What are the “rules” of a creative writing workshop?

For some reason, this reminds me of the cover of Led Zeppelin's Presence.

I hardly ever post about teaching stuff here, but I am on sabbatical now, so it feels different. One topic I’ve always wanted to bring up–outside of my own classrooms, outside even an AWP-type panel–is to ask this:

What are the “rules” of a creative writing workshop?

I teach at a college where half the student population majors in education, be it secondary or elementary or special ed or literacy. The students are awesome. They love to teach, and it’s forced me to step up my pedagogical game. They’re “active learners,” as we say.

They’re also people who love, or have to know, rules, rubrics, assessment standards, PowerPoint presentations. Over the six years I’ve taught there, my teaching style has changed a little–I am a little less crazy and potty-mouthed I guess–but my methods have changed dramatically. I have rubrics for presentations and assignments, completely freaking explicit syllabi. I’ve been posting most of it, all open source-like, at what I call my Teaching Blog.

If you’ve been in a workshops, formal or informal, there are usually rough parameters. Two very basic steps:

Step 1: Writer X brings in copies of a Piece of Writing he or she has written (or he/she emails it to everyone or places it in a Dropbox or Blackboard or a fricking spacepod).

Step 2: Everyone else comments or “gives feedback,” written and/or verbal, regarding Writer X’s Piece of Writing.

For me, there are some rules I regard as sacred or sacrosanct. One is we always refer to the writer not by name, but by “the author.” Sometimes we say “the writer.” One time we agreed to refer to whoever’s work was workshopped as “the Kraken.” I am curious if others don’t see that as any big deal. For me, it is, especially important when reading, as we say, personal work. It emphasizes the break or difference between The Work and The Writer.

What do you think? What are your rules? Should I change anything? Does any of this seem strange, good, effective, excessive, clear or unclear? It’s probably too wordy, I know I know. Anything else? Do you know of other people who have rules or parameters.

Since my students are so detail-oriented, I have come up with my own, very detailed, “Rules” for a Creative Writing Workshop. It’s posted on my Teaching Blog here, and it’s posted in full below after the jump.

The “Rules”of a Creative Writing Workshop

These rules are used by many other writing workshop classes, regardless of grade level or genre.  Like a pick-up basketball game, the rules vary from field to field—or, in this case, classroom to classroom.  The general thrust, however, is of a studio model[1]  in which a particular piece is under discussion, and loosely follows a Socratic method of question-and-answer.

Before you come to a workshop, however, we assume that you have read your fellow students’ work before class if it has been passed around; that you have a printout of said works in front of you, well-marked and with questions or comments; and that you are approaching your own writing and others’ as a work-in-progress, amenable to comment and revision.

The author reads the work aloud. Whether this is done depends on the genre and the length of the pieces under discussion.  We may hear a representative passage.  In my class—again depending on genre and length—I may also require the person to the right of the author read the work aloud again.

The first person to talk is the last person to have their work considered in class.Again, this is not a universal rule, but it is a popular variation.

The first comment(s) begins with the words, “I notice.” Some workshops require the comments to be something nice or positive about the work. Others let the comments fly where they may.  I adopt a middle ground, and require the first commenters to “notice” something—that is, point out a word or group of words in the piece.  That which is noticed may be in turn praised or criticized as the workshop moves on, but it’s the job of the first comment-noticer to point some component of the work without judgment.

An example: “I noticed the piece uses the word “purple” 12 times” is correct; “I notice “purple” is used a heckuva a lot in this piece” is not.  The former presents in a nonjudgmental, objective way; the latter lets judgment seep in.[2] For more, read Further Thoughts on the “I Notice” Segment of the Writing Workshop.

Someone leads the discussion. I will lead the discussion a good amount of the time. I may appoint a student Workshop Discussion Leader or Lead Critic from time to time, or to take on specific roles in the discussion. Among other things, this leader asks students to comment on the work, takes notes of questions for the author, and tries to translate and clarify what other people discuss.

