Journal of Poetry Therapy

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Metacognition via creative writing: dynamic

theories of learning support habits of the mind in
21st century classrooms

Lori Howe & Ann Van Wig

To cite this article: Lori Howe & Ann Van Wig (2017) Metacognition via creative writing:
dynamic theories of learning support habits of the mind in 21st century classrooms, Journal of
Poetry Therapy, 30:3, 139-152, DOI: 10.1080/08893675.2017.1328830

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JOURNAL OF POETRY THERAPY, 2017
VOL. 30, NO. 3, 139–152
https://doi.org/10.1080/08893675.2017.1328830

Metacognition via creative writing: dynamic theories of

learning support habits of the mind in 21st century classrooms
Lori Howea and Ann Van Wigb
a
University of Wyoming, College of Education, Laramie, WY, USA; bDepartment of Education, Eastern
Washington University, Cheney, WA, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The focus of this article is the exploration of theories of learning Received 8 September 2016
associated with creative writing workshop pedagogy, including Accepted 11 October 2016
transformative, reflective, and experiential learning theories, and
KEYWORDS
reflexivity theory. This exploration of multiple theories of creative Active learning; creative
learning situates the creative writing workshop model at the writing workshop; student-
intersection of pedagogies supporting metacognition, transformative centered pedagogies; and
education, identity development, creativity, and critical thinking, theories of learning
across multiple demographics of writing students.

In this age of technology, knowledge is deictic, dynamic, emergent, and communal.

Teacher-centered, twentieth-century classroom pedagogies are not adequate to prepare
students to be active creators of knowledge in secondary or postsecondary programs,
or in the globalized workplace. Twenty-first century educational research clearly indicates
the need for educational strategies that scaffold students’ development of critical thinking,
communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and metacognitive skills necessary to
thrive in the complex and globalized society of the future—and today (Afterschool Alli-
ance and Metlife Foundation, 2014; Boud & Lee,1999; Freeman & Le Rossignol, 2010).
The standard-lecture format of the past, which restricts students to roles as passive absor-
bers of information (Clegg, 2008), is anachronistic in a society that requires students
capable of critical, dynamic co-construction of new ideas and solutions to complex pro-
blems: “Standardized writing curricula or assessment instruments that emphasize formu-
laic writing for non-authentic audiences will not reinforce the habits of mind and the
experiences necessary for success as students encounter the writing demands of postse-
condary education” (Afterschool Alliance and Metlife Foundation, 2014, p. 3).
This emergent need for pedagogical approaches that scaffold the transition from
teacher-centered to student-centered, dynamic and meaningful pedagogies is a major
focus of educational research in the early decades of the twenty-first century. Researchers,
teachers, and scholars in the field of education seek to facilitate this radical shift in ways
that are positive, rewarding, and successful for teachers and students alike.
Collaborative, creative, student-centered pedagogical approaches to the development
of critical thinking and metacognitive skills are needed, both in secondary and post-sec-
ondary classrooms in America (Clegg, 2008; Lester, 2011). Three common requirements

CONTACT Lori A. Howe lhowe@uwyo.edu

© 2017 National Association for Poetry Therapy
140 L. HOWE AND A. V. WIG

reflected in the literature on student-centered critical thinking and metacognitive devel-

