creative writing on technology

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• Published: 05 February 2019

Teaching digital fiction: integrating experimental writing and current technologies

• R. Lyle Skains   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8869-0215 1  

Palgrave Communications volume  5 , Article number:  13 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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• Cultural and media studies
• Language and linguistics

Today’s creative writers are immersed in a multiplicative, multimodal—digital—universe. It requires “multiliteracies”, all in a constantly and rapidly evolving technological environment, which are not yet fundamentally integrated into the basic literacy skills entrenched in school learning. How can creative writing instructors in higher education best prepare their students for the real-world contexts of their creative practice? One approach is to integrate the creative writing workshop with a focus on digital and interactive design. This paper outlines a module incorporating multiple literacies into a creative writing course, Playable Fiction, noting the affordances, limitations, and benefits of teaching workshops for writing digital fiction (“born-digital” fiction, composed for and read on digital devices). The researcher took an ethnographical approach to the question, designing a module to encourage creative writing students to experiment with digital fiction, and observing the effects on the students’ attitudes and their coursework. Included is a discussion of the benefits to students of developing multiliteracies and considerations for teaching, including issues of technical know-how and the lack of infrastructural support. Finally, the paper describes the model class taught to second-year and third-year undergraduates in the ‘Games Design and Professional Writing' programs at Bangor University, in the UK, including marking recommendations and reading list advice.

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The prevailing notion of creative writing workshops in higher education—that our creative writing students are all going to become short fiction writers and novelists—is not only shortsighted, it is backwards-facing. Today’s creative writers are immersed in a multiplicative, multimodal—digital—universe. To ignore the many different modes and methods of narrative storytelling they have at their fingertips is to render our classrooms as backwaters, excluding “significant student knowledge from the learning environment” (Ryan et al., 2010 , p. 477). In this paper I outline a module in which I incorporate multiple literacies into a creative writing course, Playable Fiction, noting the affordances, limitations, and benefits of teaching workshops for writing digital fiction Footnote 1 . For creative writers, digital fiction workshops offer a multiliteracies approach (Cazden et al., 1996 ; Cope and Kalantzis, 2009 ) that develops digital literacy, reflective practice, and audience awareness, as well as organically opening students up to fresh and even experimental techniques and perspectives in their writing practice.

As undergraduate creative writing instructors, our aims and learning objectives for our students have necessarily changed from the 20th century. As tuition costs rise, we are being asked more and more not only to develop critical thinking skills and, more specifically, creative writing skills in our students, but to help them gain vocational and transferable skills as well (Bok, 2009 ; Carr, 2009 ). In the 21st century, those include multimodal communication, which plays an increasingly important role in everyday life, the workplace, academia, citizenship, and even issues of agency and the self (Cope and Kalantzis, 2009 ; Archer and Breuer, 2016 ). Higher education, however, has been slow to engage in multimodal literary practices (Goodfellow, 2011 , p. 136), for whatever reason: lack of holistic teaching approaches in the academy; the quickly changing literary landscape; or insecurities about new technologies and practices. Arlene Archer and Esther Breuer make an eloquent case for embracing these multimodal and digital challenges in higher education:

…a multimodal approach has the potential to provide a healthy antidote to monolingual and logocentric approaches to meaning-making, enabling a metacognitive view of semiosis as occurring across languages and modes, as well as a successful way of enabling access to dominant and powerful forms ( 2016 , p. 14).

The future of writing is multiplicative: multimodal, collaborative, participatory, and distributed (Short and Kauffman, 2000 ; Clark, 2010 ; Jacobs, 2012 ). It is imperative that we engage our creative writing students with all of the sign systems available to them for meaning-making in digital contexts; not only will teaching digital fiction help them to be better writers with wider career opportunities, but it will also to enable them to develop some of the skills that are expected of them as 21st century citizens (Dogan and Robin, 2008 , p. 902).

While many instructors are reluctant to embrace the “digital” element of writing fiction, the form itself grew out of experimental and avant-garde literatures: OuLiPo, literary cubism, temporal contortionism, and both Modernism and postmodernism, standing on the shoulders of Jorge Luis Borges, John Barth, Italo Calvino, Samuel Beckett, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce, to name a few (Ciccoricco, 2012 , p. 472). Its early forms are early video games: text adventures (a genre that is alive and well, now often called “interactive fiction”), which dominated the 1980s game industry (Briceno et al., 2000 ). As games moved toward visual graphics and first-person avatars, hypertext fictions began to circulate, with Michael Joyce’s afternoon ( 1987 ) generally noted as the first, preceding even the Internet (Ensslin and Skains, 2017 ). Digital writers proceeded to turn every software platform and distribution system to their own ends, including HTML, Macromedia/Adobe Flash, JavaScript, game engines, and mobile applications. Collectively, the narrative-focused, multimodal, digital works they create are termed “digital fiction” (a form of electronic literature):

fiction written for and read on a computer screen that pursues its verbal, discursive and/or conceptual complexity through the digital medium, and would lose something of its esthetic and semiotic function if it were removed from that medium (Bell et al., 2010 , p. np).

As a still emerging and evolving form of narrative storytelling, digital fiction offers creative writers an opportunity to create and develop literacies in the “visual and digital media they consume and produce in mass quantities on a daily basis” (Hergenrader, 2015 , p. 46). This paper offers a model for teaching digital fiction workshops for undergraduate instructors. The following sections establish the benefits to students of immersing them in this multimodal form, as they develop crucial multiliteracies in the creative writing classroom. Considerations for teaching are discussed, including issues of technical know-how and the lack of infrastructural support for these types of texts. Finally, I describe the model class I teach to second-year and third-year undergraduates in the Professional Writing program at Bangor University, in the UK, including marking recommendations and reading list advice.

The benefits of teaching digital fiction for creative writers

Twenty-first century writers face a wild and varied landscape unlike any previously known. Prior to written culture, crafting fiction involved memorization, appropriation, transformation, and recitation: an oral tradition that, while rich, was limited by the bounds of memory, language, and time. The era of print—a technological revolution itself—extended these boundaries, but introduced new boundaries in form, sequence, copyright, and commerciality. Moreover, print writers craft fiction using what has become an endemic or ‘neutral’ skill: communicating through written language. Comparatively, if print writing is a road well-traveled, the digital writing landscape is a barely explored wilderness. It requires “multiliteracies” (Cope and Kalantzis, 2009 ): writing; awareness of various film, music, Internet, and game conventions; awareness of cultural signs and references; video, image, and sound manipulation; HTML coding; and potentially much, much more, all in a constantly and rapidly evolving technological environment. These skills—with the exception of writing, reading, and hopefully some cultural dialogue—are not yet fundamentally integrated into the basic literacy skills entrenched in school learning. Nor can we expect our undergraduate students to undertake to learn them in the didactic teaching model that has dominated Western pedagogy for so long, by taking individual classes in computer programming, graphic design, sound design, web design, filmmaking, animation, and creative writing.

