Teaching Creative Writing to University Level Second Language Learners in Pakistan

As a subject offered at the university level, ‘Creative Writing’ does not elicit a very enthusiastic response from the Pakistani students, unlike their counterparts in Western schools. Primarily apprehensive because of weak language, the students feel pressurised at the very onset. This is owing to the 12-year school and college education that is characterised by rote-learning and a text-book centred approach in all disciplines. Creative Writing, on the other hand demands a more independent approach on behalf of the students. The teacher thus faces an uphill task since his/her job becomes manifold, i.e. a teacher has to help the students in the areas of vocabulary development, minimising first language interference, in developing a practical approach to grammar that assists in sentence construction as well as an innovative, liberated, out of the box way of thinking and expression and in retaining the interest of the students. This article endeavours to explore these hurdles and suggest writing activities that can help the students in overcoming them as proved by certain teaching experiments conducted in ‘Creative Writing’ classes at the university level in Islamabad, Pakistan. Certain vocabulary-building and expression development activities can be devised in which the students may learn to develop a word-bank that buffs their expression and assists in the utilisation of new lexical items in the correct syntactic structure. Language should appear to them like modelling wax or play dough that can be playfully modelled and remodelled innovatively in different generic forms. From controlled writing to semi-controlled activities and finally to free-writing, the students may display a gradual improvement in expression and vocabulary that can hone their creative writing skills. Apart from that, the exploitation of cultural materials and indigenous trends in class to ensure novelty in creative works will also be highlighted.