opment, are: creativity; writing skills; and collaborative problem-solving (Afterschool Alli-
ance and Metlife Foundation, 2014; Lester, 2011; Liu et al., 2012). The creative writing
workshop model is an established locus of all three of these requirements (Harris, 2008;
James, 2012; Myers, 1996), and its use as an aesthetic hermeneutic (Gadamer, 1976; Hei-
degger, 1982; Slattery, 1996) is well-supported by theories such as Transformative Learn-
ing Theory (Howie & Bagnall, 2013; Mezirow, 2009), Experiential Learning Theory (Boud &
Walker 1991; Freeman & Le Rossignol, 2010), Reflexivity Theory (Archer, 2007, 2012; Dyke,
Johnston, & Fuller, 2012), and especially Reflective Learning Theory (Lamm et al., 2011;
Lyons, 2010; Moon, 1999; Kelly, Gray, Reid, & Craig, 2010; Ryan, 2014).
While each of the above theories seeks to explain the development of deeper learning
skills, only Ryan’s (2014) synthesis of Reflective Learning Theory specifically addresses how
students learn to think metacognitively through collaborative, hands-on engagement with
creative arts curricula, which include creative writing workshops. This theoretical approach
offers important implications for the use of the creative writing workshop model to scaf-
fold twenty-first century students in developing the cognitive skills required by the globa-
lized, technologized, collaborative university classroom and workplace. Beyond teaching
creative writing techniques, the workshop model fosters collaboration, agency, respon-
sible membership in a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), increased self-con-
fidence, and the important metacognitive skill of synthesizing personal knowledge, artistic
product, and society (Afterschool Alliance and Metlife Foundation, 2014; Boud & Walker,
1991; Ostrom, 2012; Ryan, 2014).
Despite the research focus on students’ development of habits of the mind (Kallick &
Costa, 2009), as well as the search for pedagogical approaches that help to promote
their development with students, the creative writing workshop model remains underuti-
lized in classrooms, after- and out-of-school programs, and in early college writing curri-
cula. One possible cause is that Transformative Learning Theory (Howie & Bagnall, 2013;
Mezirow, 2009), utilized primarily with severely at-risk and underserved writers (Capello,
2006; Cotugno, 2009; Jacobi, 2008), is the educational theory overwhelmingly associated
with creative writing workshop pedagogy. This theoretical association of creative writing
workshops with severely at-risk learning populations may, in the minds of researchers and
practitioners, limit its generalizability to mainstream secondary and post-secondary
students.
Transformative learning, however, is an integral part of other highly relevant edu-
cational theories focused on promoting critical thinking and metacognitive skills, intellec-
tual engagement, and increased confidence. These theories include Experiential (Boud &
Lee, 1999; Freeman & Le Rossignol, 2010), Reflexivity (Archer, 2007, 2010, 2012; Dyke et al.,
2012) and Reflective Learning (Kelly et al., 2010; Ryan, 2014) theories, all of which are
associated with mainstream secondary and postsecondary learners and thus generalizable
across many learning populations, including, but not limited to, the at-risk and under-
served. The creative writing workshop model, which positions students as active, respon-
sible, authoritative members of an egalitarian, challenging community of practice (Lave &
Wenger, 1991), embodies the central tenets of all these educational theories as a tool for
stimulating metacognitive growth and critical thinking skills in myriad populations.
In spite of this transferability, the use of the creative writing workshop model remains
localized to specific writing populations. Ironically, beyond underserved and at-risk writers,
 JOURNAL OF POETRY THERAPY 141

