I had a thought last Friday during class about the recurrence of this idea of invention in writing; the notion that we have to reintroduce creativity and inventiveness into teaching writing by means of a heuristic model, etc. After re-reading Lauer and trying to figure out what the fuck I was really trying to say in class, I saw that I was reiterating something she had already said in her piece. Essentially, the narrative form has been the driving force behind writing since the beginning. To get rid of the inventiveness of storytelling is to diminish the purpose of writing. I think Lauer would agree with me, and she would say that a heuristic model could help to re-introduce the idea of creative/inventive writing into academia, furthermore giving it a “gauge-able” (that’s not a word) quality. This has all been summary so far, I think.
HOWEVER, I started to look at the heuristics and the emphasis on prewriting – “the art of ‘what to say'”, “the stages of creativity” – and I think the emphasis is being misplaced. Why are we spending time trying to figure out how to teach creativity? Shouldn’t we be focused on how to teach the results of creativity? This is probably a revisionist philosophy. I guess what I mean to say is, if we tell our students “Hey, be creative by doing this and this and this…” aren’t we essentially destroying the nature of their creativity? I’m suggesting a more minimalist pre-writing philosophy and a more productive post-writing philosophy.