Kranes, David. Playing Within Plays. Creative Writing in America.

Krause points out that students might have a natural inclination towards being playwrights because "their lives are theatre. They are trying out various roles. They wear any number of masks. They dress in a range of costumes. They have remarkably unspoiled "ears" for the recording and playing back of real dialogue. Their world is intensely active and physical. They are closer, in general, to the 'music' of their lives -- the cadences and rhythms which are so important to the writing of plays" (181).

This rings true to me for two reasons. First, I agree that students might be less spoiled and attuned to political correctness; as academics, we're so sensitive to making sure that we don't mock an accent that we might have trouble writing one, as we feel we are being stereotypical. Yet sometimes stereotypes exist for a reason: A lot of people in a certain group talk or act in a certain way. Students are less attuned to this, though, and so might write more believable characters simply because they are not aware that it might not be politically correct to do so.

I also agree with the above statement simply because Kranes is attuned to what makes a play work well: its emphasis on the visual, for sound, and for the physical action.

He mentions other points that previous posts have commented on, such as writing such plays can be "cathartic" (181) because it helps students realize what is going on in heir own lives -- or, that creative writing is often based on some dissonance or scenario that the writer himself or herself is facing. "Involving young writers in playwriting can be a way of tapping the behavior they are inescapably in and of helping them focus their 'scripts,' their 'roles,' their 'plots.' The experience can do what ht best of theatre has always done: By framing and shaping a particular action (or 'acting out') the action can be clarified, seen, understood" (181-182). In other words, by putting the students' own scenarios on paper through the guise of creative writing, they might better understand their own personal situations.