The current creative writing landscape calls for a more integrated approach, one that recognizes the wide variety of professional options for our students once they graduate. Less than 10% of creative writing students go on to stereotypical “writing” careers (fiction writing, publishing, translating); far more go into arts/design/media careers (17.7%) and marketing/public relations/sales (11.3%)—not to mention the significant numbers who enter professions such as education, health, business, information technology, and law (Logan and Prichard, 2016 ; What can I do with a creative writing degree? 2018 ). These fields—creative writing included—increasingly call for multiliterate professionals; we are failing to prepare our students properly for their careers if we restrict our teaching to the Raymond Carver “minimalist” prose and poetry workshop model (Koehler, 2015 ).

In defining the Multiliteracies Pedagogical Framework, Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis argue for teaching design rather than the rules of language, grammar, and canon ( 2009 ). Like multimodality, a design-focused approach engages students in multiliteracies holistically, encouraging them to practice a process of development for their work that closely resembles the draft-workshop-revise creative writing process we have taught for decades. It reaches further, however, asking students to: develop awareness of all the methods of communication at their disposal; analyze their audience, market, and communication media; choose communication methods and modes that best suit their message and audience; construct texts that make the best use of these options—and, at their best, create a text that not only adds these media and modes together, but combines them in such a way that their meanings, when (re-)constructed by the reader, are multiplicative (Lemke, 1998 ), the whole more than the sum of its parts. This is the goal of multiliteracies pedagogy, onboarding students with interpretive strategies and flexible skillsets that not only enhance and progress the art of narrative fiction creation, but also outfit them with transferable skills valuable in modern careers across all professions.

While most students are certainly immersed in digital media, from social media and text messaging to web comics and gaming, most undergraduate students are largely unfamiliar with digital fiction as a creative writing endeavor. They may be familiar with the fringes of digital fiction that are part of the mainstream, such as walking simulators, YouTube mashups, and mobile app versions of classic texts (along with a range of virally/socially shared texts Leonardo Flores terms “3rd generation e-lit” [ 2018 ]); they rarely conceive of these texts, however, as falling under the banner of creative writing, even if they have dabbled in composing some themselves. Thus, the simple transition of the writing space from word processor (and, typically, some work in pen and paper) to HTML composer introduces a simple but significant change to their writing practice, an element of “trouble”, as Howard Garfinkel ( 1967 ) terms it, that brings their habitual practices and habits into relief, allowing for greater introspection, reflection, and experimentation.

The shift in the writing space brings with it a multimodal practice. Whereas prose comes with a relatively rigid presentation mode (codex, black text, white/cream page, left-to-right, top-to-bottom, first page to last), the nature of the digital medium opens a multitude of communicative potentialities. Their narratives can include multilinear plotlines relying on reader interactivity; they may incorporate color, image, sound, video, movement, music, and gameplay. Composing digitally increases the opportunity for writers to use these additional modes to convey narrative metaphor, character, and setting (Chisholm and Trent, 2013 ; Skains, 2017 ): “each sign system makes available different potentials for meaning” (Short and Kauffman, 2000 , p. 44). Further, the digital writer is faced with technological and mechanical challenges in the construction of their texts, regardless of their level of experience, resulting in a “heightened awareness of the act of construction and an output that breaks from the writer’s familiar style…[encouraging] the kind of intentional thinking that is just as useful in traditional writing” (Reed, 2015 , p. 143). The digital medium engages writers in a metacognitive approach to the creation of narrative, pushing their writing practice to previously underexplored heights.

Also inherent in digital composition is a shifted focus to the reader (or generally, the reader-player). Many writers, particularly student writers, write mainly for themselves or for assessments; I’ve found it difficult for most to “put their work out there”: to submit for publishing, to share with friends and family, or even to submit to my department’s end-of-year “showcase”, even when urged by their tutors Footnote 2 . Writing digital fiction requires them to do more than just write: it requires them to design (Cope and Kalantzis, 2009 ), to create a text and an interface that function in harmony for the desired reader experience. They have to consider what word, color, image, and/or sound choices might lead their reader to click one link over another—and what it may mean to the reader in terms of narrative interpretation when they do. They have to consider dead ends and broken links, timing of image downloads and volume (and potential for irritation) of background music. In digital texts, “the balance of agency in meaning construction has shifted in favor of the viewer” (Cope and Kalantzis, 2009 , p. 181). This shift requires digital writers to focus on the audience experience of their texts from the very first stages of composition, rather than merely at the end when they want to send query letters out and need to identify their work’s genre and market for potential agents and editors.

If digital writers are engaging multiplicatively in their texts for the sake of their audience, they are certainly more engaged in the text overall. Perhaps because of the unfamiliarity of the composition space, or perhaps because of the novelty of doing something new, I find my digital writers working up drafts earlier in the semester, rarely leaving their creative assessment to the night before (as happens so frequently on other modules). It is a repeating refrain in the literature on use of digital storytelling in classrooms, from elementary school students to higher education: students working in digital media have significantly increased levels of engagement in their coursework (Hull et al., 2010 ; Ryan et al., 2010 ; Letter, 2015 ; Williams, 2016 ). My own students have successfully negotiated, as a class, higher word counts for their digital work, so they can do more and push their digital fictions further. Students are interested in doing something new with their writing, in playing with technology, in being original . Likewise, they are excited to create texts that resonate with their peers, with the digitally-integrated spaces they engage in outside of academic realms (Williams, 2016 , p. 127). They gain confidence in creating something new and interesting in the technological world they most connect to. They read Jennifer Egan’s short fiction and lament they’ll never be good enough to publish in The New Yorker ; they read her same work as a Twitter novel and think, hey, I can do that, and it will be fun.

Given these perceptions in our students, it is important that we as creative writing tutors maintain environments that encourage creative writers to express themselves in variety of ways to suit different orientations, styles, and audiences.

It is both fascinating and important to consider how the opportunity to multiplicatively combine and design image, color, and text on a page, thereby exercising one’s artfulness and imagination as communicator and creator, can expand meaning-making strategies, opportunities, and motivations for youthful authors (Hull et al., 2010 , p. 347).

Multimodality is a democratizing force (Hull and Nelson, 2005 , p. 253): it enables writers to play to different strengths, whether their own communicative or artistic strengths, or the strengths of a chosen medium or genre. It allows students of different backgrounds, cultures, linguistic levels, areas of interest, fandoms, genre preferences, and communication styles to compose texts in a wide variety of methods—a multiplicity that we as instructors could never strictly delineate and define (and should not , in the interests of developing multiliteracies in our students). It allows us as instructors to engage students not only in the genres and forms we want them to learn, but to engage them in genres and forms they already navigate on a daily basis (Williams, 2016 , p. 122).