the writing populations most commonly associated with the creative writing workshop
model are high-performing undergraduate and graduate-level students enrolled in crea-
tive writing programs at universities (Harris, 2008; James, 2012). This distribution precludes
access for the majority of other writing students, whether at the secondary or early college
level, in need of an approach to writing that will scaffold their process as they learn to think
reflectively, deeply, and meta-cognitively. While graduate students are generally assumed
to possess honed metacognitive skills, secondary and undergraduate students are increas-
ingly under scrutiny regarding their ability to apply critical thinking across a wide field of
disciplines. The most recent and pervasive example of this for American secondary stu-
dents is the critical-thinking focus of the Common Core Standards (Afterschool Alliance
and Metlife Foundation, 2014).
While the creative writing workshop model, under the aegis of transformative learning
theory, continues to aid invaluably in the personal, educational, and professional growth of
adolescent and adult learners (Howie & Bagnall, 2013; Mezirow, 2009), other educational
and sociological theories work to explain its success in scaffolding critical thinking skills
in mainstream writing populations. In recent research, Ryan (2014) offers an elegant syn-
thesis of Archer’s oeuvre on reflexivity theories (Archer, 2007, 2010, 2012) and both Boud &
Lee’s (1999) and Freeman and Rossignol’s (2010) extensions of Experiential Learning
theory, to produce her groundbreaking, arts-specific Reflective Learning Theory, which
focuses on metacognitive learning through creative arts curricula, which include the crea-
tive writing workshop model (Ryan, 2014).
The purpose of this presentation of research is to illustrate the theoretical applicability
of the creative writing workshop model as a mechanism of learning that extends beyond
at-risk populations and into myriad mainstream populations, for the purpose of support-
ing more than one kind of transformation. In the mainstream classroom, what is needed is
the transformation of teacher-centered pedagogical approaches that position students as
passive absorbers of information, into student-centered, hands-on, creative, meaningful
and challenging learning environments that position students as co-constructors and
co-directors of their own learning experiences (Sharan, 2015; Somyurek, 2015; Woo &
Reeves, 2007). These learners benefit from the workshop’s scaffolding of meta-cognitive,
critical thinking skills and responsible collaboration in communities of practice (Lave &
Wenger, 1991). These crucial skills contribute to the fully actualized, dynamic, emergent
literacy practices of students who will be successful in the globalized, technologized
world (Eldakak, 2012; Rambe, 2012).

The creative writing workshop model: process

The foundation of the creative writing workshop model and key to its success is the
establishment of an egalitarian group whose members willingly accept the responsibility
for production, collaboration, presentation, and critique of writing (Harris, 2008). While
the format may vary slightly from workshop to workshop, the typical workshop pro-
cedure is for the writer to begin by reading the draft aloud, during which time workshop
peers follow along on their printed copy, optionally adding additional written comments
and suggestions for revision (Goldberg, 1986). A workshop instructor/facilitator begins by
offering sentence-level and overarching comments and suggestions for revision, and
workshop peers follow the same model of commentary (Leahy, 2005). During this
142 L. HOWE AND A. V. WIG

critique, the writer sits quietly and listens, optionally making notes. At the end of the cri-
tique, the writer may take advantage of a short response period to ask questions or
respond to peer comments (James, 2012; Morales Kearns, 2009). Also crucial to the
success of the workshop is a facilitator or instructor with workshop experience who pro-
vides the lexicon for discussing creative writing and maintains the spirit of professional-
ism in the workshop (Bishop, 1993; Goldberg, 1986; Ostrom, 2012). This flexible model
has been in continuous use since the advent of creative writing programs in American
universities (Fenza, 2000).

History
The creative writing workshop model described here has been used in higher education
writing programs for almost a century (Bishop, 1993; Howarth, 2007; James, 2012). These
programs began as a literary movement that sought to disrupt the philological method of
teaching literature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in which the study
of literature was reduced to a rigid, scientific examination of the words on the page (Fenza,
2000). Professors at Harvard and, later, at the University of Iowa and John’s Hopkins Uni-
versity, gradually instituted creative writing programs that supported a creative, emergent,
productive approach to the teaching of writing (Myers, 1993). Over the intervening
decades, creative writing programs have become an accepted, respected presence in
undergraduate and graduate university programs across the United States (Bishop,
1990a; Fenza, 2000).
The standard workshop model has also shown positive outcomes as a writing interven-
tion with at-risk and underserved adolescent and adult writing populations (Heitin, 2014;
Houp, 2014; Skinner, 2007). Standardization of classroom curricula outside of higher edu-
cation, however, continues to relegate creative writing workshops to after-school and out-
of-school intervention programs, largely for the at-risk and court-involved (Jacobi, 2008;
Kerr, 2013; Schwalb, 2006). An examination of interrelated educational theories,
however, positions the dynamic, creative, collaborative approach of the creative writing
workshop at the heart of critical thinking pedagogy. This learning model, which is sup-
ported by many decades of research (Bishop, 1990b; Fenza, 2000; Myers, 1993; Ostrom,
2012) requires the construction of meaningful, transferable knowledge, offering teachers,
administrators, and students a fully-functioning, adaptable segue from teacher-centered
pedagogy to a more agentive, student-centered approach.

