vol. 35 ■ no.
2 GIFTED CHILD TODAY
Why I Write
What Talented Creative Writers Need Their Teachers to Know
Jill M. Olthouse, PhD1
Abstract: Eight students who excelled in a statewide,
middle school creative writing tournament discussed their
relationships with writing. Students’ interview transcripts
were analyzed for references to positive and negative
teacher influences. Students needed teachers who provided
structured writing time and clear deadlines, valued the
message of the work more than the format, used books
as models, developed a sense of community, gave
constructive feedback, honored students’ personal writing
goals, specifically assessed creativity, and recognized that
sometimes writing was therapeutic rather than productive.
Keywords: differentiation, English, young gifted, creativity,
writing
A
s an English teacher at a school for the gifted, I had the
opportunity to work with many talented writers. I also
worked with many gifted students who simply hated to
write and a few who would only eke out a few lines at most.
I noticed that many of my students had potential to be good
writers but that having potential was not enough. Those with
less skill, but greater inclination, would eventually surpass
those with great potential but little desire to write, much like
the proverbial tortoise beating the hare. Because the desire
to write was such an important factor in the development of
writing talent, I began to wonder what causes talented students
to like or dislike writing. Specifically, how do teachers affect a
student’s desire to write? Later, as a doctoral student, I had the
opportunity to explore this question in-depth, as I interviewed
prizewinning contestants in a statewide writing competition.
The Ohio Power of the Pen (POP) competition brings together
7,500 teens from across the state who compete in interscholastic
creative writing tournaments at the district, regional, and state
levels. Imagine a sports team, but instead of running up and
down a field in matching t-shirts, the students sit quietly at
their desks, wearing their matching t-shirts, and concentrate on
writing a flash fiction story on the theme of “robots” within the
DOI: 10.1177/1076217512437732. From 1West Virginia University. Address correspondence to: Jill M. Olthouse, Department of Special Education, West Virginia University,
Morgantown, WV 26506, USA; email: Jill.Olthouse@mail.wvu.edu.
For reprints and permissions queries, please visit SAGE’s Web site at http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermission.nav.
Copyright © 2012 The Author(s)
FEATURES
allotted time span of 35 min. At each competition, the students
were winnowed. The eight students I interviewed placed in the
top 3% of all the writers in POP. I examined the ways in which
students related to writing: What factors made them want to
write or not write? From this information, I focused this article’s
analysis specifically on how teachers had affected students’
relationships with writing for better or for worse.
Literature Review
What is school like for talented writers? According to the
research, some students become writers in spite of school,
not because of it. In a biographical survey of more than
300 eminent personalities, 52% of famous authors disliked
school compared with 33% of eminent personalities in
general (Goertzl, Goertzl, & Goertzl, 1978). A researcher who
interviewed creative writers found that there was little outlet
for their creativity in the classroom; restrictions such as time,
grades, and topics limited them, and teachers valued grammar
and spelling more than imagination (Asher, 1988, in Kohányi,
2005). When writing instruction focuses on such low level
tasks, writers’ motivation decreases (Cook, Green, Meyer, &
Saey, 2001), and even talented writers lose intrinsic motivation
as they progress from elementary school to high school
(Cleary, 1991). This is especially troubling for creative writers,
as a focus on the intrinsic reasons for writing may result in a
more creative product (Amabile, 1983). One case study of a
precocious 10-year-old creative writer suggested that the talent
and sensitivity he displayed in his writings made it difficult for
him to find a compatible school setting, until he eventually
settled into a public school for gifted students (Edmunds &
Edmunds, 2005). Aside from this longitudinal case study, there
has not been much recent research into the school experiences
of talented writers. Despite their potential difficulties in school,
famous writers tend to be high-achieving students and do
remember the impact of those teachers and professors who
recognized their talent and reached out as mentors (Piirto,
2002).
