Creative writing as a method for promoting writing competence

Table of contents

1 Introduction

2 Theoretical foundations on the topic of "writing"
2.1 Writing process
2.2 Writing strategies
2.3 Writing skills
2.3.1 Concept of competence
2.3.2 Approaching a definition of writing competence
2.3.3 Competence levels
2.4 Writing development

3 Creative writing
3.1 Definition
3.2 Goals of creative writing
3.3 Methods of creative writing
3.4 Promotion of writing competence through creative writing occasions using the example of selected student texts

4 Conclusion

5 List of sources and literature

1 Introduction

"Imagination is more important than knowledge, because knowledge is limited."
(Albert Einstein, 1929)

The much-quoted statement of the Nobel Prize winner Einstein – which was printed on 26 October 1929 in the Saturday Evening Post and went around the world – is more relevant than ever. Even then, the creativity on the part of the natural scientist is given a wide space and even today the importance of creative thinking for solving problems is undisputed. For this reason, German didactics, among others, tries to link the field of creativity with the field of writing.

Reading and writing are central key competences of social everyday life. Without the appropriate skills, it is becoming more and more difficult to participate in the life of our society. Teaching the pupils (SuS for short) writing skills is thus a fundamental task of the education at school.

Building on these findings, this work tries to highlight the extent to which creative writing methods can promote writing at SuS. In the first chapter, the area of "writing" itself is first explained in more detail. In this context, a first step is theoretically demonstrated what is understood by the term "writing process". Afterwards, the area of writing strategies is discussed. This chapter focuses on the remarks on writing competence, which entail a definition of this term and explain the different levels of competence. However, writing skills are not only closely related to the writing process and writing strategies, but also to writing development. Becker-Mrotzek/Böttcher have tried in this context to divide the process of writing development into different levels of development, which are presented in conclusion.

The second chapter deals with the field of "creative writing". After the concept of creative writing is defined and it is explained what goals are pursued with the use of this method, the six groups of methods of creative writing by Cooper are explained. Finally, this chapter is devoted to the question of whether creative writing actually promotes the writing skills of the SuS? In this context, an attempt is made to analyse, on the basis of selected student essays, whether these contain e.B. certain text patterns, lexical or grammatical knowledge, which are components of writing competence and can be further expanded by creative writing occasions.

2 Theoretical foundations on the topic of "writing"

In order for a work to show whether the method of creative writing can actually promote the writing skills of SuS, the first step must first be theoretically explained what is understood by the term "writing competence" at all. However, writing skills are closely related to the writing process, writing strategies, and writing development. For this reason, this chapter first tries to give a theoretical overview of the entire topic of "writing" by initially explaining the writing process and the writing strategies. This chapter focuses on the remarks on writing competence, which entail a definition of this term and explain the different levels of competence. In a final step, the writing development is finally discussed.

2.1 Writing process

While until the mid-1970s the product was the focus of writing research, the writing process is now increasingly becoming the focus of attention. No longer the finished essay, but the path or process that leads to the final result, moves to the center of consideration.¹ When one speaks of a writing process, one generally means the independent production of a text, which takes place within a fixed time frame.² Somewhat more differentiated Krings under writing process:³

"All mental processes and [...] all assigned material actions that give rise to a writing product [...] in the first place. The writing process thus begins with the perception of a predetermined or becoming aware of a [...] Writing task and ends with the "adoption" of the text product in a final form from the subjective point of view of the text. The writing process is the ontogeny of a text product."

The idea of process-oriented writing didactics is to make sus expert behavior accessible by looking at and promoting the individual writing activities separately.⁴ Writing is examined from the point of view of problem solving and the writing process is defined as a problem-solving process.

Hayes/Flower were one of the first to develop a model that characterizes the writing process as a problem-solving process by analyzing the writing process with the help of empirical methods.⁵ They describe the text to be written as an "ill-defined problem", an unexplained problem with an open solution, which depends on the task environment (addressee, motivation, topic) and the long-term memory or knowledge of the author.⁶ The basis for the data acquisition was the method of "thinking loudly". In this method, the subjects are instructed to verbalize their thoughts during the writing process. Through the promised nature of the thoughts, the researchers have the opportunity to gain an insight into the thought processes and considerations of the writers when planning, executing and revising and thus to take a closer look at the sub-processes of writing.⁷ Figure 1 makes it clear that the actual writing process in the model of Hayes/ Flower is only one of many subcomponents.

