How to Facilitate Creative Writing Workshops

As a teacher, I’m constantly impressed by the excitement that students show, even in high school and middle school, about having the chance to create narratives. While a large number of the standards (rightfully) showcase informational writing, the chance to apply creative techniques to narratives and then link these approaches to other writing modes infuses the classroom with a sense of play and innovation.

As a teacher who is passionate about connecting students with the wider authoring community, this article will detail the steps for helping students reflect on authors’ writings and take steps toward their own creation.

Share Mentor Voices

After conducting over 800 interviews with authors and fellow educators, I’ve arrived at some conclusions about how to shape a writing-focused workshop. The perseverance needed to practice relentless and brave creativity has been a recurring theme—a sense of the “have to” of writing and literacy practice. Writers have to keep going, even when their work is met with critique instead of glowing praise. I always point out the positives in a student’s writing, but I also normalize the revising process. It is truly part of the work of writing.

Additionally, it’s vital to expose students to a variety of authors. Still more power can be found in exploring the stories that authors share through interviews. Each choice on a page is intentional and is often crafted from a piece of an author’s life or passion—by introducing students to authors’ process, the image that is included in a comics panel or the reference to a person or place can take on even more meaning.

I love emphasizing this intentional choice in visual arts, from film to graphic novels to well-known paintings or sculptures, and then expanding the view to include choices in prose. Having the opportunity to hear authors speak or even meet them in person or via Zoom also shows students that writing involves real people—people like them who are imperfect, work closely with editors, and refine their process.

Focusing on Transitions to Push the Narrative

After looking at the words and impact of authors and artists, I next work with students to expand their thinking about the stories they have with them. From the strange corners of my childhood to exploring the connections that students have with each other, this “story circle” approach allows them to explore narrative writing.

I often use transition words and phrases in a whole class, student-to-student storying activity to illustrate how logic can be developed through a narrative. In this activity, I emphasize the importance of brainstorming and set up the relationship between elements of a narrative and initial outlining. A transitions brainstorming activity can also be practiced in small groups.

This is a strategy I gathered from a workshop for teaching AP Language and Composition—another example of when strategies can be applied to informational writing as well as narrative forms. Students can either access a print or digital copy of a transitions handout, or have cards that include transition words and phrases. Hand them out to each student or to individual groups. The process is like a write-around in that I or a student volunteer begins the story, and then it’s passed around line by line so that each transition can add a thread of narrative development.

Students can try out their idea in writing on their own or with a partner and then share the transition aloud for the next group to expand on. By emphasizing the importance of transitions, students can see how a narrative can progress logically. This can also be a support for young writers who sometimes have trouble coming up with what to write next.

The use of transitions is helpful for illustrating relationships as well as developing explanations and details. It’s also useful for demonstrating how creative choices can transform a story. An additional benefit of accessing a variety of transitions is that I’m helping my students increase their tool kit of word choices so that they aren’t always using the same transitions from composition to composition.

Developing a ‘Beat Sheet’

From the initial brainstorming, the beats of a story begin to come together. One of the key aspects of writing is planning. In talking with authors, I’ve learned that there are writers who travel by the seat of their pants and those who plan the journey first. Either can result in a strong story, but the “pantsing” approach can often lead to much more rewriting and double work.

It’s wonderful to teach the elements of plot, but we know that not all stories work in exactly the same way. Kurt Vonnegut explains this range of approaches in his lecture on the “Shapes of Stories.”

Instead of a linear plot diagram, students can craft a “beat sheet,” a term I gathered from interviewing creators in the independent comics space. In a beat sheet approach, writers can decide what elements need to be part of a story. They can trace how characters change and what makes them change with a focus on character development and the elements of a story that can be developed as the conflict grows.

To adopt the language of actor William B. Davis, who recently appeared on my podcast to talk about his work in acting and writing, building a character involves the question, “Now what would make me do that?” Establishing this believability in a story is difficult work but enriches narrative. Conferencing with students about who a character is and what their likely actions would be can demystify this part of authoring.

Conclusion Zone: ‘Publication’

Students can then explore sharing their story in some way. The path to publication doesn’t need to be a prestige-only effort but can be an activity in class—reading aloud, posting around the school building, or expanding into an anthology project. Anthology projects can be a class or joint class project where examples of writing can be collected and shared in print or digitally.

Beginning with authors’ authentic voices allows students to see that real humans do, indeed, craft stories. While publication isn’t the end-all, be-all of writing, it is rewarding. The small taste of having some poems published as a middle school student inspired me to continue the path I’m on. I used resources like Writer’s Market, but online sources like Writer’s Digest and National Council of Teachers of English continue to offer opportunities for thinking about ways to publish and share widely.

Additional steps in this process can involve opportunities for collaboration with peers, including expanding individual stories and comics using social media and familiar digital tools like Google Docs.