Creative writing as a method for promoting writing competence (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Didactics - Common Didactics, Educational Objectives, Methods, grade: 1,3, Ruhr-University of Bochum, language: English, abstract: Reading and writing are central key competences of everyday life in society. Without the corresponding skills, it is becoming increasingly difficult to participate in life in our literate society. Teaching writing skills to pupils (in short: SuS) is thus a fundamental task of school education and upbringing.

Based on these findings, this thesis attempts to show to what extent creative writing methods can promote writing among students. In the first chapter, the field of "writing" itself is explained in more detail. In this context, the first step is to show theoretically what is meant by the term "writing process". Then the area of writing strategies is discussed. The focus of this chapter is on writing competence, which entails a definition of this term and explains the different levels of competence. However, writing competences are not only closely related to the writing process and writing strategies, but also to writing development. In this context, BECKER-MROTZEK/BÖTTCHER have tried to divide the process of writing development into different levels of development, which are presented in conclusion.

The second chapter deals with the field of "creative writing". After defining the term "creative writing" and explaining the aims of using this method, the six method groups of creative writing are presented, based on BÖTTCHER. Finally, this chapter is dedicated to the question of whether creative writing actually promotes the students' writing competence? In this context, an attempt is made to analyse, on the basis of selected student essays, whether these contain, for example, certain text patterns, lexical or grammatical knowledge, which are components of writing competence and can be further developed through creative writing occasions.