The Poet in the Warehouse. Creative Writing as Inquiry: Using Imaginative Writing To Explore Other Disciplines.

N

216

Creative Writing; Fiction; Films; High Schools; Higher Education; Inquiry; Interdisciplinary Approach; Learning Processes; Models; Poetry; Story Telling; Teaching Methods; Writing Across the Curriculum; Writing Exercises

This master's project contains two essays and a long poem, examining the possibilities of creative writing as a tool of inquiry in mathematics, history, science, film, art, and architecture. The project's first essay, "The Poet in the Warehouse," introduces a brief history of imaginative writing and an argument for its inclusion in multi-disciplinary high school and undergraduate programs. It is noted that since the piece strives to spotlight the importance of creative writing in learning, it alternates between the essay and a story which mirrors the issues in the essay, thus letting the form echo the function of the enterprise itself. In the project's second essay, "Space, Structure, Storage," a curriculum model is presented, pivoting on an essential question--architecture becomes a frontier for creative writing to thrive, though any subject might be chosen for the exploration (the model is flexible and expansive). The project's third selection, "The Glass Passage," is a long poem and commentary in which a way to understand more about architecture is assembled as an example of creative writing as inquiry. The project, as a whole, draws on psychologists, learning theorists, poets and fiction writers, creativity specialists, composition and reading theorists, poets and fiction writers, creativity specialists, composition and reading theorists, linguists and educational philosophers. (Contains 60 references and 4 appendixes of research material, much with illustrations.) (TB)

1997

ED403577