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Figure 1: General model of text production (From: Becker-Mrotzek, M./Böttcher Schreibkompetenz entwickelt und beurteilen, p. 26).

The writing process is a processual and complex, but at the same time also goal-oriented cognitive process, which forms the sum of the sub-processes of planning, translating and reviewing.⁸ In the planning phase, the complex action problem is pre-structured by generating ideas, ordering and evaluating information, organizing the further procedure and determining a writing goal that controls the upcoming design work. The formulation act is about the promisedlichung, whereby either words are searched for and then put together into sentences (bottom up) or vice versa sentence schemes are chosen and then filled with words (top down). The reworking is closely linked to the formulation or can be described as a special case of the formulation, because a formulation can be revised even before the writing as a pretext in the head.⁹

These sub-processes are monitored and regulated by a supervisory authority. During the writing process, this control authority checks the product with regard to orthography, language convention, scope and comprehensibility. The individual phases of the process are embedded in the task environment or the situational context (task enviroment) as well as in the long-term memory (the writer's long term memory) of the author with his knowledge of the topic, the addressees and the writing plans.

Writing is based on the model of Hayes/Flower i.e. a sequence of different subprocesses, which are controlled by an examination authority. Within the writing process, no exact sequence of actions is established. According to this model, the writer only has to first define his goal, then examine the available means to achieve the goal and finally carry out the transformation process.¹⁰ The writing task with its writing context embodies the problem and must be mastered by the writer. The writers who have learned to divide their own text creation process into different phases and are able to judge their texts themselves will increasingly write better texts.¹¹ In this context, the educational standards for the "intermediate school leaving certificate" expect the SuS to be able to design a writing process independently by planning, designing, writing and revising texts.¹² The guidelines for the upper secondary school in North Rhine-Westphalia state:¹³

"The individual phases of the writing process – planning, writing down, revision – are recursive and influence each other. Increasing insight into these processes is itself to be understood as a learning process that is necessary for the propaedeust of science."

2.2 Writing strategies

Writing as a complex plot is characterized by the interplay of very different partial abilities and combined with correspondingly high demands on the text producers. The simultaneous realization of these requirements makes the difficulty of writing especially with more complex writing tasks and leads to problems with inexperienced writers. That's why text producers need to Perrin/Kruse for writing tools.¹⁴ One of the crucial tools is writing strategies. Generally speaking, they are action plans when writing. With the acquisition of essential writing skills at school, the prerequisites for the development of different writing strategies are met. In writing research, many definitions of writing strategies appear. for Molitor-Lübbert for example, writing strategies are:¹⁵

"Procedures of individual persons in the conception and implementation of a current writing project."

According to all definitions in writing research, Becker-Mrotzek/Böttcher in common, that they are both process- and product-oriented, person- and task-specific and are used consciously or unconsciously.¹⁶

There is a large number of individual writing strategies that are investigated in research and categorized in different models. One of the writing strategy models Wider/Scardamalia before. Based on the development of individual writing skills, they distinguish between two different writing strategies: "knowledge telling" and "knowledge transforming".¹⁷ former corresponds to the simple reproduction of knowledge in a narrative mode. "Knowledge transforming" is methodically more conscious writing that uses the advantages of the slowed-down language design process in writing to go beyond the existing thinking and knowledge. Inexperienced writers predominantly use the writing mode of "knowledge telling" . Without much planning effort, key terms relating to a topic and text pattern are retrieved from memory as a basis for further search processes. Based on this, concepts, relationships and coherent content structures are then developed associatively. In this writing strategy, the writer does not have the resulting whole in mind, but he works his way forward step by step.¹⁸ This makes "knowledge telling similar " what is called "associative writing" in creative writing (cf. Chapter 3) and has been exemplified at this point as one of the many writing strategies.