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 GIFTED CHILD TODAY
Interviews
The eight writers, whose self-selected pseudonyms are Nicole,
Darcy, Lily, Charles, Mara, Jane, Madison, and Chelsea, each
spoke with me over the course of three interviews. In the first
session, students discussed their experiences with writing. In
the second session, students discussed specific writing samples.
In the third interview, students described general themes
related to their relationships with writing: emotions, goals, and
values. Interviews lasted an average of 40 min, for about 2 hr
total per student. Finally, each student wrote a theme titled
“Why I write.”
Findings
The young writers I interviewed are very agreeable students;
they are competent at both academic and creative writing
and, for the most part, seemed loath to critique their teachers
or their school. Yet at the same time, I sensed a longing in
these students, most who had moved on to high school, for
classrooms that honored their favorite reasons for writing. I
present the data in eight statements: statements that students
believe but do not often express to their teachers. What these
students have to say is applicable not only to the teaching of
creative writing but also to the teaching and assessment of
other genres, as I explain throughout.
Theme 1: I Need Structure
The talented writers exhibited an interesting paradox. When
describing why they wrote, each of them described their love
of creative writing and various intrinsic reasons for writing. Yet,
all but two of the eight experienced a decline in the amount
of not-for-credit writing they did after the POP program was
over and they had moved on to high school. The two students
who did continue creative writing were each writing novels;
both had finished 50,000 words at the time I spoke with them,
and one had finished her manuscript during National Novel
Writing Month. The difference between these two students and
the other six was that these two had developed the discipline
to write outside of class time; their high school English classes
afforded no time for creative writing. Conversely, the other
students stressed that, because they no longer had structured
writing times or deadlines, they found little time in their
busy schedules for a talent they had honed in middle school.
Chelsea said,
I would like to write more. I don’t write as much as I
used to because obviously we do a lot of essays now
and we don’t do as much personal narratives writing.
But I always thought it’d be fun to write a book,
maybe when I’m older, but I haven’t had time with
sports and everything. (Chelsea, interview, April 25,
2010)
Similarly, Mara described how having deadlines and
structured writing times helped her develop her talent:
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April 2012
We wrote in 7th grade twice a week and in 8th grade
once, it really pushed me to, like, write more and I read
still but I didn’t read as much, and now since POP is over
I think I read more than I write, especially since POP
pushed me to write every week. I don’t think without a
deadline I would write as much. So that really helped.
(Mara, interview, March 20, 2010)
Theme 2: Form Follows Function
While students did not have enough structure in the daily
discipline of creative writing, one place that teachers give too
much structure is in setting demands for the look of a paper.
Teachers emphasized the look, rather than the content, of
writing in two ways. First, they taught students to use very
specific writing formulas. Some of the students I interviewed
believed that formulas had helped them focus their ideas.
However, formulas also provide a “student-proof” curriculum.
Madison described her experience with formula writing in the
English classroom:
There’s a formula. [It’s] “TS3XSS” which means topic
sentence, three examples, and a summary sentence for each
paragraph. So she grades on your form and how much [sic]
paragraphs you have. She doesn’t actually grade it on how
the story goes. (Madison, interview April 7, 2010)
Most talented writers are ready to move beyond formulas and
realize that the message they are trying to send is what will
shape their paper’s format. In essays as well as in fiction, some
points may need to be elaborated on, and others may need
to be more concise. Talented creative writers especially enjoy
struggling to find the perfect format for the message they want
to communicate.
Second, teachers emphasized the look of a paper by allotting
as much as 50% of the final grade to grammar and mechanics.
The talented writers I talked with are motivated to get A
papers. They probably, therefore, only need 10% of their grade
allotted to surface-level features. An alternate strategy would
be to simply have the student correct any errors before a
final grade is determined. When I was teaching grammar and
mechanics as a high school English teacher, I often made an
analogy to explain the importance of good editing. Editing is
like the outfit you wear to an interview. The outfit you wear
does not directly relate to your ability to do a good job. Your
skills and attitudes are much more important than what you
wear. However, you will be judged by what you wear. This
helps students understand that grammar and mechanics are
important, but that the analysis and creativity that go into the
piece are more important.