Findings
Foundational theories and approaches
Educational and sociological research reveals that experiential, reflexive, reflective, and
transformative learning theories all share a foundational tenet of the creative writing work-
shop model: the agentive investment and engagement of participants as a vehicle for
deep learning, critical thinking, and metacognition (Archer, 2007; Ryan, 2014). This posi-
tionality illuminates the creative writing workshop as an aesthetic hermeneutic
(Gadamer, 1976; Heidegger, 1982) and identifies the process of writing creatively as a
reflexive and reflective one; as the writer creates, she is also created by the act of creating
 JOURNAL OF POETRY THERAPY 143

(Ryan, 2014), reifying that “one be(comes) a writer in order to become a more complete
person” (Myers, 1993, p. 280).

Exploring educational theories associated with the creative writing workshop

Foundational theories of education position writing as a hermeneutic that contributes to
the development of personally and intellectually complete individuals. Amongst these
theories of learning, however, the concept of writing for emotional exegesis, as a
method of transforming the self by developing missing confidence and positive self-defi-
nition, is located specifically and importantly in Transformative Learning Theory. As such,
this theory and medium are typically employed with at-risk and underserved writers
whose eventual success may depend upon this personal, identity-based transformation.
The process illuminated by Transformative Learning Theory is one of self-examination,
questioning of assumptions, re-creation of roles and identity, and implementation of
those roles and identity for the purpose of positive, successful self-direction and self-
reconstruction. Thus, it differs from the other key theories presented here in that the
focus of Transformative Learning Theory is primarily internal, focusing on the internal
transformation of the individual, which may lead to membership in a community of prac-
tice. Pioneered by Mezirow (2009) and later articulated by Howie and Bagnall (2013), the
transformation follows a ten-step process:

(1) The confrontation of a disorienting dilemma

(2) Self-examination, with feelings of fear, anger, guilt, or shame
(3) A critical assessment of assumptions
(4) Recognition that one’s discontent and the process of transformation are shared
(5) Exploration of options for new roles, relationships and actions
(6) Planning a course of action
(7) Acquiring knowledge and skills for implementing one’s plan
(8) Provisional trying of new roles
(9) Building competence and self-confidence
(10) A reintegration into one’s life on the basis of new perspectives (Howie & Bagnall,
2013, p. 819).

This ten-step process that offers meaningful, positive change is a consistent, overarch-
ing theme in the research on creative writing interventions with at-risk and underserved
writers, whether overtly detailed or intrinsically embedded (Graham, 2000; Haddix, 2012;
Jacobi, 2008).
Transformative learning as manifested in the creative writing workshop may be, for
many, the crucial and positive beginning of this process. Students who lack the ability
to envision themselves as meeting the demands of the CCSS and college writing
courses may re-construct their own identities while developing and honing necessary
skills of writing, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking, and in this process,
become engaged, successful students.
Engagement and confidence, however, are necessary qualities for all students who will
achieve success in meeting Common Core Standards and later, with the demands of college
writing. These needs are not limited to severely at-risk students. The aesthetic hermeneutic
144 L. HOWE AND A. V. WIG

provided by the workshop model scaffolds mainstream learning populations as they nego-
tiate the pedagogical shift from teacher-centered to student-centered classrooms, as it
requires responsible investment from them as co-facilitators. Workshop students increas-
ingly conceive of themselves as co-directors of their education and co-evaluators of what
constitutes an appropriate and valuable body of knowledge and experience for them as stu-
dents and human beings, all of which are crucial to the development of metacognitive and
critical thinking skills. Thus, while Transformative Learning Theory continues to monopolize
the theoretical focus of research on creative writing workshop instruction, multiple, other
educational theories employed across mainstream learning populations have central foci
nearly identical to those of the creative writing workshop model.