This democratization occurs not only between tutors and students, whose mediatized environments can be enormously different (given factors such as age, education, political affiliation, social networks, etc.), but also between students of different backgrounds. The divides between student experiences and capabilities are factors of culture, education history, and, mostly, socio-economic background (Cope and Kalantzis, 2009 ; Letter, 2015 ). At university level, most of our students are generally of a level, thanks to admissions procedures. As more and more (UK) universities, however, seek to expand admissions through international admissions, we find ourselves teaching increasing numbers of ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse students, as well as English as a Second Language (ESL) students. The latter in particular face significant communication and learning gaps, as they “must simultaneously learn both language and subject matter knowledge in a new sociocultural context” (Early and Marshall, 2008 , p. 378, emphasis original). Multiple studies have shown that multimodal analysis and assessment strategies not only connected better with these students, but also enabled more nuanced understandings of abstract concepts and theories (Early and Marshall, 2008 ; Skinner and Hagood, 2008 ; Ryan et al. 2010 ), as well as offering “psychological refuge” from the constant pressure and self-doubt that accompanies learning through an unfamiliar tongue (Choi and Yi, 2015 , p. 15).

Likewise, digitally-enabled multimodal practices offer students the opportunity for knowledge exchange on both cultural and informational fronts. The medium’s multimodality encourages expression through metaphoric and symbolic semiotics, which vary across cultures and backgrounds. By sharing works incorporating these various signs, not only amongst a classroom-based peer group but online as well, students “experience cross-cultural perspectives involving ‘cosmopolitan habits of mind’—the ability to recognize and negotiate differences between competing global cultural perspectives” (Beach, 2012 , p. 449; cf. Hull et al. 2010 ). In addition to this cultural sharing, students also engage in co-teaching (Short and Kauffman, 2000 , p. 56) as they turn to one another for operational or technical help with the software. Because an instructor leading a full class in unfamiliar skills development will necessarily have their attention divided, the students become active participants in trouble-shooting, teaching themselves how to solve a problem or accomplish a goal (through trial-and-error, tutorials, or web searches), then teach one another (Ryan et al. 2010 ; Beach, 2012 ; Letter, 2015 ). They become independent learners, “[participating] in the learning commons to share ideas and alternative perspectives for addressing problems leading to…an essential 21st-century digital literacy” (Beach, 2012 , p. 451).

Considerations for teachers

Multiliteracies, including digital literacy, are not yet standard pedagogical aims; we cannot expect our students to enter our classrooms possessing the necessary literacies to construct digital fiction in the same way we can for prose fiction. Even moreso, instructors are unlikely to possess these multiliteracies as a rule. I once had a workshop leader preclude science fiction submissions in her class—not necessarily because she looked down on the genre, but because, in her argument, she was not familiar enough with it to be able to comment on it or mark it. For teaching digital fiction, the problem is multiplied by the fact that not only may the instructors feel inadequate to teach it (Clancy, 2015 ), their students are unlikely to have much familiarity with it, either. With administrative pressures such as student evaluations, external examiners, Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and the National Student Survey (NSS) in the UK, university instructors are understandably reluctant to embark on a situation wherein the blind may be leading the blind, as it were. Yet the numerous instances where digital storytelling and other multimodal methods have been employed in classrooms (Ryan et al. 2010 ; Choi and Yi, 2015 ; Clancy, 2015 ; Letter, 2015 ; Williams, 2016 )—even by instructors at least initially unfamiliar with the technology—demonstrate that these concerns can be mediated, and the benefits outweigh any stumbles that might occur.

Regarding students and the literacies they bring in to the classroom, many instructors overestimate their students’ capabilities. The “digital divide” places age-based expectations on so-called “digital natives” that do not actually bear out; as Amy Letter points out, “[t]he only divide that has proven genuine is a socioeconomic one” ( 2015 , p. 179). As digital interfaces have evolved toward consumer accessibility, users actually have less incentive to get into the guts of the digital media they participate in on a daily basis; most of the creative activity in any community comes from a relatively small proportion of “super-users”. In the area of digital fiction, particularly, given the form has not (yet) significantly entered the mainstream, students are generally largely unfamiliar with it. Thus the good news: our students are unlikely to enter our digital writing classrooms knowing more than we do about digital fiction. And the bad news: our students are not entering into our digital writing classrooms already armed with the skills they need to create digital fiction, despite our expectations of them as “digital natives”.

If we are to implement a multiliteracies approach in creative writing workshops, incorporating digital fiction and writing, then mitigating approaches to close the gaps in instructor and student knowledge are required. The first of these is the multiliteracies approach itself: by embracing a teaching model that is open, flexible, and iterative, the classroom becomes a cooperative teaching and learning space. The instructor is not expected to be a pinnacle of knowledge; rather, they serve as a guide and mentor for the student to develop that knowledge through their own activities (Cope and Kalantzis, 2009 ; Letter, 2015 ). If the students are engaged, interested in creating a work that they can compare to those on a reading list or even from their own digital interactions outside the classroom, “we can have them engaged in a digital writing process that focuses first on the writer, then on the writing, and lastly on the technology” (Hicks, 2009 , p. 8). The process of learning the technology for creative purposes teaches critical problem-solving skills, develops the task-switching required for working in digital environments, and can even serve as a form of artistic restraint, inspiring new directions for their work (Letter, 2015 ).

What is required of the digital writing instructor, then, is not extensive knowledge of digital fiction softwares, but rather to serve a more Miyagi-like role: to ask analytical questions and pose creative challenges that encourage the students think more deeply about their work and approach it from relevant and fresh perspectives (Ryan et al., 2010 ). A first-person example: as a graduate teaching assistant in a media department, I was chosen to lead workshops on digital media modules merely because I had audited them the previous year; I barely managed to keep a week ahead of my students in terms of the skills I was teaching. Workshop sessions were a nightmare of trouble-shooting students’ issues with their work; if I could not suss the issue in-class, I worked on it on my own time and delivered the solution to the student in the next session. I spent many (unpaid) hours chasing down these issues, feeling inadequate and frustrated. In contrast, in my most recent Playable Fiction module, many of my students integrated elements into their digital fictions that I still have no idea how to do, and spent no time in learning. Instead, I created an expectation that their works only had to have the bare basics of digital fiction (hyperlinks); further functionality was via their own skills and intrepitude. As a result, they googled and followed tutorials and tested things out and shared amongst themselves. These students gained far greater abilities than my earlier students did, not only with the softwares, but also in problem-solving and cooperation.

Outside of the spheres of instructor and student literacies, a further constraint on the digital writing workshop remains: university infrastructure. As discussed above, digital fiction is intangible, evanescent, and appears in a wide array of forms, under just as many nomenclatures. Digital writers use any and every software platform available to them, from expensive professional creative suites to ubiquitous programs like PowerPoint. It is a form that cannot yet be cataloged and accessed via a library: as most is not commercial, it cannot be purchased; likewise, without commercial publishing streams, digital fiction is dispersed throughout the web, with no central distribution hub. Without these centralizing forces, digital fiction is difficult to track and archive: there is, as yet, no cataloging system such as ISBNs, and continually updating digital technology renders many works unreadable in devastatingly short periods. While groups such as the Electronic Literature Organization and the Electronic Literature Lab Footnote 3 are establishing archives and collections, these remain a small fraction of the wealth of digital fiction that exists, and rarely include the more “popular” forms that students are more likely to connect to in their introduction to digital fiction. Currently, the onus is on each individual instructor to construct and maintain an active reading list of digital fictions for students to engage with (suggestions for doing so are below).