2.3 Writing skills

Before the promotion of writing competence can be discussed, this chapter first tries to approach this concept: What does the term writing competence mean? The answer to this question is intended to shed light on how the term is understood in research. In a first step, the concept of competence is first explained in general use before it is focused on the field of writing.

2.3.1 Concept of competence

If one in the universal dictionary of the Duden under "Competence" you will find the following entry on the concept of competence:¹⁹

"Kom׀ pe׀ tenz, die; -, -en [1: lat. competentia = meeting; 2: engl. Competence, according to the amerik. Linguist N. Chomsky, born 1928]: 1. (a) expertise; abilities: his great professional, scientific, communicative, social K.; her K. in matters of phonetics is undisputed; (b) (see also legal pros.) competence: have certain –en; exceed its –en; the distribution of the –s; that's outside my K.; that falls within the K. of the authorities. 2. (Sprachw.) Sum of all language skills that a native speaker possesses."

[...]

¹ cf. Böttcher, I. (ed.): Creative writing. Basics and methods. Berlin, 01/20/2004

² cf. Becker-Mrotzek, M./Böttcher, I.: Develop and assess writing skills. Berlin, 01/20/2004

³ cf. Krings, H. P.: Traces on a white background. Questions, methods and results of empirical writing process research. In: Krings, H. P. (eds.): Text production: New ways of research. Trier 1992. p. 47.

⁴ cf. Portmann, P. R.: Work on the text. In: Feilke, H./Portmann, P. R.: Schreiben im Umbruch. Stuttgart/München/Düsseldorf/Leipzig 1996. p. 162.

⁵ Cf. in the original: Flower, L. S./Hayes, J. R.: Identifying the organization of writing processes. In: Gregg, L./Steinberg, E. R. (eds.): Cognitive process in writing. Hillsdale 1980. pp. 3-30.

⁶cf. Fix, M.: Write texts. Writing processes in German lessons. 2. Aufl., Paderborn 2008. P. 36.

⁷ cf. Becker-Mrotzek, M./Böttcher, I.: Develop and assess writing skills. loc. cit. p. 26.

⁸ (Cf., ibid., p.77)

⁹ cf. Fix, M.: Write texts. Schreibprozesse im Deutschunterricht, 2nd ed. loc. cit. p. 37f.

¹⁰ cf. Merz-Grötsch, J.: Writing research and writing didactics: An overview. Bd. 1. Freiburg im Breisgau 2000. pp. 87f.

¹¹ cf. Baurmann, J.: Writing – Revising – Judging: Ein Arbeitsbuch zur Schreibdidaktik. Velber 2002. p. 125.

¹² cf. Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK): Educational standards in the subject German for the middle school leaving certificate. Decision 4.12.2003. Neuwied 2004. p. 14f.

¹³ cf. Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (Hrsg.): Guidelines and curricula for upper secondary education – Gymnasium/Gesamtschule in North Rhine-Westphalia. German Düsseldorf 1999. p. 38.

¹⁴ cf. Perrin, D./Kruse, I. et al. (ed.): To write. From intuitive to professional writing strategies. Wiesbaden 2002. P. 34f.

¹⁵ cf. Molitor-Lübbert, S.: Writing and thinking. Cognitive foundations of writing. In: Perrin, D./Kruse, I. et al. (ed.): To write. From intuitive to professional writing strategies. Wiesbaden 2002. P. 34f.

¹⁶ cf. Becker-Mrotzek, M./Böttcher, I.: Develop and assess writing skills. loc. cit. p. 26.

¹⁷(Cf., ibid., p.77)

¹⁸ cf. Spinner, K. Creative Writing – Perspectives for Research and Practice. In: Nußbaum, R. (ed.): Ways of learning in German lessons. Braunschweig 2000. p. 107.

¹⁹ Wissenschaftlicher Rat der Dudenredaktion (Hrsg.): Duden. Deutsches Universalwörterbuch A-Z, 3. neu bearb. Aufl., Mannheim u.a. 1996, 866.