The workshop model as aesthetic hermeneutic

Research on the creative writing workshop and phenomenology, and specifically the exis-
tential phenomenology of Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, and Gadamer, returns again and
again to aesthetic hermeneutics and the concept of bildung. Aesthetic hermeneutics
requires
a journey of finding a sense of identity and personal meaning in experience born in the midst
of universal human struggles. This is a journey undertaken by a community of interpreters
working together in mutually corrective and mutually collaborative efforts to understand
texts and contexts. (Slattery, 1996, p. 1, 12)

This collaboration evokes a strong connection to the concept of bildung, which can be
described as the cultivation of a community of learning that encompasses and utilizes
different social, political, racial, gendered, and economic identities (cultura) to form a cohe-
sive whole. A truly crucial element of bildung is the ability to come together and create a
spirit of mutual respect and community with people of different backgrounds, genders,
ethnicity, politics, religion, and race, amongst other socio-cultural differentia. And, of
course, the elemental connection between the creative writing workshop and philosophi-
cal phenomenology is the communication of essence of lived experience through the craft
of writing as a collaborative, generative effort in a community of practice that mirrors
Gadamer’s (1976) extension of Heidegger’s hermeneutic circle. “Each person is at first a
kind of linguistic circle, and these linguistic circles come in contact with each other,
merging more and more” (Gadamer, 1976, p. 17).
The exegetical fruits of this collaboration are best described by phenomenologist
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “So, it is in relation with the other that thought finds itself. In con-
versation with the other I may find that I am thinking thoughts that I did not know I had”
(van Manen, 2014, p. 130). This concept is elaborated by Ricoeur (1983), who believed that
hermeneutical phenomenology examines how human meanings are deposited and
mediated through myth, religion, art, and language. He elaborates especially on the nar-
rative function of language, on the various uses of language such as storytelling, and how
narrativity and temporality interact and ultimately return to the question of the meaning
of being, the self and self-identity. Thus, the creative writing workshop is easily located
inside this illumination of aesthetic hermeneutics, offering as it does a collaborative
space in which texts are interpreted and reimagined according to agree-upon contexts
and languages of discovery.
 JOURNAL OF POETRY THERAPY 145

Thus, the creative writing workshop offers extraordinary phenomenological aesthetic

opportunities as a conduit of shared essence that we so often locate in poetry and
borrow from fiction. This explication of the workshop model as an aesthetic hermeneutic
illuminates its metacognitive properties and its influences on deep learning and critical
thinking. Further, it ties the model inextricably to theories that strive to explain how
humans develop higher thinking skills, such as reflexivity and experiential learning,
which Ryan (2014) elegantly synthesized with creative arts methodology to create her
arts-specific theory of reflective learning. These theoretical underpinnings are also
crucial to understanding how students develop habits of the mind that lead to academic
and intellectual success—and how skilled instruction can facilitate that development.

Constructivist foundations of experiential learning and reflexivity theories

Foundational elements of all creative arts are participant engagement, investment, and
production. This participant-centered paradigm is closely related to the educational
theory of Constructivism, which posits that learners are co-constructors of their own
knowledge and skills, as opposed to being passive absorbers of information (Vygotsky,
1978). Meaningful learning requires the student or participant to take active, intentional,
reflective part in constructing their own experience (Sharan, 2015; Somyurek, 2015; Woo
& Reeves, 2007). These foundational elements of constructive, meaningful learning echo
the research of John Dewey, who believed that engaged, meaningful activity was the
heart of students’ process of building useful, purposeful knowledge (Bassey, 2010; McA-
ninch, 2000). Constructivism and meaningful learning are educational approaches founda-
tional to experiential, transformative, reflexive, and reflective learning and teaching
practices, all of which require participants to engage meaningfully with the material as
co-constructors of knowledge through the synthesis of bodies of knowledge and new
information. This process is the very essence of the creative writing workshop model.