As for platforms to use for creating digital fiction, these also have a quality of evanescence, depending on their cost, uptake, and, most importantly, continued development and support. Many that I employed in my digital media modules in the last few years have come and gone. On the upside, developers are continually introducing new platforms that make content creation ever cheaper (usually free) and ever easier; on the downside, technology is moving swifter than ever, as are user trends and habits. Even if a tech or platform remains, often our students perceive it as outdated and uninteresting (see their shift away from Facebook toward Instagram and SnapChat—which, by the time this article publishes, will likely be antiquated). Again, the onus is unfortunately on the individual instructor to find a platform that works best for their aims and students, and to seek out new ones on a regular basis (again, suggestions are below).

“Playable Fiction” as a model

In this section, I outline the digital fiction workshop that I teach regularly, offering it as a model (though not the model; many iterations are possible, of course). It is worth noting that I created this module for dual purposes: (1) to introduce a digital fiction workshop into my department’s undergraduate program, which had none at that stage, and (2) to conduct ethnographic research into the effects of digital composition on creative writers’ practice (Skains et al. 2016 ; paper in preparation). The structure of the module and its assessments are predicated upon this latter purpose.

Playable Fiction is a 12-week taught undergraduate module, taught in the spring semester of even-numbered years. It is designed as an exercise in experimental writing, aiming to “interrogate and analyze the effects of experimenting with unconventional/unnatural forms on conventional or commercial writing practices” Footnote 4 . As such, the first five weeks of the module focus on reading and writing Twine storygames; weeks 6–9 see the students transmediating their own storygames into prose; and the final three weeks are spent analyzing the process and narratives for insight into how writing in digital form affects the creative writer’s practice. The three assessments consist of a 2000-word “storygame” Footnote 5 , a 3000-word prose adaptation of the storygame, and a 2000-word analysis of the creative writing process. The module’s weekly meetings are split into a 1-hour lecture (incorporating theory from narratology, interactivity, and the evolution of narrative and play), a 1-hour study group session (collaborative discussion and exercises are given and recorded, usually relating the lecture discussion to their creative works), and a 1-hour seminar/workshop in a computer lab (for creative exercises, beta-testing, and workshopping). Creative readings include Twine games, hypertexts, interactive fiction, and print ergodic texts (e.g., Mark Danielewski’s 2000 House of Leaves ) (Aarseth 1997 ). Students complete weekly activities based on critical discussion questions and writing exercises, directed toward completion of their three assessments, and record them in research logs (Evernote notebooks shared with the instructor).

The digital fiction software I employ on this module is Twine ( http://twinery.org ). I have covered the history of this program elsewhere (Ensslin and Skains, 2017 ); the short version is that Chris Klimas created it expressly to compose digital fiction—unlike many other platforms that were appropriated from multimedia authoring tools—and indie game developer Anna Anthropy embraced it and promoted it ( 2012 ). The result was that a significant proportion of indie game developers who were under-represented in the games industry (LGBTQ+, women, religious and ethnic minorities) took up the platform for personal and portfolio development. Rather than letting it fade away into obscurity (as he nearly did), Klimas released Twine 2.0, which runs in any Internet browser and requires no download. As the Twine community grew, so too did its resources: it boasts extensive online tutorials, which grow all the time. It remains one of the simplest digital composition tools I have encountered to date, with the greatest capability for adding complexity and functionality (thanks to its JavaScript foundation). It outputs as HTML files, easily saved and easily published, with all the accessibility of the World Wide Web. At its most basic, it requires only two elements: passages and links. Passages form the text the reader will see, and links connect them together (see Figs. 1 – 3 ).

The Twine interface: Passages are represented as white boxes; links are represented as arrows between boxes

A Twine passage: users write their text in these passages. Links are created in this Twine “Story Format” by placing two square brackets around the text to be linked

The passage from Fig. 2 as displayed for a reader in an Internet browser

I have had elderly students create basic hypertext fictions using Twine 2.0 within 30 min, and teenagers create multimedia games over the course of a week. In their five weeks with the program, undergraduates on Playable Fiction go from complete unfamiliarity with it, to submitting a fully functional digital fiction:

Week 1: Introduction to Twine. Read a few Twine games, play with the software. Create a simple story, such as a joke or recent event, to get familiar with creating links and passages.

Week 2: Share and play your simple Twine games. Create a storygame “bible”, and “wireframe” your storygame (see Heussner et al., 2015 ).

Week 3: Share and discuss storygame bibles. Draft storygame.

Week 4: Beta-test storygame. Revise per feedback.

Week 5: Beta-test storygame. Revise per feedback. Submit final storygame in Week 6.

As noted, this module is designed as an experiment into practice; as such, digital writing occurs only in these five to six weeks. Without research constraints on a module, instructors can expand the workshop to include the full course of the term, incorporating further beta-tests, additional digital fictions, and alternative writing exercises.

One additional consideration to incorporate into any digital media module is that of intellectual property and copyright. Most students are immersed in their everyday lives in a culture of sharing and remix (Williams, 2016 , p. 120); the creation and sharing of memes and videos rarely entails proper attribution for creators of the various source materials. Yet proper assignment of intellectual property rights is a desirable learning outcome in academic settings. Integration of copyright discussions into digital writing classrooms is good practice, particularly as these students may move into professions where they are using digital materials, and need to use them appropriately, such as media creation, marketing, or creating web content. While using various materials for educational and/or transformative purposes typically constitutes “fair use”, students should develop a habit of checking the rights assigned to properties they access, save, and incorporate into their works, and using and attributing them appropriately.

Marking digital fiction writing

Unlike my old workshop leader, I embrace an open philosophy when it comes to student submissions; my concerns as a teacher are not that my students write what I know. Rather, I deem a work successful if it is meeting the needs of its (intended) audience. Students come to creative writing for many different purposes; the ones who seek out my classes are often those who, like Anna Anthropy and her community, feel shunted by the “literary” expectations of the Carver-modeled creative writing workshops (which often preclude writing outside of “literary fiction” and poetry) that dominate higher education programs. Frequently, my students are interested in or have already written fanfiction, comics, genre fiction, and scripts; most are also immersed in digital interactivity in some form, whether blogging, social media, or games. Attempting to dissuade them from these pursuits is not only disingenuous, it is detrimental to their futures as writers, whatever career path that may take.

Thus my marking model emphasizes the process of writing and design, rather than focusing solely on the end product. This is in line with Cope and Kalantzis’ Multiliteracies Pedagogy, which delineates a teaching model that guides students through the processes of experiencing (both the known and the new); conceptualizing (naming concepts and weaving them into interpretive frameworks); analyzing (both for functionality and for power relationships); and applying this experience, knowledge, and understanding to work (both appropriately for real world contexts, and creatively for innovation and new perspectives) ( 2009 , pp. 184–5). Shelley Tracey presents a very similar emphasis on process in her Model for Creative Reflection, with its four phases of preparation (enacting “threshold activities” that cross-reference between known and new experiences); play (encouraging creative thinking, interpretative approaches for new ideas); exploration (purposefully putting these interpretations into a new project); and synthesis (in which “experience and learning are synthesized into new understandings”) ( 2007 , p. 5).

