Feature Articles

I’m a Poet? InternationalDoctoral Students at a U.S.University Participate in a

Creative Writing Workshop

JILL OSTROWLYNN CHIH NING CHANG

University of Missouri

What happens when international doctoral students participatein a creative writing workshop? Very often, students at ourlarge midwestern U.S. university enter classes having learnedEnglish in their native countries with a heavy emphasis on onlyskills and grammar. They have not had the chance to play withlanguage, to express themselves through poetry, narrative, orexpressive voice. One of the authors created the course WritingWorkshop for International Graduate Students so doctoral stu-dents from different countries would be able to come togethernot only as a community of writers learning English, but as acommunity of international writers. The students were asked toturn off their academic writing voices and to explore their crea-tive ones. Slowly, through the writing process of choice, draft-ing, sharing, editing, revision, and drafting in other genres, thestudents began to feel more confident as writers. Several discov-ered that they were poets. Others were willing to take the riskto try different genres. All of the students felt that their aca-demic writing had improved. The authors’ findings suggest thatit is crucial to allow opportunities for international students towrite creatively in both their native and nonnative languages inorder to help them succeed in all of their university courses.doi: 10.1002/tesj.3

Practice always embodies theory and theory strives for understandingof practice. Critical approaches to education, understood as both theoryand practice, aim to identify and challenge inequitable social struc-tures and policies. (Cummins, 2009, pp. 261–271)

48 TESOL Journal 3.1, March 2012© 2012 TESOL International Association

What happens when international doctoral studentsparticipate in a creative writing workshop? Very often, studentsat our large midwestern U.S. university enter classes havinglearned English in their native countries with a heavy emphasison only skills and grammar. Many have not had the chance toplay with language, to express themselves through poetry,narrative, or expressive voice. Many international students viewEnglish writing as an arduous task. They are taught to onlyfollow the grammatical rules of writing. Their worries have nocultural boundaries; taking risks is just as difficult for the Chinesestudent as it is for the Korean, Turkish, Iraqi, Vietnamese,Taiwanese, Indian, or Thai student. Simply put, students areafraid of making mistakes. For them, writing involves much timeand often exhaustive effort. The very mention of writing causesfear. Students feel restrained when approaching different genresof writing for the first time. Undeniably, they haven’t discoveredtheir writing voices. Walking for the first time into a creativewriting workshop such as the one I (Jill) created, studentsexpected to instantly become perfect writers of English. But thepurpose of the creation of the course wasn’t for students tobecome “perfect” writers; instead, it was to invite students toexplore English in a new way, to have a comfortable environmentin which to practice English, to examine and practice a variety ofgenres possibly unexplored, and to be among other internationalstudents. What I learned was how much the writers learnedabout themselves as writers.

METHODOLOGYThis qualitative study (informed by Creswell, 1998; Denzin &Lincoln, 2000; Janesick, 2000) was conducted over a 3-year span.The research involved students in my Writing Workshop forInternational Graduate Students course. I was a participant in theresearch as described by Glesne (1999): “Practitioners who couplebasic research theories and techniques with an action-orientedmode can develop collaborative, reflective data-collecting” (p. 14).To be specific, I was a participant observer, which means Ideveloped understanding of the case through participating in theconferencing and writing group meetings. My activities were

I’m a Poet? 49

known to the group but were subordinate to the researcher’s roleas participant.

The Writing Workshop for International Graduate Studentswas offered every spring semester from 2008 to 2010. This 3-hourgraduate-level course met every Monday for 15 weeks from 1 p.m.to 4 p.m. in one of the classrooms in the College of Educationbuilding. I taught on my own for the first 2 years and Lynn, aninternational graduate student from Taiwan, became my teachingassistant in the third year. In the first 2 years, I collected students’writings, observed students as they wrote, shared in small andwhole groups, and interviewed students. In the third year, Lynnand I cotaught and gathered observations and interviews together.