Experiential learning theory

Often synthesized as “learning through reflecting on doing,” Experiential Learning Theory
was pioneered by Kolb in the 1970s. Kolb’s theory remains so relevant that the original
theoretical model has been updated (Bergensteiner, Avery, & Neumann, 2010) and
expanded (Boud, 1993; Freeman & Le Rossignol, 2010; Kolb & Kolb, 2009; Moon, 1999)
to locate experiential learning as a crucial approach to teaching millennial, digital native
students, who prefer active participation and experience gathering as a method of learn-
ing over passive absorption of information (Freeman & Rossignol, 2010). A foundation of
experiential learning requires a stimulating environment that positions learning as opti-
mistic, creative, and energetic, and in which students’ lived experiences and bodies of
knowledge are equally valued (Castle & Keane, 2012). Experiential Learning Theory, like
Constructivism, places high value on the individual and cultural experiences and influ-
ences that foreground the participants’ entrance into the community of learning (Raby,
2014; Vygotsky, 1978).
Both Experiential Learning Theory and Constructivism also require participants to take
an active role in learning, combining new information with their own bodies of knowledge
and lived experience to produce a unique and personally-nuanced, emergent learning
146 L. HOWE AND A. V. WIG

experience that is constantly under construction (Vygotsky, 1978; Boud, 1993; Freeman &
Le Rossignol, 2010). This approach supports metacognitive learning through student-cen-
tered, rather than teacher-centered, pedagogical methods, as students engage in what
Kolb (1984) described as “the combination of grasping experience and transforming it”
(Kolb, 1984, p. 41), which requires constantly reflecting on their own integral processes
of constructing new forms of knowledge (Moon, 1999; Ryan, 2014).
These foundational tenets of experiential learning mirror the process, purpose, and pro-
ducts of the creative writing workshop, in which writing peers bring their lived experiences
and personal funds of knowledge into a collaborative, egalitarian, self-directed writing
space. Through critique and revision, students’ knowledge is synthesized with new infor-
mation in a process that is creative, emergent, and reflective. Students engage in deep
learning, and through practice come to understand that these skills are transferable
across all subjects, disciplines, and areas of lived experience (Raby, 2014; Ryan, 2014).
Reflexivity Theory (Archer, 2007, 2010, 2012; Dyke et al., 2012) is a socio-philosophical
theory that positions the learner as both producer and produced, as the result of the cir-
cularity of cause and effect relationships. Ultimately, due to self-reference, one’s relation-
ship with what one produces becomes bidirectional, so that one is affected by what one
produces, often in profound and life-changing ways (Archer, 2007; Dyke et al., 2012). This
theoretical approach also positions the learner as a primary architect of self-development
through agency and transformative learning experiences (Bovill, 2012; Tomassini &
Zanazzi, 2014) that lead to heightened student engagement (Kahn, 2014).
This reflexive approach to education requires an important shift in educational ideol-
ogy, from the historic construct of the mono-directional relationship between producer
and product, to one in which the product is not a separate object or idea, but an extension
of the producer, who is mutually constructed by it (Ryan, 2014). Due to the historically
teacher-centered paradigm of secondary and post-secondary education, pedagogical
approaches that utilize reflexive learning must be innovative and emergent, nurture crea-
tivity and reflexivity, and support a more student-centered methodology (Pearce &
Crouch, 2010). This shift positions students as responsible agents of what and how they
learn, and for their intellectual identities. As explained by Ryan (2014), “Making oneself
the object of study through reflexivity is a powerful way to interrogate the decisions
one makes and the ensuing effects or implications” (Ryan, 2014, p. 134).
While the educational paradigm shift embodied by Reflexivity Theory may seem to
require entirely new teaching methods, the truth is that the creative writing workshop
model of instruction, along with many other creative-arts curricula, falls intuitively into
this educational paradigm and has been used successfully for decades in America. Facili-
tating the process as students move from the role of passive absorbers to active construc-
tors of knowledge, begins with offering them a learning environment that encourages
agency, creativity, reflection, and growth through collaborative effort. In workshop, crea-
tive writing students write their stories and unlock their own authentic voices, share and
critique them in an egalitarian, collaborative environment that encourages risk-taking and
shared responsibility, and reflectively revise their work. This process mirrors the essence of
reflexivity, as students grow as writers, thinkers, and members of society—skills transfer-
able across all the disciplines.
 JOURNAL OF POETRY THERAPY 147

