Reasons for the research

The research stems from previous studies on writing teaching practices carried out by some teachers/writers. The 2022-2024 research begins with the enhancement of the results of the study on creative writing that has been included in the upcoming volume: Writing, narrating, imagining. A study on creative writing. The object of the research was the good practices of some teachers/writers who recounted and shared original school writing experiments. Starting from the contribution of these protagonists it was therefore possible to document how teachers encourage “creative writing” in their classrooms, building workshops and stimulating a reflection on the environments, methodologies, times and ways of writing in the classroom. At the end of this experience, we became aware of the need to develop a path of dissemination of the results obtained through sharing paths involving teachers and classroom experiments to enhance and analyze students’ products. Since September 2021, the working group has started exploratory meetings with the Department of Education of the Municipality of Lucca for the designing of creative writing workshops that will be used to help combat early school leaving in some upper secondary schools (in particular in the first two-year period) and in some unified schools.

Specific objectives

• Promoting the experience of producing meaningful writings and those of a playful nature focused on linguistic play.
• Facilitating the development of the two components of the imagination: the imitative one based on memory (reproductive) and the constructive and creative one, more complex and elevated.
• Strengthening, through the reading of stories and the use of different literary models, the development of the imagination, the ability to interpret texts and written linguistic/expressive skills.

Research questions

• How are creative writing skills transferable to functional writing?
• How do storytelling and poetry (literary objects) give children and young people the opportunity to write or (re)write their lives by projecting themselves into the future or into the past?
• Which methodologies and tools are the most effective for enhancing written communication skills, language skills and transversal skills?
• On what conditions and on what aspects should good teacher training work for these purposes?

Participants

Upper and lower secondary school teachers.