Bishop, Wendy. Crossing the Lines: On Creative Composition and Composing Creative Writing. Colors of a Different Horse.

Bishop states something that I on occasion also feel: "We need to be crossing the line between composition and creative writing far more often than we do. In fact, we may want to eliminate the line entirely" (181). I find it interesting that composition, creative writing, marketing, and journalism have been entirely separated from each other in the traditional academic world: A writer needs to be able to cross these lines in order to survive as both a creative person and a professional.

"Often students believe essay writing is a chore. They also believe in what I'll call the myth of 'free creativity' in creative writing classes, as expressed here by Bill (one of Bishop's students): 'In creative writing, I feel that there is no set guidelines. It leaves room for experimentation and you can go into any angle or direction. In expository prose you have set guidelines of what you must write and how you should write it.' This 'free creativity' belief is as devastating for the creative writing class as it is for composition classes. When students arrive in creative writing classes with dichotomous attitudes -- composition is no fun, creative writing therefore must be fun -- creative writing classes can appear surprisingly restrictive since novice writers are often expected to learn conventions like the intricacies of formal verse or plotting and point of view rather than simply given free rein to 'find some exotic, fun, brilliant way to say things,' as Ashley had hoped" (187).

And this is true enough. I have plenty of students come into my expository writing class initially dreading it because it's titled as an advanced-level composition class -- it couldn't be fun. And I have many creative writing students who initially think that their writing doesn't have to make sense to other people; as long as they're expressing themselves, they should have their writing accepted. I've had to dispel the myths in both cases, and more and more depend on strategies I've learned in both types of writing to help students understand the overall concept of successful writing.