During classes, students were asked to experience differentwriting genres and share their writing both in small writing groupsand in whole-class shares. Lynn and I worked with each studentindividually in writing conferences. We also conducted informalinterviews during class. The research participants’ free writings,drafts of writing, assignments, and any other writing pieces andartifacts done for class were collected and analyzed. We asked eachparticipant to submit two polished pieces of completed writing bythe end of term via e-mail. During the individual conferences withstudents, Lynn and I each took field notes and kept a reflectiveteaching journal. Some conferences were audiotaped during class,and the tapes were transcribed. I also interviewed Lynn,audiotaped the interview, and transcribed the tape. Lynn and Italked with each other after each class about what we observed andwhere we wanted the next class to go.

Here is a typical class schedule:

1. Writing mini-lesson (10–15 min, focusing on either craft or skill)2. Student work time (1 hr)3. Individual writing conferences (during the workshop time)4. Writing-group share (15–20 min)5. Whole-group share (15–30 min)

PARTICIPANTSThroughout the 3 years, approximately 30 international studentsfrom the following countries were enrolled in the workshop:

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Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, India, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, SouthKorea, Libya, and Thailand. The graduate students were studyinga variety of academic majors. Each brought to the course a richand diverse cultural background. All three classes were distinct,but they were also similar.

LESSON 1: EVEN DOCTORAL STUDENTS NEED TOWRITE IN THEIR FIRST LANGUAGEWhat they need while learning English is to make the transition fromtheir first-language writing to English and from writing personalnarrative to more formal academic writing. (Fu, 2009, p. 5)

The first class of the workshop consisted of 12 graduate studentsfrom Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea, China, and Taiwan. The first andmost apparent similarity among these students was that everyone—everyone—shared the same anxiety about writing in English andhow they had learned English. These were doctoral students. Itwouldn’t be the first assumption I would make, but I assumed thatbecause they were doctoral students they would be comfortablewriting and speaking in English. Wrong. They were all nervous andstressed about their writing, in particular, their grammar.

You could not imagine how much time I spent in writing myfirst paper at MU. My first assignment was writing an annota-tion for a book: Thought and Language, by Vygotsky. I was slowin generating ideas and I was not familiar with this genre. I goo-gled for formats to follow and spent hours thinking of someprofessional and academic terms to use. I wanted it to lookgood and I was worried if my first paper would make a badimpression on the professor. The uncertainty tortured me.I crossed out a line and started a new line hundreds of times.Until the paper was due, I still felt unsafe and I questionedmyself if I made a good piece. I was shaking while submittingmy first paper. (Lynn)

As Elbow (2000) writes, “so much writing by students is timid”(p. 207)—especially for these international students in theworkshop, who had been disciplined in English writing for years.Their past learning experiences were similar. I was surprised tohear so many rules, in their class, in their lives, and in theirthinking. They were afraid of assuming the authority of their ownwords, and they didn’t realize they could.

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The students lacked confidence, and when it came time toshare, they were tentative. In this workshop, however, because allof these students shared their anxiety they seemed to share morefreely and more quickly than in many native-English-speakingwriting workshops I have attended. That barrier of “I’m not goodenough” seemed to be shed earlier. Because these students hadsimilar stories to share, such as moving to the United States tostudy and learn in a language other than their first, they weremore willing to take that initial risk.

Another similarity that was apparent that first year was howthese international students viewed “good writing.” When I posedthe question, all answers centered on grammar and syntax. Notone person spoke of content, voice, or purpose in writing.

Limited vocabulary is an area in whichmany internationalstudents struggle andwant to grow. However, discussing this as agroupwas frustrating. Althoughwe all agreed that readingmorewas the best way to gain a wider vocabulary, it became clear that asdoctoral students their reading timewas limited to difficult texts andreading for pleasure was often the first activity to fall off the radar.

During one class, Kung Ja, a Korean student, had been workingfor approximately 3 weeks on the same piece. I asked her to talkto me about what she seemed to be struggling with:

Kung Ja: I can’t get the words out.Jill: Do you mean the English words? Or the right words?Kung Ja: No no, yes, the English words. There are no words forit. Only Korean.Jill: Well, why don’t you write it in Korean?

She blinked. It was almost as if someone has opened a new doorfor her. She went off and at the end of our 3-hour period had apiece she seemed very happy with, written in Korean.

Kung Ja set off others in the class to write in their firstlanguage (L1) as well. I felt like slapping myself on the side of myhead. I know how important it is for young children to write intheir L1, so why wouldn’t the same be true for adult learners ofEnglish? Did I think that because these were doctoral studentstheir experience with language would be different?

