“Creative writing as freedom, education as exploration”: Creative writing as literary and visual arts pedagogy in the first year teacher-education experience

The themed presentation at the Sydney Writers’ Festival on May 25, 2013 entitled “Creative Writing as Freedom, Education as Exploration” brought together three key players in a discussion about imaginative freedom, and the evidence suggesting that the impact of creativity and creative writing on young minds held long lasting, ongoing implications. This is a particularly crucial conversation given the factors stifling creative writing pedagogies in contemporary classrooms. In contributing to the ongoing dialogue about literary creativity, this theorized classroom-based discussion explores the integration of creative writing as literary and visual arts pedagogy among first year preservice-teachers developing an autoethnographic project. By modifying traditional autoethnographic methodology to include literary and Arts-based approaches to creative writing, the examination argues that, while “Creative writing is more than just words on a page; it’s freedom”, developing confidence and competencies among first year teacher-education students may prove important to the educational futurity of that philosophy.