Theme 3: Some of My Best Teachers Are Books
All eight of the writers I interviewed were rabid readers;
authors were their rock stars. Good teachers took advantage of
this fact by introducing great authors as models. One class, for
example, read Stephen King’s On Writing together. Teachers
vol. 35 ■ no. 2
also inspired students by introducing them to authors who
were published as children and teens. Child and teen authors
include Mattie Stepanek, Christopher Paolini, Gordon Korman,
Dav Pilkey, Adora Svitak, and Nancy Yi Fan. Chelsea describes
being inspired by a child author in elementary school:
I did a lot more poetry than stories because we did
poetry a lot in the gifted program. I thought it was cool.
We read a lot of poetry by, I think his name is Mattie
Stepanak; our teacher liked him a lot. He’s a young boy
that wrote a lot of poems, and so we all wanted to be
like him so we all wrote poems. (Chelsea, personal
communication, April 25, 2010)
The eight talented writers I interviewed learned to write
by imitating specific aspects of other authors’ styles. Lily, a
precocious reader, remembers modeling a story after a Thomas
Hardy novel in elementary school.
Yeah, I think a couple times I started trying to write,
‘cause I wanted to write something as great as the books
I was reading, and I think it was something by Thomas
Hardy, and I went onto the computer and I used the
same setting as he did and I tried to write a story as
great as his, and it didn’t work out. It lasted maybe three
pages. (Lily, personal communication, February 13, 2010)
Nicole described a technique her teacher used that helped
attune her to the differences in authors’ styles:
The thing I remember most is just how she would
like, every other week or so, she’d bring in a novel or
something that all of us were familiar with, but she
wouldn’t tell us about it. She would read a passage from
it and see who could guess it. It was pretty fascinating
seeing how you can recognize a writer just by their
techniques. (Nicole, interview, April 14, 2010)
These talented creative writers enjoyed opportunities to
model their writing after that of their favorite authors.
Theme 4: We’re All Odd Together
Each of the eight writers described one of their primary
purposes when writing—to have a connection with other
writers. They wrote because they wanted a sense of belonging,
a sense eloquently described by Jane:
It’s like, when you write, you’re on a different plane
and you’re just connecting with all other great writers,
“oh, that’s a really good passage.” It’s like you’re a part
of something, no matter how much you’re not a part of
anything, ‘cause no one’s unique. It’s all already been
done before. It’s just like you’re a part of this humming,
living being that’s always changing. You’re just a little
speck, but being a little speck makes you part of
something that’s so great. I mean, in a community of
writers, it’s just this great feeling like you’re not alone
anymore. (Jane, interview, February 27, 2010)
GIFTED CHILD TODAY
Jane especially liked the fact that writing could bring together
“outsiders.” Students with odd perspectives on life would be
honored within the writing community for their creativity. How
did these talented writers’ teachers create a sense of belonging
to a large literate community? Some teachers developed online
forums where students could post writing prompts and peer
critiques. Other teachers allotted a portion of each Friday for
students to read their writing aloud to their classmates. Finally,
teachers paired students with other students of similar interests
and abilities.
Theme 5: I Want More Than a Good Grade
Sure, talented writers want As if they earn them. But an
A or a 100% on a paper with no substantial feedback is
not a compliment—It’s an insult. It implies that the writer
is good enough and has no room to grow. In their general
English classes, students often received only feedback about
surface-level errors. And conversely, high school creative
writing classes and clubs were run as if being creative was
equivalent to avoiding evaluation altogether. I asked Charles
about what he would like in his English class:
Author: So what type of assignments would do that, or what
type of feedback would help you?
