development of our students, our education system, and even our democracy. This book will delight English teachers weary of focusing relentlessly on argument and information writing. Veteran teacher Ariel Sacks vividly describes the many academic, social–emotional, and community-building advantages of teaching imaginative writing in the classroom, not least of which is the impact it has on equity for marginalized students. Her book is a teacher-to-teacher text that folds in detailed, practical guidance about how to design lessons and meet standards, while presenting a powerful central argument: that the writing of fiction should be treated not as a luxury for some, but as a center of the English curriculum for all students.

Published in 1984. The more we know about young writers, the more we observe them as they write, discuss the composing process with them, talk to them about the sources of their ideas and the difficulties which they encounter as they try to captures thoughts and feelings in words, the greater will be our understanding of imaginative activity and the part it plays in children’s personal and social development. This is the essential theme of the book and the contributors stress the importance of sympathetic and sensitive guidance by teachers and parents in encouraging the imaginative process in young children. The personal diaries, stories and conversations with young writers which appear in this book illustrate how children can use imaginative writing as a means of coming to terms with social and emotional issues in their lives. The book presents first a theoretical analysis of the imaginative writing process and then goes on to explore children’s growing awareness of themselves and others through their perception of sex-roles, their way of dealing symbolically with illness and death, fear and separation, religious and spiritual experiences, and their understanding of social relationships with family and friends. The writing process itself is examined in detail and parallels drawn between the adult and child writer. The final part of the book presents children’s own reflections on writing, shows one classroom community in action and discusses the extent to which children themselves can gain control of their own writing process.

This book is a contribution to the new field of literary studies which is informed by book history and takes interest in the intersection of the ideal and material aspects of literature. It studies the ways eighteenth-century English novels, plays and poems illustrated the changes which the growth of literacy, the proliferation of writing and the emergence of print marketplace made in the social and cultural life of Britain and demonstrated the contingency of the emerging criticism on the technological and economic conditions of book production. The first part focusses on the representation of the tensions created by the emergence of literate society and on the hopes and fears awoken by the expansion of the cultural public sphere caused by the proliferation of print. The second part explores the contribution of literature to the shaping of the roles of authors, readers and patrons in the field of literary production.

Growing out of recent pedagogical developments in creative writing studies and perceived barriers to teaching the subject in secondary education schools, this book creates conversations between secondary and post-secondary teachers aimed at introducing and improving creative writing instruction in teaching curricula for young people. Challenging assumptions and lore regarding the teaching of creative writing, this book examines new and engaging techniques for infusing creative writing into all types of language arts instruction, offering inclusive and pedagogically sound alternatives that consider the needs of a diverse range of students. With careful attention given to creative writing within current standards-based educational systems, Imaginative Teaching Through Creative Writing confronts and offers solutions to the perceived difficulty of teaching the subject in such environments. Divided into two sections, section one sees post-secondary instructors address pedagogical techniques and concerns such as workshop, revision, and assessment before section two explores hands-on activities and practical approaches to instruction. Focusing on an invaluable and underrepresented area of creative writing studies, this book begins a much-needed conversation about the future of creative writing instruction at all levels and the benefits of collaboration across the secondary/post-secondary divide.

Marina Warner guides us through the rich world of fairy tale, from Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel to Snow White and Pan's Labyrinth. Exploring pervasive themes of folklore, myth, the supernatural, imagination, and fantasy, Warner highlights the impact of the genre on human understanding, history, and culture.

A Village Voice Best Book "a treasure chest of essays about the relationship of writing to cultural politics"