Conference: April 20, 2012

The Fourth Genre: creative nonfiction in the classroom
8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. 

If this is the kind of writing that’s out there, why aren’t we encouraging our students not simply to read it but to write it—to be apprentice nonfictionists, preparing to join the conversation? Why can’t they be writing in a viable genre instead of training in a non-genre and trying to excel in forms they won’t use after college?          
-- Robert Root Jr. “Naming Nonfiction (A Polyptych),” College English, Vol. 65, No. 3 (January 2003), pp. 242-256.

As teachers, we are sometimes challenged by how to categorize and present to students texts identified as creative nonfiction, a form that often combines (or even confuses) factual accounts of compelling events with equally compelling stylistic devices used in fiction. Why, when we are already responsible for teaching students to read fiction, poetry, and personal essays, should we consider adding this “fourth genre?” The question this conference asks is: why not consider how this “fourth genre” might help us teach students about the elements of good writing? Certainly, students feel challenged when they seek models to express, in an authentic and original voice, their personal insight and connection to issues of larger social importance. Yet, creative nonfiction contains elements of memoir, research paper, journalism, and reflection, while it uses literary techniques—character development, scene setting, dialogue, and close description—to create a factually grounded narrative. It is also what today’s students will most likely read when they leave school.

Read More

Past Conferences

Recent past conferences have included Serious Play: Teaching Through Poetry (2011), Competent Knowledge: Preparing Students for Life in a Democratic Society (2010), Beyond Blame: Authority, Creativity, and Plagiarism in the Digital Age (2009)  Why Write? Vision and Purpose in the Classroom (2008); Re-Vision: Lessons from Artists and Writers (2007); Great Expectations: Re-Visioning the Academic Paper (2006), Report? Paper? Essay? Making Connections (2005), and Forms of Freedom: Reflections on Freewriting as Discovery (2004)

Read More

Upcoming Conferences