I have transitioned my marking (on all modules, including Playable Fiction) from a model in which only the final creative artifact is marked, to one in which all of the activities leading up to that artifact are part of the marking scheme. This scheme is based in Linda Nilson’s Specifications Grading model ( 2014 ), which provides a useful framework for focusing on processes and activities rather than a single final project (without making the marking into an odious task). In my application, the final artifact is the minimum required element of any assessment: if a student submits only this element, regardless of how outstanding it may be, the highest mark it can receive is a D + (working on a letter-grade system in which A is the highest band and D is the minimum pass level). All of the weekly exercises I assign leading up to that artifact constitute pass/fail exercises that pop their scores up with each one that is successfully completed and presented—on time—in class (i.e., the exercises as noted above: [1] simple storygame, [2] storygame bible, [3] draft storygame, [4] beta-testing results and feedback, [5] revised draft). I design my contact time so that I review their exercises while they are doing in-class activities such as group work or creative exploration, eliminating the need for extra time spent marking outside of contact hours—a consideration sorely needed in these times of increasing faculty workloads and student numbers.

One amendment I have made to Nilson’s model is to the pass/fail binary. Instead, I use a system of marks 0–3, as shown in Table 1 , ranging from “not submitted” (0) to “satisfactory-plus” (3) for exemplary, A-level work. Students who consistently receive 2 s on their work will earn a B-band mark on their overall assessment; students who consistently receive 3s, including on the final artifact, will earn an A-band mark. I give all students Nilson’s recommended “tokens” (usually 2–3 per module), which they can trade in to me in order to resubmit an exercise for a higher score, to submit an exercise late, or even for more creative uses such as negotiating a higher word count allowance on creative assessments.

As this paper is focused on the Playable Fiction module as a model of teaching digital fiction writing, and not a model of specifications grading Footnote 6 , it does not have the scope to analyze and evaluate this approach fully. Suffice it to note that the results of this implementation have been very positive: student engagement has increased, in terms of attendance and completion of weekly exercises. The final artifacts the students submit, for those who have engaged in the entire process, demonstrate more cohesion and polish on average than those I received under the previous marking model. Student evaluations are generally very positive: students like knowing exactly what they have to do to earn the mark they want, and they like the opportunities presented by the tokens to improve upon previous work. The few negative evaluations are typically from non-attenders who are otherwise good writers, and have previously coasted on their abilities, rather than their engagement with individual modules and learning outcomes. As creative writers, most students appreciate the incentive to engage with their writing practice on a more regular basis; they know it is a necessary part of improving their writing, but most have not yet developed sufficient self-discipline or time management skills to maintain a steady practice. For myself as an instructor, the benefits are that I see the students’ work more frequently, and can gauge much earlier if they (either as a group or as individuals) are struggling. I spend less time outside of contact hours marking work; as the students are getting regular measures of their work’s standards and participating in far more peer feedback, their final artifact is not so heavily weighted, and thus needs less of my feedback. Finally, from an institutional standpoint, students’ average performance on these modules has increased: students who work hard through the process almost always achieve a B-band mark, rather than the lower scores they might receive based on only one piece of work. Thus scores improve without need for artificial grade inflation or marking on a “curve”.

A final note on marking for instructors unsure of where the lines between “unsatisfactory”, “satisfactory”, and “satisfactory-plus” may fall in works of digital fiction. An excellent starting place for marking rubrics is Troy Hicks’ MMAPS heuristic, which he presents thoroughly in The Digital Writing Workshop ( 2009 , pp. 57–8). The text is aimed at primary and secondary school educators, but the concepts are applicable to undergraduate classrooms, particularly the heuristic, which places the marking evaluation on choices the student has made in terms of Media, communication Mode, meeting the Audience’s needs, demonstration and accomplishment of the text’s Purpose, and how the work addresses both the writ er ’s and the writ ing ’s Situation (MMAPS). This heuristic allows the instructor to evaluate a work not by their own standards, but by the standards of the work itself: how successful it is in defining and meeting its creator’s and audience’s needs. Mapping these criteria against the learning outcomes defined on an individual module provides a robust marking rubric that can be adaptable to any instructor’s level of knowledge and familiarity with their students’ chosen genres, audiences, and purposes.

Resources for teaching digital fiction writing

As discussed above, I (currently) recommend Twine as a software platform for creating digital fiction, particularly for the uninitiated. Twine has numerous qualities recommending it: it is free and open source, qualities not only in keeping with Internet culture and Creative Commons, but which make it cost-effective for any classroom regardless of budget. Twine 2.0 is browser-based, which makes it absolutely platform-independent, so no matter what machines are available to instructors or students, as long as they have internet access, they will be able to run it (it also has a desktop version for those without reliable internet connections). It has extensive online tutorials and communities, enabling students to seek out instructions for functionality they want, rather than relying on instructor know-how. It is extremely simple to use in its most basic functions (passages and hyperlinks), but its JavaScript foundation presents almost unlimited possibilities for media interactivity for the more advanced (a factor in the indie games scene’s approbation of it). Further, both the working files and the output files are HTML, making them easily sharable and readable on any machine (a relief for instructors like me, who prefer one platform or OS, while having to teach on another).

Nonetheless, Twine might not be for everyone. At its core, it is a hypertext machine, and not all digital fictions must be hypertexts. Because it is so user-friendly, little to no programming is required, leaving out a very useful literacy for today’s students. Depending on instructor preferences, program and module learning outcomes, and various other factors, other platforms may be more appropriate. Twine is certainly not the only tool available or already in use in classrooms; Table 2 outlines those that are (currently) most prominent, with a few of their features and considerations Footnote 7 .

Those most commonly used in undergraduate classrooms to create digital fiction (and games) include Inform7 (Reed, 2015 ), Quest (Ballentine, 2015 ), and Adobe Animate/Flash; the latter is frequently used for wider purposes, including animation, games development, and interactive websites, as it is an industry standard. Its costs, however, and high level of skill required, not to mention its deprecation on most mobile operating systems and many Internet browsers, put it at the bottom of the list for most digital fiction scenarios. Adobe Flash was the height of technology for digital fiction in the 2000s; once Apple announced it would not be supporting Flash on its platforms, however, digital writers turned to more open platforms based on HTML/CSS/JavaScript and HTML5. So while many students aiming for careers in media development may benefit from skills on this program, as a basic tool for digital fiction it is not worth the high cost, steep learning curve, and frequently buggy functionality in university IT infrastructures.

