Bishop, Wendy. Contracts, Radical Revision, Portfolios, and the Risks of Revision. Power and Identity in the Creative Writing Classroom.

"A response-workshop-with-portfolios structure transforms the writing workshop into what I call a writing-intensive zone, since it places students under production demands that mimic a practicing writer's schedule. While those in composition have imported workshop models, those in creative writing have generally done less work exploring and analyzing teacher practices and have been more accepting of a traditional, authoritative model of instruction posited on a novice-student and master-teacher dynamic" (109).

Again, composition and creative writing can learn a lot from each other. While the workshop method has many advantages, and composition classes would do well to model classes that allow students to get feedback from peers as well as the teacher, many creative writing teachers are still reluctant to give up the "master-student" model, which gives them the biggest authority in the class. Yet if the student is writing for an audience, and not for the teacher, wouldn't the instructor do well to allow the student get the most from all of the responses in the class, without trying to offer the "closing words" or the "final instruction"? Students will always look to the instructor for the final word -- we offer the grades, we hold the authority -- but we are not their only audience, and students should learn to try to please more than a teacher for a grade with their writing.

Bishop advocates using portfolios so students focus less on the grade and more on the writing. I do this in lower-level classes, knowing that they need at least the semester to understand the basics of craft. I don't love portfolios in composition, although I do advocate revision and multiple drafts in composition. I am also more comfortable offering grades in composition classes over creative writing -- perhaps because I am uncomfortable grading someone's "creativity" but more comfortable analyzing the particulars of an essay.

Bishop talks in this chapter of setting up a model I already use in composition (and some creative writing) classes, i.e. mini-workshops so students can get feedback from peers. She also offered me some new ideas, such as making the final class essay in a composition class a radical revision of a former work that is "so experimental for the writer that it may fail" (111). This pushes their creativity and willingness to take risks with their writing, to further push it away from a mold or model.