During a sharing session I asked Wu if she would share herpoem. She said, “But no one will understand it. It is in Chinese.”

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“But we will be able to hear you read it. We will hear yourvoice. Read it. You’ll see.” She did read it, and the rest of thestudents were silent. When she finished, Haib said, “I could tellthat that poem was very emotional for you. I could tell becauseyour voice became very quiet and your head was down.”

I think we often forget about body language, voice, tone, andthe sheer beauty of the sound of language when we are in ourrush to hear English. Listening to other languages is like listeningto music. As human beings, we feel emotions without words, justas music is an expressive way to convey meaning. Language is notonly an issue of cognition, because the sound and the tone are theaffective factors to our emotions. Even though many of us didn’tunderstand Chinese, we could feel Wu’s emotions through hertone, voice, and facial expressions. I believe that is the power oflanguage. Listening to her read was like listening to a foreignsong; the emotions could be transferred. The whole class wasenchanted by her soft and distinctive voice. From then on, I askedstudents to write at least one piece in their native language thatwouldn’t be translated. Why? Because some things, especiallypoetry, just can’t, and shouldn’t, be translated. (The book ofstudent work published each year is called Lost in Translation.)

Friedlander (1990) discusses the use of L1 in second language(L2) composing. He believes that when students use language thatthey associate with topics, they produce texts with better content.That was another reason I encouraged the international students towrite in their L1. As Scott (1996) discovered, using the L1 inwriting helps English language learners generate writing ideas. Inthe classroom, I also found they wrote more in their pieces whenthey wrote in their L1. They seemed to have more to say. Thatcoincided with Pappamihiel’s (2002) findings that L1 aids in L2learning in that the use of the former is a support for theacquisition of the later.

Stapa and Majid (2009) also recommend the use of L1 in the L2writing classroom, because it can trigger learners’ backgroundknowledge. I believed the freedom of allowing students to usetheir L1 in class enabled them to write more fluently when theyneeded to transition to writing in English. Their English writingimproved because of the support of their L1.

I’m a Poet? 53

LESSON 2: SOME WRITING LESSONS ARE JUSTUNIVERSALI made many assumptions as I navigated my way through thisworkshop, as is true for many teachers and professors teachingnew courses. One was that I assumed some of my lessons weregoing to be too elementary for these students. I worried that theywould roll their eyes at me, so to speak. I took lessons fromFletcher and Portalupi’s (2007) Craft Lessons—a book typically usedfor students in the elementary and middle grades— and adaptedthem to use with graduate students. Would it work?

One of my mini-lessons, on leads, came right out of that book.The students shared leads from their current drafts and thenshared those with partners by creating new ones. Fletcher andPortalupi (2007) offer some examples of how to write a good lead:starting with a poem, a quote, posing a question, and so on. So Iasked the students to try writing several different leads.

On one particular occasion during the second year of theworkshop, a group of students and I were talking aboutdescription and detail, and I remember turning my ear when Iheard Lynn in a conference (this was the year that she was astudent in the course). She was conferring with another studentabout her writing:

Lynn: I think it might be better if you describe the tree a littlemore.Gulika: So, you mean say, the brown tree.Lynn: That is better. But what kind of tree? What does it looklike?Gulika: So, the tall brown tree?

This is when I stopped. I decided on the spot to pull out one ofthose Fletcher and Portalupi (2007) activities on detail anddescription. I asked everyone to think of a tree and jot it down, tofree-write everything they could about that tree. What is aroundthem, what they see, smell, and so on. As the class went aroundthe room to share, I had an eye-opener. With so many culturesand countries represented sitting around one table, it wasapparent why teaching description and detail is so important. Iwas thinking of an oak, but someone else was thinking of a datetree, another, a palm. And what we felt was as different as the

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trees. This was when I realized that those elementary lessons are,in fact, important. It was after that lesson that some of the studentsfigured out why adding details to their more academic writingwas so important.

Another assumption I made was that because these wereinternational doctoral students, poetry would be more familiar tothem. Not that being a doctoral student has anything to do withfeeling comfortable with or loving poetry, but it was anassumption I had made. (I suppose I was hoping that othercountries had better luck producing poetry lovers than theUnited States had.) I showed students how to find poetry withintheir essays and narratives, where their beautiful words werehiding. I wanted them to realize some of their thoughts wereraw and beautiful poems. This was a very new idea for most ofthem.