In terms of reading lists for students, there are many options, but as yet no definitive guides for selection. The AHRC-funded Reading Digital Fiction project has published a “Resources for Readers” page ( https://readingdigitalfiction.com/resources-for-readers/ ) ( 2016 ) that offers a few suggestions for starter readings in various digital fiction forms and genres, and includes a link to a “Beginner’s Guide”. The Electronic Literature Organization maintains a three-volume collection of e-lit (also including digital poetry) accessible at http://collection.eliterature.org/ . While this collection continues to grow, it is a “mirror of a specific moment in time occurring across continents, languages, and platforms” (Boluk et al., 2016 , p. np); as such, it lends itself to browsing rather than offering an easily searchable and filterable database for selection of works. The Interactive Fiction Database ( http://ifdb.tads.org/ ), on the other hand, is just that: a database of mostly parser-based and hypertext interactive fictions (built with Inform7, TADS, and Twine), though it is open to all forms of digital fiction. It includes a tagging and review system that better enable searching and selecting items for reading lists. Its limitations are in its community: it is far more populated by those creating puzzle-based games, interactive fictions, and Twine games than other forms of digital fiction. Nonetheless it is a solid option for seeking out texts to read. Other options include lists of winners and nominees for digital fiction prizes such as the New Media Writing Prize ( http://newmediawritingprize.co.uk/ ) and the Opening Up Digital Fiction Competition ( http://openingup.wonderboxpublishing.com ). Branching further out, itch.io is a publishing site for indie games, many of which are constructed with Twine and cross boundaries between games and digital fiction, as do “walking simulator” games that are frequently published through Steam.

There is a general attitude around digital media that they are “killing” the book, or that they herald “a movement away from the traditional text-based methods of teaching and executing creative writing. The shift is unsettling for many instructors” (Clancy, 2015 , p. 165, emphasis original). Yet Donna Alvermann urges us to let go of this worry over the (perceived) loss of print culture, lest we risk short-changing the education and lives of our students ( 2009 , p. 23). Engaging in multimodal, digital creativity is just the sort of multiliteracies education we should be striving for—not the least of which is because it inevitably leads our creative writing students back to written text (Hicks, 2009 ; Clancy, 2015 ; Koehler, 2015 ) that enables continued renewal of print fiction, while also inspiring them to explore new territory and experiment with fresh techniques and perspectives.

Shifting our own pedagogical perspective to appreciate the meaning-making opportunities that have expanded beyond the page, thanks to digital media, enables a focus on design-centered narrative storytelling. It emphasizes attention to the reader and their experience, to the modes and methods of conveying meaning, and generates a naturally iterative and reflective practice. The Playable Fiction model described in this paper offers a holistic, multiliteracies approach to the creative writing workshop. It strengthens students’ communication, writing, and storytelling skills, as well as giving them a framework to deepen their creative practice. A marking scheme that centers on process rather than final artifact engenders a reflective, creative, developmental atmosphere that improves student work while relieving pressure on them to have a single high-earning performance.

These adaptations offer positive approaches to teaching creative writing, particularly given current pressures higher education instructors face. We are asked not only to engage our students in a basic learning process, to help them meet the learning outcomes of individual modules and programs, but also to earn positive feedback on module evaluations, to consistently return excellent NSS and TEF results, to maintain high levels of retention, to graduate students with competitive degree results, and to imbue our students with qualities that ensure job and career success. All the while facing higher workloads, more job insecurity, and greater pressures in other aspects of our roles. The model offered here is not a total solution to these pressures, of course, but it can alleviate some issues, such as the pressure to (sometimes artificially) inflate student marks, to offer the same level of instruction to more and more students (thus increasing time spent marking), and to better engage students in their modules—and, indeed, their own learning process.

Data availability:

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

This paper focuses on digital fiction, as opposed to electronically published prose fiction (such as ebooks), as the creative writing practice that leads to electronically published prose fiction is not fundamentally different from that leading to printed prose fiction.

Many, however, are more than happy to post fanfiction online. It is worth noting, however, that most fanfiction is posted under anonymizing pseudonyms.

Respectively, https://eliterature.org/electronic-literature-archives/ and http://dtc-wsuv.org/wp/ell/ .

The fully validated module description can be found at https://www.bangor.ac.uk/ar/gazettes/module?gazyr=201718&module=UXS-2412&lang= .

I initially set the storygame to 1500 words; students overwhelmingly begged for more space to explore these texts, so it was rounded up to 2000. As the second assessment is a transmediation rather than a new assessment, most of those 3000 words are taken from the first assessment.

I maintain a full breakdown of my specifications grading module model, including links to sample module documents, here: http://lyleskains.blogspot.com/2018/09/my-take-on-specifications-grading-or.html .

Any list of digital technologies is obsolete almost as soon as it is composed; to produce one for a journal article is almost folly. Once this table is out of date (so…now), readers may turn to the online version I maintain for digital writers, where you may also make suggestions for additions or edits: http://wonderboxpublishing.com/news_reviews/df-resources/ .

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Acknowledgements

The research element of the Playable Fiction module was made possible, in part, by the AHRC-funded Reading Digital Fiction project (AH/K004174/1).

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Skains, R.L. Teaching digital fiction: integrating experimental writing and current technologies. Palgrave Commun 5 , 13 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0223-z

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• The Impact of Digital Tools on Student Writing and How Writing is Taught in Schools

Table of Contents

• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: How Much, and What, do Today’s Middle and High School Students Write?
• Part III: Teachers See Digital Tools Affecting Student Writing in Myriad Ways
• Part IV: Teachers Assess Students on Specific Writing Skills
• Part V: Teaching Writing in the Digital Age

A survey of 2,462 Advanced Placement (AP) and National Writing Project (NWP) teachers finds that digital technologies are shaping student writing in myriad ways and have also become helpful tools for teaching writing to middle and high school students.  These teachers see the internet and digital technologies such as social networking sites, cell phones and texting, generally facilitating teens’ personal expression and creativity, broadening the audience for their written material, and encouraging teens to write more often in more formats than may have been the case in prior generations.  At the same time, they describe the unique challenges of teaching writing in the digital age, including the “creep” of informal style into formal writing assignments and the need to better educate students about issues such as plagiarism and fair use.

The AP and NWP teachers surveyed see today’s digital tools having tangible, beneficial impacts on student writing

Overall, these AP and NWP teachers see digital technologies benefitting student writing in several ways:

• 96% agree (including 52% who strongly agree) that digital technologies “allow students to share their work with a wider and more varied audience”
• 79% agree (23% strongly agree) that these tools “encourage greater collaboration among students”
• 78% agree (26% strongly agree) that digital technologies “encourage student creativity and personal expression”

The combined effect of these impacts, according to this group of AP and NWP teachers, is a greater investment among students in what they write and greater engagement in the writing process.