Reflective learning theory

Amongst such disciplines as nursing, teacher education, and the study of law, reflective
learning, along with experiential and reflexive learning, is a foundational preparation for
students whose future vocations require meaningful engagement, both with immediate
context and with ethical, moral, and social considerations related to practice in their
fields (Kelly et al., 2010; Lamm et al., 2011; Moon, 1999).
While Reflexivity and Experiential Learning theories comprehensively and accurately
explain the process by which students may become active, engaged, co-constructors
of their own knowledge, the only educational theory that seeks to illuminate the specific
contribution of creative arts instruction to this process is Ryan’s (2014) art-specific
reduction of Reflective Learning Theory, which synthesizes Transformative, Experiential
Learning, and Reflexivity Theories around the central context of the bi-directionality
of creative arts. Ryan reifies the socio-cultural lens of arts education, suggesting that
the creation and study of art promotes the semiotic examination of multiple meanings,
which leads participants to a heightened understanding of themselves as both subject
and object of construction. Thus positioned, creative art is a mirror of society that
reflects ways in which artist, artwork, and society are mutually constructive and
influential.
It is in this synthesis that the unique contribution of creative arts to metacognitive
development and critical, self-reflective thinking is illuminated: “The arts are powerful
spaces to interrogate how our own personal understandings are mediated by contexts
of schooling, curriculum and sometimes by hegemonic views of the world—important
considerations in becoming literate in a rapidly changing, globalised world” (Ryan, 2014,
p. 4). Stage 3 of Ryan’s theoretical model of creative-arts-based reflection encapsulates
the particularly personal and creative aspect of reflection through artistic creation. This
third stage is described as: “Expression through symbolic capture: reflecting on and learn-
ing about self through the semblance produced” (Ryan, 2014, p. 7).
Cogently explained by Ryan, the unique contribution of the arts to this process is a per-
sonal and emotional engagement with the product, as may be perceived as an extension
of the artist’s self. The deep reflection stimulated by this (re)production of self through art
may lead to similarly deep reflection upon the self as reflected in work across the disci-
plines; indeed, Ryan positions this aesthetic reflection model as a bridge between arts cur-
ricula and literacy (Ryan, 2014).
Ryan’s thoughts on “dialogic reflections,” (Ryan, 2014, p. 16) mirror the process of the
creative writing workshop, in which the writer comes to synthesize the piece of writing,
his or her own perceptions of the piece, and the comments and suggestions of the work-
shop group. This synthesis provides the foundation of revision as well as insights into
internal motivation, and self-direction for future writing. One longitudinal outcome of
this process is the development of in-situ reflective skills, as the writer becomes increas-
ingly able to reflect during the act of writing. This outcome scaffolds a deeper, metacog-
nitive sense of writing as an extension both of self and of society, as it is embodied in one’s
own actions and reactions to the world (Ryan, 2014). This process, so integral a part of the
creative writing workshop, encourages students to view themselves, and their individual
voices, as dynamic, productive, and heteroglossic as they identify and question their
own positions—both as subjects and as architects—of society. As educators, we can
148 L. HOWE AND A. V. WIG

offer our students no greater gift than the ability to consider everything they learn, and
everything they produce, as both a contribution to and a result of the socio-political influ-
ences of their world. In this process, they recognize themselves as unique strands in the
great web of human knowledge.