Lynn’s first poem was found within an essay on Vincent VanGogh that she was writing for another class. During a mini-lessonon editing and revision, I asked students to choose one piece theywould like to edit or revise and to share it with the whole class.I was intending to show students the difference between editingand revision. Lynn shared a paragraph she had written and toldus it was incomplete and needed to be worked on. When I heardthe rhyme, the poetic tone, and the power of her words, I wasstunned.

“Wait, Lynn. That’s a poem. It is beautiful. You have a poemthere. Don’t you hear that?”

Lynn seemed surprised. “I have never written a poem. I amnot a poet.”

“You don’t need to revise it. Don’t write it as an essay. Turn itinto a poem.”

And I helped Lynn work on rearranging the words of herparagraph. Here is her final work:

Every swirl of brush reveals

Your uneasy life.

How painful you were!

I see blue flames biting you

Your skies tells

Blue is not blue

I’m a Poet? 55

Cold you feel is not cold

You inflamed with torment

Sore torment

Keeps burning

Is it art or maladjustment?

Beauty or quandaries?

Difficult to do

Who can escape?

Lynn wrote the following about her first poem:

I composed my first poem accidentally. I was intending to writean essay for another class and just jotted down every thing Ihad in my mind freely. I was surprised to hear the instructorsay what I did was a beautiful poem. After abandoning thoserules and restriction, my beautiful words emerged. I believe thatwas because I was able to hear my voice from my heart, whichwas authentic and honest. I started to write without worriesand without hesitations.

This is where Lynn’s journey into poetry and becoming a poetbegan. The next poem she wrote was about her struggles andexperiences in graduate school. It was published in the localpaper:

TOWNSEND HELL VS. TOWNSEND HALL

Entering an unknown emptiness

An image of a timid small me was there

People around me were eager to talk

So fast, so aggressive

I was a stranger searching for a light

To fit in.

Arduous task in vain

Frustration shaded my way

I went home with tears keeping shedding

Loneliness, heavy burden,

Like rising tides

Choking, paddling I am struggling

Almost be swallowed.

That was hell!

Lights from angel

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Open my heart, open my eyes

Leading my way

I am breathing

Living a life I was ever lost

Now, I found my way.

When I read her poem, several thoughts ran through my mind.First, I knew I wanted to make sure Lynn saw herself as a poet; Iwasn’t sure she did. Second, I felt as though she was using poetryto speak in a way she wasn’t able to in other forums. In otherwords, poetry had somehow freed her. I suspected that I mayhave been making another assumption, so I would need toinvestigate that assumption further and read more of Lynn’spoetry.

Excerpt from a writing conference with Lynn:

Jill: Lynn, I am so proud that you submitted your poem.Lynn: The editor said he needs my photo to go with the poem.It is so exciting.Jill: I told you this is a great piece and people will love it. I hopeyou will keep writing poetry!Lynn: [Silence]

The next day, Lynn sent me an e-mail. I was surprised to seethat she had responded by writing a poem titled “Pearl of Poetry”:

Looking back in the past

Somberness

I was with empty soul

Covered with hard shell

A dull life hiding in the rigid reef

A warm current reached me

Guiding me to open up

A pearl shining in the sea

Lynn’s poem showed me that she had made progress not onlywith poetry, but also with confidence as a writer of English. Sheindependently chose to send me an e-mail in poetic form. Thiswas a big step for Lynn, and as she continued to explore thisgenre I also noticed her willingness to share her work more withthe larger group in class. I decided I needed to extend the class tomore than just education students.

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I purposefully opened the workshop to students in the entireuniversity, not just the College of Education. This made for aculturally diverse group of students, and also an academicallydiverse one. There have been nursing majors, science majors, mathmajors, economics majors, and political science majors sitting withthe English and education majors. There are also students atdifferent points in their studies. Some are deep in theircomprehensive exams, others beginning their dissertations, andothers just beginning their degrees. It’s a simply lovely mix ofstudents. And although their stress levels differ, they all have acommon tension: writing in English.