Charles: Hmm. Probably people giving me specific feedback
about the style of my writing, and not just, “Oh I like that,”
or “I don’t like that.” I would like people to be more picky
about my writing, definitely, and you know just really pick
out things that they didn’t think flowed through the writing,
or confused them. People in that creative writing class,
more just looked at the whole idea of the writing, and “Hey,
I liked that story. It’s good for a sophomore and for this
class,” but that’s not really what I wanted to know. (Charles,
interview, February 28, 2010)
Conversely, Jane spoke about a teacher who did offer her sub-
stantive feedback:
My seventh grade teacher Mrs. P, she really made me
love writing. I mean she was just a really great person,
she was really fun. She’d give me like positive critique
about my writing, not like ‘oh this is really good’, but ‘oh
this is how you could make it better.’ (Jane, interview,
February 13, 2010)
Teachers can encourage talented creative writers by
comparing their work with that of older students rather
than with that of their peers, and giving two to three
substantive, specific suggestions for improvement, even
on “A” papers.
Theme 6: It’s Not You, It’s Me
Some of the talented writers I interviewed distinguished
between two types of writing: writing for the other (usually
the teacher) and writing for the self. Writing for “myself” was
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 GIFTED CHILD TODAY
writing for fun and self-discovery. Writing for the other was a
performance, more polished and generic than representative of
the writer’s authentic self.
Lily described the difference between writing for herself and
for her teachers:
I think writing a research paper is writing something for
someone else, to someone else, to inform another person
what they don’t know, so you’re writing for an audience.
And creative writing is writing for myself, what I choose
to write, and if other people like it, great. But, um, a
research paper I think is definitely writing something
for someone else, it’s not doing anything for me. (Lily,
interview, February 13, 2010)
Similarly, Nicole, a novelist, had this advice for other young
writers:
You can’t think of it as something you’re going to
hate because writing for fun is a whole lot different
than writing for somebody else.
“
When you’re writing for you it’s
the greatest feeling in the world.
(Nicole, interview, April 14, 2010)
This feeling of
The National Council of Teachers nonexistence is
of English and International Reading
Association’s (2011) Standards for
what brings me back
the English Language Arts includes with a pen in hand
Standard 12: Students use spoken,
written, and visual language to and a notebook in
accomplish their own purposes (e.g.,
for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, front of me every
and the exchange of information).
To honor this standard, teachers can
time.”
create assignments that are broad
enough for students to choose their own topics, genres, and
authentic audiences.
Theme 7: Creativity Counts
Most teachers would agree that we want our students to bring
both creativity and analysis to all of their writing assignments. Yet,
how many teachers specifically assess creativity when grading
writing assignments? POP was different. The winners were the
ones with the most creative interpretations of the prompts. For
example, the winner of the “robots” prompt wrote in the second
person from a collection of fashion models who protested that
although they looked and acted the same, they were not robots.
Talented creative writers value freedom and flexibility in the
English classroom. Darcy describes one such flexible teacher:
I had a great teacher my 7th and 8th grade year named
Mrs. B. and she was you know really flexible. We would
sort of discuss as a class. She’d give us some options
for books and we would choose one and write about
it, and she was really great about not really putting any
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April 2012
limits on our writing. She might set like a minimum but
beyond that you could write as much as you wanted
and you could bring in outside resources and she just
really encouraged us to explore our writing which is
not something you find in a lot of other classes. (Darcy,
interview, March 28, 2010)
Jane remembers a time in elementary school when she wrote
off topic, but was not punished for her creativity. She says:
I remember once we learned about adjectives in fifth
grade, and we were supposed to write about a house,
and I wrote about fairies living in this house that was all
torn down. And I was really proud of it. And my teacher
was like, “This isn’t what I asked you to write about, but
it’s really good, so I’ll give you a good grade anyways.
(Jane, interview, February 13, 2010)
Of course, teachers do not always have the option to give
a good grade for off-topic writing or creative interpretations.
However, there are other ways they
can nurture creativity. They can
award points for essays and narratives
that have a very original thesis, that
incorporate strong metaphors or
unusual but appropriate analogies,
that bring in perspectives from
other disciplines, that use humor
appropriately to communicate a
message, and that incorporate pathos or
sensory description. This communicates
to students that their creativity is
honored even in academic writing.