Usually the leader withholds major opinions about the work until the discussion has ended—a rule that has evolved, no doubt, with teacher privilege in mind.

The author does not talk until the end of discussion. Sometimes rather harshly called the “Muzzle Rule,” this does not mean the author sits there with his or her arms crossed.  The author should take notes during the discussion, and can offer comments and clarification at the discussion, when he or she is allowed to talk.

The lesson here is to separate any privileged, over-the-shoulder-type comments an author may have, as well as introducing the idea of the elemental division of artist and the work of art, the made thing that exists in the absence of its creator. It is also to avoid entering into discussions based on of what is called the Intentional Fallacy, which is defined as “[t]he belief that judgments of a literary work based solely on an author’s stated or implied intentions are false and misleading. Critics who believe in the concept of the intentional fallacy typically argue that the work itself is sufficient matter for interpretation, even though they may concede that an author’s statement of purpose can be useful.”

Students make and write comments on their copy of the work under discussion.These comments will be handed over to the author at the end of discussion. These written comments can also be marks.

These can be suggested edits and, but they can be as simple as an underlines passage with “!!!!” in the margins, indicating to the author that something works for them.[3]

Students make comments that are objective, not subjective. This means that a comment such as “this piece sucks” or “I don’t believe this” or “is this really supposed to be graduate-level work” would not be constructive or objective, while “I’m not sure where this image comes from” and “I have some continuity problems” are objective and also constructive.

Students refer to the the author of the piece under discussion as “the author.” We do not address the author directly or ask questions directly. We don’t make first person-directed comments or references about the author personally. If the author has written a piece called “On Wearing a Large Frog Suit To My Writing Class,” and the author sits at our workshop table wearing a Large Frog Suit, we don’t notice, comment upon, or critique the fact that that is the case. Readers outside the room will not have the privilege of seeing or experiencing a person with a Large Frog Suit, and so cannot be integrated into our critique of the text. Why do we have this rule?  It’s perhaps the most important of all “rules,” I find. We avoid ad hominem-type comments and discussion; we avoid bringing in our own personal knowledge of the author; we also avoid unnecessary and unhelpful personal judgments.

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[1]  In many ways, the studio model manifested in a creative writing workshop is an offshoot of New Criticism, a branch of literary study that emphasizes the “close reading”—a particular kind of explication (the French term explication de texte is particularly appropriately frou frou) that holds the autonomy in the text itself.  This kind of reading holds the text—one that is ambiguous, one that has an internal order and multiple meanings, often all at the same time—and de-emphasizes biographical and cultural backgrounds and contexts.  I have described New Criticism elsewhere as sort of the “Texas Death Match of literary analysis: no outside sources, no hagiography, no prose paraphrase, no one gets out alive until each word is combed-over and understood.”

The movement started out in the 1920s and 30s in England and the United States, and dominated college classrooms well into the 1960s and remains today.  The most notable New Critics were T.S. Eliot, I.A. Richards, and Cleanth Brooks, on up to today with Denis Donoghue, Helen Vendler, to a certain extent Harold Bloom, and new convert Camille Paglia.

[2]  People get confused about this task of “noticing,” but it’s as simple as it sounds.  It’s as straightforward as the scene in Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Burgundy, when cast members are rattling off things they “love.” Steve Carrell’s character, Brick Tamland, a self-admitted idiot weatherman, blurts out, “I love lamp.”
“Do you really love the lamp,” Ron Burgundy asks him, “or are you just saying it because you saw it?”

“I love lamp,” Tamland replies. “I love lamp.”

Go to this link for further thoughts on the “I notice” segment of the writing workshop.

[3]  Monitoring how students are progressing in a workshop is an inexact science.  In the past, I have considered requiring students make duplicates of their comments to the author, but I think simply calling on someone who is slacking in the written comments department suffices.