Chun, a science major, came into poetry by way of essay aswell. He was trying to figure out how to break free of the normsand conventions of scientific writing. In our writing conference, hewas surprised to hear the compliments and comments I gave him,and I could see his excitement about sharing his piece.

An excerpt from a writing conference with Chun:

Jill: What a beautiful piece you just wrote. I’m really glad youdecided to try and write this as a poem.Chun: [Laugh] Really?Jill: Yes, it’s lovely. Don’t you think so? You have to share itwith the class.Chun: [Laugh] OK.

Chun’s nervous apprehension was due to the fact that hehad started writing this as an essay. When I first read the lead,it struck me much as Lynn’s essay on Van Gogh had; it was sodescriptive, it read very poetically. I invited him to rewrite it asa poem. He seemed confused by this suggestion. So I showedhim how to rearrange and take out words to create a poem. Heseemed genuinely intrigued by this. But at the time he declined,saying, “No, I will continue with my essay.” I smiled, and lefthim to continue writing. A week later, however, during aconference, I noticed he had started to rewrite his essay inpoetic form. When I asked him about it, he said he wanted totry. It was the first time Chun had ever written a poem. Hisfinal poem speaks strongly of his image of the city ofVancouver:

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SAPPHIRE MIDNIGHT

~Chun

Sapphire at midnight

Vancouver

sky

sea

mountain

merge in deep blue

soft starlight slides down

along with the mountain ridge

Harbor lights

like scattered pearls

blinking at their reflections

in the mirror-like sea

breeze

ripples the surface of the water

lights waltz on the rhythm of waves

images

in the quiet night

in the peaceful heart

awakened by singing of seagulls

its the city

night scene was in my dream

or

I was in the dream of

Vancouver

Chun’s poem showed me that not only had he gained theconfidence to overcome his apprehension of trying to write poetry,he was able to pick out the descriptive English words he wantedto highlight. He also was able to play with placement of words.For instance, the way he placed the words sky, sea, and mountainswas quite deliberate. When I asked him about this, he told me thathe wanted the reader to “slow down and read those words as iflooking toward the mountain.” He used the placement of thewords to create a strong image for the reader.

Excerpt from a writing conference with Chun:

Jill: How did you decide to make that decision, with those threeparticular words?

I’m a Poet? 59

Chun: I didn’t know poems didn’t need rhyme. You said poemsdidn’t need rhyme.Jill: You’re right. They don’t.Chun: So I make words like that to make a strong image. To me,when I saw mountains, I saw the sky, then sea, then mountains.

Chun, like so many learners of poetry, grew up believingpoetry needed to rhyme. When that barrier was lifted, he was ableto create images using the words he had written.

LESSON 3: BALANCE IN LEARNING ENVIRONMENTSIS NEEDED EVEN AT THE GRADUATE LEVELWhen the course is opened to the entire university, I aminundated with inquiries from students and advisors ofinternational students. The students usually want to know whatthe syllabus looks like and how much work is involved. Theadvisors, on the other hand, want to know how much academicwriting will be involved. When I let them know the nature of thecourse, that it is geared more toward the creative end of writing, Iget “Oh, I don’t think that will be appropriate for my students.”(Those are usually the advisors from the law school. When I toldmy father, who happens to be a retired lawyer, he laughed, “Areyou kidding? Creative writing would help any lawyer. In fact, anyother type of writing besides just writing a brief is beneficial.”Exactly what I believe.)

It’s not only what I believe. It’s what I observe in the studentswho take this course. There is calmness, a lifting of tension afterthe first few weeks that has happened consistently each year Ihave taught the course. The students relax. They begin toconcentrate more on the content of their writing, and less on skills.They begin to see the beauty in writing and in language. And theybegin to enjoy writing. Elbow (2000) states that good academicwork should be and can be done with a more personal tone ofvoice. Although the purpose of academic discourse should beobjective and unbiased, we can never write anything without aninterest or point of view. In other words, academic writing isalso personal writing because we choose what we want towrite.

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Dahn, a first-semester doctoral student from Vietnam, said, “Istarted to enjoy writing in English when the class flew. . . . I amthinking of writing about education from my perspective that Ihave learned when I came here.” He was a math major, and at theend of the class many of the students suggested he switch hismajor to English education because he was such a good writer. Hewrote a fiction piece that blew us all away.