Theme 8:
Writing Is Good Medicine
Why do talented creative writers write? Sometimes, they just
need to get their emotions out on the page. Lily describes the
therapeutic use of writing that lifts her from “depression” and
“darkness”:
Writing is the guiding star when my life is a vast stretch
of darkness. When I write, the paper never tells me
I’m wrong and never talks back. It doesn’t walk away
when I’m mid-sentence and is always there no matter
what time it is. I write because it lifts me up from my
depression and sits me in the world I create on paper.
For those forty minutes or so while I scribble down a
short story, I don’t exist. I’m in another world, another
universe, billions of miles away from me at my desk.
This feeling of nonexistence is what brings me back with
a pen in hand and a notebook in front of me every time.
Teachers can acknowledge that not all of writing, even from
our most talented writers, needs to be polished. Sometimes
the act of writing is just as important as the product.
vol. 35 ■ no. 2
Discussion
The young writers in this study do not speak for all talented
young writers. The themes I identified may resonate with
teachers but do not automatically generalize to other school
contexts. Most of these writers were young women who lived
in rural or suburban areas, so the voices of males and urban
students are underrepresented. Furthermore, all of these students
were recognized for their creative writing, and I might have had
much different results interviewing students who excelled at
analytical writing (such as is done for the AP exams).
Teachers reading this may protest, I would love to nurture
creative writing talent, but I have to prepare my students for
the real world. The real world does not value creative writing.
In fact, when I presented my research to an eminent professor
visiting our institution, she said “Yes this is interesting but what
about when these students have to do real writing in college?”
The focus is on college, careers, and testing, and as a former
AP English teacher, I certainly empathize with this frustration. I
believe that teachers can take comfort in something that Nicole
said about her English class:
Sometimes the teacher hands out one of those papers
detailing the whats, hows, and whys of our latest
essay, I’ll groan with the rest of the class even as my
eyes scan hungrily over the paper, looking for ways to
insert a little bit of myself into this mundane bit of high
school. It makes the assignment (almost) fun, (almost)
like a puzzle to solve. That’s when I write to make the
mundane (almost) like a little bit of me. (Nicole, “Why I
Write,” April, 2010)
We, too, can look for ways to insert creativity and personal
relevance into the dictates that are given to us. We can sponsor
a creative writing unit in those last 3 weeks after the AP
test is done. Instead of teaching figures of speech by asking
students to locate them in another author’s work, we can give
students the choice to write their own work incorporating
specific figures of speech. With a simple edit, we can turn
the history essay exam question, “Describe the events that
occurred in Germany from 1930-1940” to “Describe what it
would be like to grow up in Germany during the years 1930-
1940” thereby adding the opportunity for creative narrative. We
can stretch beyond our traditional responsibilities as classroom
teachers by connecting talented creative writers with out-of-
classroom resources: mentors, writing camps, and publishing
opportunities. In short, we can differentiate and accommodate
when we find talented creative writers in our classrooms to
show them that we are listening to their purposes for writing
and what they have to teach us.
GIFTED CHILD TODAY
Author’s Note
The author acknowledges the support of her dissertation chair
and advisor, Laurence J. Coleman.
Conflict of Interest
The author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.
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Edmunds, A. L., & Edmunds, G. A. (2005). Sensitivity: A double-edged
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Kohányi, A. (2005). Four factors that may predict the emergence of
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195-205. doi:10.1207/s15326934crj1702&3_6
National Council of Teachers of English and International Reading
Association. (2011). NCTE Standards for English Language Arts.
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Bio
Jill M. Olthouse, PhD, is an assistant professor in the
Department of Special Education at West Virginia
University (WVU). She is responsible for teaching
courses in the Online Gifted Education Masters and
Certification Programs, advising Gifted Education
majors, and organizing the Summer Gifted Workshops
at WVU. Her areas of research interest are domain-
specific talent development, conceptions of giftedness,
and educational technology.
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