A Practical Guide to Teaching Creative Writing

Grounded in progressive pedagogy, this essential resource leads creative writing instructors through each step of designing, teaching, and troubleshooting a course. A Practical Guide to Teaching Creative Writing offers applied strategies and innovative insights equally valuable for novice and seasoned instructors. Tate and Vigna share tried and tested approaches to online, in-person, and hybrid classes from 6 to 300+ students, attentive to the specific opportunities and challenges of genres from fiction to comics, poetry to TV, creative nonfiction to lyric writing.

This lively and accessible book includes timely and inclusive recommendations, enlightening interviews with a diverse lineup of writers and teachers, hands-on examples, and actionable interventions to help instructors create rich and meaningful courses that challenge and support students.

A Practical Guide to Teaching Creative Writing provides:

• Interviews with guest authors and instructors who share classroom strategies, pedagogical provocations, and proven practices—including Felicia Rose Chavez on inclusive course design, Liz Lerman on developing Critical Response Process, Nalo Hopkinson on research and speculative fiction, and many more.
• Approaches to active learning in undergraduate and graduate classrooms ranging in size and institutional context.
• Guidance on creating effective and meaningful assignments in writing, reading, research, and revision that scaffold learning and build capacity.
• Best practices for creating community and navigating the ever-evolving needs of students.
• Exploration of thorny topics like workshop conflict, assessment, and GenAI.
• Chapters devoted to supporting thesis and capstone work and navigating classroom challenges.

With a strong ethos of openness, mutual discovery, and exchange of ideas and expertise, A Practical Guide to Teaching Creative Writing invites instructors to experiment with new ways of thinking, creating, writing, and teaching memorable courses.