At the same time, they worry that students’ use of digital tools is having some undesirable effects on their writing, including the “creep” of informal language and style into formal writing

In focus groups, these AP and NWP teachers shared some concerns and challenges they face teaching writing in today’s digital environment.  Among them are:

• an increasingly ambiguous line between “formal” and “informal” writing and the tendency of some students to use informal language and style in formal writing assignments
• the increasing need to educate students about writing for different audiences using different “voices” and “registers”
• the general cultural emphasis on truncated forms of expression, which some feel are hindering students willingness and ability to write longer texts and to think critically about complicated topics
• disparate access to and skill with digital tools among their students
• challenging the “digital tool as toy” approach many students develop in their introduction to digital tools as young children

Survey results reflect many of these concerns, though teachers are sometimes divided on the role digital tools play in these trends.  Specifically:

• 68% say that digital tools make students more likely—as opposed to less likely or having no impact—to take shortcuts and not put effort into their writing
• 46% say these tools make students more likely to “write too fast and be careless”
• Yet, while 40% say today’s digital technologies make students more likely to “use poor spelling and grammar” another 38% say they make students LESS likely to do this

Overall, these AP and NWP teachers give their students’ writing skills modest marks, and see areas that need attention

Asked to assess their students’ performance on nine specific writing skills, AP and NWP tended to rate their students “good” or “fair” as opposed to “excellent” or “very good.”  Students were given the best ratings on their ability to “effectively organize and structure writing assignments” with 24% of teachers describing their students as “excellent” or “very good” in this area. Students received similar ratings on their ability to “understand and consider multiple viewpoints on a particular topic or issue.”  But ratings were less positive for synthesizing material into a cohesive piece of work, using appropriate tone and style, and constructing a strong argument.

These AP and NWP teachers gave students the lowest ratings when it comes to “navigating issues of fair use and copyright in composition” and “reading and digesting long or complicated texts.”  On both measures, more than two-thirds of these teachers rated students “fair” or “poor.”

Majorities of these teachers incorporate lessons about fair use, copyright, plagiarism, and citation in their teaching to address students’ deficiencies in these areas

In addition to giving students low ratings on their understanding of fair use and copyright, a majority of AP and NWP teachers also say students are not performing well when it comes to “appropriately citing and/or referencing content” in their work.  This is fairly common concern among the teachers in the study, who note how easy it is for students today to copy and paste others’ work into their own and how difficult it often is to determine the actual source of much of the content they find online.  Reflecting how critical these teachers view these skills:

• 88% (across all subjects) spend class time “discussing with students the concepts of citation and plagiarism”
• 75% (across all subjects) spend class time “discussing with students the concepts of fair use and copyright”

A plurality of AP and NWP teachers across all subjects say digital tools make teaching writing easier

Despite some challenges, 50% of these teachers (across all subjects) say the internet and digital tools make it easier for them to teach writing, while just 18% say digital technologies make teaching writing more difficult.  The remaining 31% see no real impact.

Positive perceptions of the potential for digital tools to aid educators in teaching writing are reflected in practice:

• 52% of AP and NWP teachers say they or their students use interactive whiteboards in their classes
• 40% have students share their work on wikis, websites or blogs
• 36% have students edit or revise their own work and 29% have students edit others’ work using collaborative web-based tools such as GoogleDocs

In focus groups, teachers gave a multitude of examples of the value of these collaborative tools, not only in teaching more technical aspects of writing but also in being able to “see their students thinking” and work alongside students in the writing process.  Moreover, 56% say digital tools make their students more likely to write well because they can revise their work easily.

These middle and high school teachers continue to place tremendous value on “formal writing”

While they see writing forms and styles expanding in the digital world, AP and NWP teachers continue to place tremendous value on “formal writing” and try to use digital tools to impart fundamental writing skills they feel students need.  Nine in ten (92%) describe formal writing assignments as an ��essential” part of the learning process, and 91% say that “writing effectively” is an “essential” skill students need for future success.

More than half (58%) have students write short essays or responses on a weekly basis, and 77% assigned at least one research paper during the 2011-2012 academic year.  In addition, 41% of AP and NWP teachers have students write weekly journal entries, and 78% had their students create a multimedia or mixed media piece in the academic year prior to the survey.

Almost all AP and NWP teachers surveyed (94%) encourage students to do some of their writing by hand

Alongside the use of digital tools to promote better writing, almost all AP and NWP teachers surveyed say they encourage their students to do at least some writing by hand.  Their reasons are varied, but many teachers noted that because students are required to write by hand on standardized tests, it is a critical skill for them to have.  This is particularly true for AP teachers, who must prepare students to take AP exams with pencil and paper.  Other teachers say they feel students do more active thinking, synthesizing, and editing when writing by hand, and writing by hand discourages any temptation to copy and paste others’ work.

About this Study

The basics of the survey.

These are among the main findings of an online survey of a non-probability sample of 2,462 middle and high school teachers currently teaching in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, conducted between March 7 and April 23, 2012.  Some 1,750 of the teachers are drawn from a sample of advanced placement (AP) high school teachers, while the remaining 712 are from a sample of National Writing Project teachers.  Survey findings are complemented by insights from a series of online and in-person focus groups with middle and high school teachers and students in grades 9-12, conducted between November, 2011 and February, 2012.

This particular sample is quite diverse geographically, by subject matter taught, and by school size and community characteristics.  But it skews towards educators who teach some of the most academically successful students in the country. Thus, the findings reported here reflect the realities of their special place in American education, and are not necessarily representative of all teachers in all schools. At the same time, these findings are especially powerful given that these teachers’ observations and judgments emerge from some of the nation’s most advanced classrooms.

In addition to the survey, Pew Internet conducted a series of online and offline focus groups with middle and high school teachers and some of their students and their voices are included in this report.

The study was designed to explore teachers’ views of the ways today’s digital environment is shaping the research and writing habits of middle and high school students, as well as teachers’ own technology use and their efforts to incorporate new digital tools into their classrooms.

About the data collection

Data collection was conducted in two phases.  In phase one, Pew Internet conducted two online and one in-person focus group with middle and high school teachers; focus group participants included Advanced Placement (AP) teachers, teachers who had participated in the National Writing Project’s Summer Institute (NWP), as well as teachers at a College Board school in the Northeast U.S.  Two in-person focus groups were also conducted with students in grades 9-12 from the same College Board school.   The goal of these discussions was to hear teachers and students talk about, in their own words, the different ways they feel digital technologies such as the internet, search engines, social media, and cell phones are shaping students’ research and writing habits and skills.  Teachers were asked to speak in depth about teaching research and writing to middle and high school students today, the challenges they encounter, and how they incorporate digital technologies into their classrooms and assignments.

Focus group discussions were instrumental in developing a 30-minute online survey, which was administered in phase two of the research to a national sample of middle and high school teachers.  The survey results reported here are based on a non-probability sample of 2,462 middle and high school teachers currently teaching in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  Of these 2,462 teachers, 2,067 completed the entire survey; all percentages reported are based on those answering each question.  The sample is not a probability sample of all teachers because it was not practical to assemble a sampling frame of this population. Instead, two large lists of teachers were assembled: one included 42,879 AP teachers who had agreed to allow the College Board to contact them (about one-third of all AP teachers), while the other was a list of 5,869 teachers who participated in the National Writing Project’s Summer Institute during 2007-2011 and who were not already part of the AP sample. A stratified random sample of 16,721 AP teachers was drawn from the AP teacher list, based on subject taught, state, and grade level, while all members of the NWP list were included in the final sample.

The online survey was conducted from March 7–April 23, 2012.  More details on how the survey and focus groups were conducted are included in the Methodology section at the end of this report, along with focus group discussion guides and the survey instrument.