Chih Wei, a Taiwanese student, said:

Writing for classes other than that become less stressful to me.I used to spend more than an hour walking back and forth inmy own little room to release my anxiety before I can sit downand write. After the class, the paper is not a scary monster that Ihave to fight with anymore. Instead, it feels like a playgroundfor me to have fun now. By coming here every Monday, I find aplace that I can just relax and be myself. In this room, there isno need to pretend I know everything.

Having a “playground” is exactly what English languagelearners need. A place to play with language and explore, wherethey are allowed to build confidence while sharing what they arelearning—and while they are also immersed in their strictacademic environment. Gallagher (2006) says that “the mostimportant thing is first to help students overcome the deep-seatednegative associations with writing that so many of them have as aresult of writing for years in rigid, seemingly arbitrary formats ontopics they couldn’t care less about” (pp. 89–91). All of theinternational students who take our workshop were educated in atraditional class setting in their native countries. They could finallyfree themselves from those negative impressions associated withcompetition in writing. Writing no longer just for assignments ortests. Students could write what they wanted to write and discoverthe pleasures of writing. The power of choice cannot be ignored.Elbow (2000) writes that we should give students authority inwriting. I found that these students became more confident aswriters as they explored different genres.

SO, IN THE ENDLearning is reinforced when young children are given choice, andthe same is true for young English language learners (Cummins,

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2009). We recognized the importance of choice among the adultstudents in our workshop.

Elbow (2000) says, “We need to get students to write bychoice because no one can learn to write well except by writing agreat deal—far more than we can assign and read” (p. 236).Slowly, through the writing process of choice, drafting, sharing,editing, revision, and drafting in other genres, the students beganto feel more confident as writers. Several discovered that theywere poets. Others realized that they knew how to writemetaphor, or better, were willing to take the risk and try. Thegrip on their fixed minds had been loosened. They looked atwriting through new lenses and found deeper meaning within it.As their worries of word choice, grammar, and other rules ofwriting eased, we heard their honest and authentic voicesemerge.

A good writers’ group can improve your writing and writinghabits as well as provide a supportive environment to everyone inthe group. It can be the springboard for long-lasting friendshipsand possible collaborations (Legge, 1980). I could see the studentsin our workshop change over time. They learned how to writewith ease and share without hesitation. The sense of communityhad formed, and they trusted each other. Students felt comfortablein this trusting and supportive environment. All of the studentsfelt that their academic writing had improved because of theirparticipation in the workshop.

By having time not only to write in English but also to writecreatively in their L1, the students learned how to incorporatemany of the same strategies into their more rigorous academicwriting. However, the purpose was for them to come and explorelanguage. Hoping it would help their writing, they wrote askingquestions about content, syllabus, and its goals. Once they heard itwas focused on creative writing as opposed to academic writing,many doubted that this course would be useful. Fu (2009) is rightwhen she writes about young English language learners needingto transition from L1 to L2. We saw this same transition asnecessary with the international graduate students in ourworkshop.

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I must confess that before taking the writing workshop for inter-national students I was in a mist of confusion. I was confused ofthe correlation between creative writing and its influence onacademic writing improvement. . . . It would be some kind oftorture if I was asked to sit down and write a piece about any-thing of my interest before. I could hardly produce a shortpiece. . . . I think that I am now able to craft any writing of anytopic, big or small. Creative writing makes my skill more fluentand smoother. (Chun)

Because of our findings, the response from the students, andthe change in their attitudes toward other genres of writing, it iscrucial that international students be allowed opportunities towrite creatively in both their native and nonnative languages inorder to help them succeed in all of their university courses.

THE AUTHORSJill Ostrow is an assistant professor of teaching at the University ofMissouri. She has taught at the college level in Oregon, Vermont,and Maine. She has been a teacher educator for nearly threedecades, beginning her career as an elementary school teacher.Her current passions include working with internationalpopulations at the university and exploring new innovative onlinelearning environments.

Lynn Chih Ning Chang is currently a doctoral candidate inEnglish education at the University of Missouri. She has beenteaching English to middle school students for 5 years. Along withher studies, she also serves as the tech liaison for the MissouriWriting Project.

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