Writing IS an Art

    When my students had to identify their Creative Writing courses for both high school graduation and UC application, it was shuffled under “g,” an elective, and an English elective at that. Which makes sense. Creative Writing is English-y.
    

    Except it’s not. Not really.
    

    Historically secondary English is seen as the place to analyze literature, write analytic and argumentative essays, and learn to research and apply it, all in preparation for being literate in society and prepping for college. In many cases, realms of poetry, scriptwriting, creative nonfiction, fiction (all creative approaches to writing) are seen as legitimate to study in a secondary English classroom, but not to do. If Creative Writing is present, it’s seen as an enrichment tool or a creative exercise. But it is not seen as its own craft to study and emulate. And it definitely isn’t seen as an art.
    For both California VAPA and UC “f” subject area, the only valid artistic disciplines are dance, music, theater, visual arts (California Department of Education VAPA) or “interdisciplinary arts” (UC A-G Resource Policy Guide). When I wrote these Creative Writing courses and had to seek UC eligibility for them before the courses were adopted by the district, the UC identified them earning “g” elective credit for students on their college applications. Because Creative Writing is not listed as a valid artform. It’s an elective.
    It seems that both California and UC don’t legitimize writing as an art as it does dance, music, theatre, and visual arts. And that bothers me.
    My students then have to take an additional course that would meet the VAPA graduation requirement and UC “f” subject area because while we (both my students and myself) consider Creative Writing an art, the education system does not.

    The UC defines an “F” subject area course as one that will "provide students with a meaningful experience with both depth and breadth of knowledge in the arts, so that students may apply their newly gained understanding to the appreciation and creation of art in its diverse forms. Courses must be directed at acquiring concepts, comprehensions, and skills in the arts disciplines, rather than using artistic activities to fulfill non-artistic course objectives. Fundamentally, they will address and integrate the five strands of the Visual and Performing Arts Content Standards for California Public Schools, and also address the major components of the National Core Arts Standards: A Conceptual Framework for Arts Learning."

• Do my students have “meaningful experience with both depth and breadth of knowledge in the arts?”

We’d like to think yes, they do.

• Are my students “acquiring concepts, comprehensions, and skills” in this discipline?

You bet! There are a lot of concepts, comprehensions, and skills about writing with style and voice and form and genre that students study and emulate. And not to fulfill “non-artistic course objectives,” because creative writing is the course objective.

• Do we “integrate the [four] strands of the Visual and Performing Arts Content Standards”?

Students are consistently creating, presenting/producing, responding, and connecting in their Creative Writing classes (National Core Art Standards). It’s baked into the curriculum. They create writing portfolios, critique and respond to mentor texts and each other, and develop an anthology cover to cover.

Additionally, UC explains under its course guidelines that the course should

• "Provide opportunities for students to participate in all aspects of the artistic process, including creation, presenting, producing, performing, responding, critiquing, and connecting. They will also, as relevant, offer opportunities to discuss artistic ideas with other students, read texts within the art discipline studied (including art works but also written critiques, etc.), and write clearly and coherently on artistic topics."

✓  We do that, all class long. Everyday.

• "Include activities or assignments that ask students to document and summarize their work in an appropriate written format, especially if the course is teaching a specific set of skills that must be developed outside of class time (e.g., portfolio/performance preparation, instrument practice, research projects, and/or critical listening/viewing)." 

✓  Students write. They document. They prep.

• "Include a variety of assessments of conceptual artistic understanding as well as mastery of creative practices, skills, and artistic literacies. These measures could include, but are not limited to: Authentic performance and/or exhibition opportunities, discipline-appropriate creative projects, collaborative projects, student portfolios, written exams, research and written projects, and multimedia presentations."

✓  We do that as well. Students create and exhibit. All the freaking time.

• "Incorporate culturally relevant topics and activities, real-world problems, and applications that are appropriate for the context of the school community and the course content. Maintaining a balance of theoretical and historical/cultural context with skills-based content is essential, especially in production courses that primarily serve school events (e.g., newspaper, yearbook, broadcast)."

✓  Yup. That’s there too. It can’t not be.

So it not the course expectations or requirements that get in the way, it’s the simple gatekeeping of what artistic discipline makes the approved list. Somebody once decided what would be acceptable and what would not (and while there was probably an argument about creative writing, it was decided that writing was an English thing and not an art thing), so creative writing is not classified as an artistic discipline.

    If the vision of VAPA is to have students explore themselves as creatives and creators, and that arts education "develops engaged, creative, expressive, responsive, and artistically literate citizens. Artistic literacy is the ability to understand, create, perform/present/produce, respond, and connect through the arts, and transfer knowledge and skills learned from authentic experiences in the arts that transcend historical, cultural, and societal contexts," it misses the opportunity to allow students to explore themselves as writers and encourage that to be the artistic discipline students choose to develop for graduation and “f” subject area requirements.

    Just as analyzing plays is not a substitute for performing them, analyzing poems is not the same as creating them. Theatre students study plays to learn how to be a better actor; visual art students study other visual artists to learn techniques they can apply; dancers learn choreography from dancers and perform it; and musicians play musical compositions from composers. So too does the creative writer study other writers, hone their craft, and create new works to share. However in one case, it is VAPA, but in the other it is not.
    And so my students, who are writers, who see themselves as artists, have to battle the legitimacy of their own artform. And it seeps into their consciousness and identity and there’s a fight to feel and be legitimate as an artist in an educational world that doesn’t see them as such (let alone other worlds beyond it).

    And when there is no legitimacy, there is no support. No VAPA department that can support you institutionally. Nor financial support for the creative writing classroom from California’s Career Technical Training (CTE), which currently does not list writing under the Arts, Media, and Entertainment Sector.
    But changing it would require a change in perspective. A rethinking of what makes art and what makes an artist. A reimagining of what is valid and invalid. A recasting of the list.


    Without creative writers there would be no plays, musicals, TV shows, or movies to watch nor songs to sing along to. Without creative writers, there wouldn’t be graphic novels, magazines, short stories, or books to read. Without creative writers, there would be no journalists capturing the facts of humans living in the world nor poets capturing the thoughts and feelings of living the human experience.
    And to not name them as artists, to not name writing as an art, takes away an entire way of expressing our humanity and relegates it to an academic pursuit. And that makes us lose something.