Implications for future research

Theories that seek to explain the process by which different populations come to be reflec-
tive, dynamic, critical thinkers, share common themes of creativity, reflection, collabor-
ation, and agency. Each of these themes is a foundational tenet of the creative writing
workshop model, a method of writing pedagogy whose success is supported by
decades of research (Bishop 1993; Fenza, 2000; Myers, 1993; Ostrom, 2012). Due to
limited use of this pedagogical method in mainstream secondary and postsecondary
writing instruction, as well as the clear need for student-centered pedagogical methods
to facilitate the ongoing shift from teacher-centered to student-centered instruction,
more research is needed to explore the effects of this instructional method across multiple
learning populations. From middle school language arts to college composition courses,
the results of incorporating the creative writing model into traditional instruction must
be documented through longitudinal, qualitative, mixed method, and quantitative
research studies.
Thus far, very little research has been published on the results of creative writing work-
shop pedagogy with mainstream secondary and post-secondary students; at this time, the
vast body of research on creative writing pedagogy focuses this approach as an interven-
tion with severely at-risk and underserved populations. In order to construct functional
policy to help create curricula that facilitate the shift to student-centered approaches
that support critical thinking and metacognitive skills development, longitudinal research
is needed to help illuminate the value of this teaching method for the needs of twenty-first
century educators and their students.
The need for innovative pedagogies that facilitate the inexorable shift from teacher-
centered to student-centered teaching, as well as encourage meaningful, dynamic learn-
ing, is not limited to writing instruction. Beyond the writing classroom, this flexible,
student-centered, agentive, and emergent model may have widespread applications
across other disciplines. Further research is needed to determine the transferability of
the workshop model to disciplines such as science, information technology, foreign
languages, and mathematics, helping students create webs of knowledge that break
down the disciplinary silo effect and support habits of mind that encourage students to
view all knowledge as crucially interrelated.

Implications for future research

Although Transformative Learning Theory (Howie & Bagnall, 2013; Mezirow, 2009) is over-
whelmingly associated with the creative writing workshop and at-risk writers, this highly
specific theoretical lens may limit perspectives on the workshop’s application beyond
at-risk and underserved writing populations. Further educational research, and theories
such as Experiential Learning (Boud & Walker, 1991; Freeman & Le Rossignol, 2010), Reflex-
ivity (Archer, 2007, 2012), and Reflective Learning theories (Lamm et al., 2011; Lyons, 2010;
 JOURNAL OF POETRY THERAPY 149

Moon, 1999; Kelly et al., 2010; Ryan, 2014), serve to broaden both the approach and appli-
cation of future studies. These theories illuminate viable, innovative applications for the
creative writing workshop to facilitate the shift from teacher-centered to student-centered
pedagogical approaches to teaching writing, based upon the workshop’s format and its
assignment of responsibility and agency to students.
Furthermore, the literature on experiential, reflective, and reflexive learning theories
suggests that the approach of the creative writing workshop model may be used effec-
tively to scaffold students’ development of metacognitive and critical thinking skills
necessary in the twenty-first century college classroom and beyond, in the workplace
(Afterschool Alliance and Metlife Foundation, 2014; Lester, 2011; Liu et al., 2012).

Conclusions
As the world and its societies evolve, education must prepare students for success in an
increasingly globalized future. Pedagogical paradigms that have functioned adequately
for previous generations are often inadequate in the face of change. To prepare students
for success, new teaching and learning methods must evolve.
In the early twentieth century, the creative writing workshop model was developed in
response to an outdated, archaic method of teaching. Philologists had reduced the study
of literature to a scientific parsing of words on the page, without connection to history or
implications for those living in the present or the future. Creative writing programs re-
appropriated the power of words, both for the individual and as a record of humanity,
by giving students the agency to create, as well as to study.
In this second decade of the twenty-first century, what is needed in education is this
same re-appropriation of agency. It is needed for and by students and educators who
require education to be relevant and supportive of intellectual membership in a world
that simultaneously demands collaboration and independent thought, confidence and
adaptability, innovation and knowledge of history. The creative writing workshop model
requires students to mine their understandings of the world and society in which they
live, and to rise to the occasion of creating something unique, emergent, and meaningful,
that helps others come to understand the positionality of their own voices. This is the
essential need of twenty-first century pedagogy, and the creative writing workshop
model may offer broad transferability across other disciplines as a primer for helping stu-
dents imagine themselves as the thoughtful and storied architects of a new world.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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