There are several important ways the teachers who participated in the survey are unique, which should be considered when interpreting the results reported here.  First, 95% of the teachers who participated in the survey teach in public schools, thus the findings reported here reflect that environment almost exclusively.  In addition, almost one-third of the sample (NWP Summer Institute teachers) has received extensive training in how to effectively teach writing in today’s digital environment.  The National Writing Project’s mission is to provide professional development, resources and support to teachers to improve the teaching of writing in today’s schools.   The NWP teachers included here are what the organization terms “teacher-consultants” who have attended the Summer Institute and provide local leadership to other teachers.  Research has shown significant gains in the writing performance of students who are taught by these teachers. 1

Moreover, the majority of teachers participating in the survey (56%) currently teach AP, honors, and/or accelerated courses, thus the population of middle and high school students they work with skews heavily toward the highest achievers.  These teachers and their students may have resources and support available to them—particularly in terms of specialized training and access to digital tools—that are not available in all educational settings.  Thus, the population of teachers participating in this research might best be considered “leading edge teachers” who are actively involved with the College Board and/or the National Writing Project and are therefore beneficiaries of resources and training not common to all teachers.  It is likely that teachers in this study are developing some of the more innovative pedagogical approaches to teaching research and writing in today’s digital environment, and are incorporating classroom technology in ways that are not typical of the entire population of middle and high school teachers in the U.S.  Survey findings represent the attitudes and behaviors of this particular group of teachers only, and are not representative of the entire population of U.S. middle and high school teachers.

Every effort was made to administer the survey to as broad a group of educators as possible from the sample files being used.  As a group, the 2,462 teachers participating in the survey comprise a wide range of subject areas, experience levels, geographic regions, school type and socioeconomic level, and community type (detailed sample characteristics are available in the Methods section of this report).  The sample includes teachers from all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  All teachers who participated in the survey teach in physical schools and classrooms, as opposed to teaching online or virtual courses.

English/language arts teachers make up a significant portion of the sample (36%), reflecting the intentional design of the study, but history, social science, math, science, foreign language, art, and music teachers are also represented.  About one in ten teachers participating in the survey are middle school teachers, while 91% currently teach grades 9-12.  There is wide distribution across school size and students’ socioeconomic status, though half of the teachers participating in the survey report teaching in a small city or suburb.  There is also a wide distribution in the age and experience levels of participating teachers.  The survey sample is 71% female.

About the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project is one of seven projects that make up the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. The Project produces reports exploring the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. The Pew Internet Project takes no positions on policy issues related to the internet or other communications technologies. It does not endorse technologies, industry sectors, companies, nonprofit organizations, or individuals. While we thank our research partners for their helpful guidance, the Pew Internet Project had full control over the design, implementation, analysis and writing of this survey and report.

About the National Writing Project

The National Writing Project (NWP) is a nationwide network of educators working together to improve the teaching of writing in the nation’s schools and in other settings. NWP provides high-quality professional development programs to teachers in a variety of disciplines and at all levels, from early childhood through university. Through its nearly 200 university-based sites serving all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, NWP develops the leadership, programs and research needed for teachers to help students become successful writers and learners. For more information, visit www.nwp.org .

• More specific information on this population of teachers, the training they receive, and the outcomes of their students are available at the National Writing Project website at www.nwp.org . ↩

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Creative Writing Prompts Inspired by Technology

by Melissa Donovan | Oct 21, 2021 | Creative Writing Prompts | 4 comments

Use these creative writing prompts to write about technology!

All of today’s prompts come from my book 1200 Creative Writing Prompts . Enjoy!

Technology has become so ingrained in modern, civilized culture that sometimes we don’t even notice it. When was the last time you marveled at a train, a toaster, or a television? Most of us aren’t even fazed by the marvel of mobile phones anymore. The shine of new technology wears off fast.

There are those who believe technology is bad for society. There’s over-reliance on gadgets, attention spans are shrinking, kids don’t play outside anymore…the list of complaints about the negative impact of technology goes on and on.

But that’s not my list. I love technology. I love having a universe of information at my fingertips. I love carrying around my entire music collection in my pocket. I love getting a new book with a couple of clicks. I love online shopping, social media, blogging, and the many applications on my computer that make writing fun and easy.

Creative Writing Prompts

These creative writing prompts encourage you to think about technology. Whether you’re including technology in a story or writing about your views of technology, it’s something that almost certainly affects your daily life. Use the prompts below to write a poem, a short story, an essay…whatever you’re inspired to write. Have fun!

• The year is 1623. A visitor arrives in a small, tribal village. The visitor is wearing blue jeans, an old rock-band t-shirt, and a fedora and is carrying a pack that contains a solar-powered laptop computer.
• Write a poem using the following image: a pile of old, dusty electronics.
• What do you think the world of technology will look like in ten years? Twenty? What kind of computers, phones, and other devices will we use? Will technology improve travel? Health care? What do you expect to see and what would you like to see?
• At the height of human technological development, a special child is born who can communicate telepathically with computers and other mechanical and electronic devices.
• Think about how you use technology in your professional life. What would your job be like without technology? Could it be done at all? Write an article about how technology is (or isn’t) important to your career.
• Kids these days—and their gadgets! Write a short story exploring how the next generation is plugged in all the time. Does technology cut them off from the real world, or does it allow them to connect with a larger circle of other people?
• Write a descriptive essay about a gadget, device, or other new technology that you wish someone would invent.
• Write a poem using the following image: a robot assembling products on a factory line.
• Write a story about someone who is about to lose his or her job because of technology.
• Write a personal essay about what you would do with your own personal robot.

Did any of these creative writing prompts inspire you? Which one will you use to inspire a writing session? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment, and keep writing!

Your post has the best way to understand anyone about creative writing prompts and hope you keep sharing your post.

Thanks, Grace.

This will inspire me a lot. And I thought I didn’t have anyone as good as this website to give me a story idea!!!!

That’s awesome, Daniel. I’m so glad you found inspiration here! That’s my goal.

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What Now? AI, Episode 4: AI and Creativity

Published: April 25, 2024

The creative industry is poised to be forever changed by artificial intelligence. 

Writing tools like ChatGPT and image generators like Midjourney and DALL-E have exploded into the mainstream. Adobe built its own version of generative AI technology for its creative suites and OpenAI announced its text-to-video model, Sora.  

What impact will these tools and models have on the creative process? How will they change the role of an artist?  

In the fourth episode of What Now? AI , hosts Beth Coleman and Rahul Krishnan dive into these questions with AI researchers  Sanja Fidler of the University of Toronto and  Nick Frosst , who co-founded the startup Cohere .

Listen to episode four on  Apple ,  Spotify ,  SoundCloud ,  iHeartRadio  and  Amazon . Watch episode four on YouTube .  

Fidler, the vice president of AI research at NVIDIA and an associate professor of mathematical and computational sciences at U of T Mississauga, says that while AI technology is still in its early stage, it has the potential to provide artists with more adaptability and creative control.   

“When artists see these methods like text-to-x, text-to-image or text-to-video, I feel that they have pushback because now there is only text that allows you to control the content,” says Fidler, an affiliate faculty member at the Vector Institute, which she co-founded.  

“I think artists do want to have this iterative creative control. They have some idea in their head, and they have all these tools that allowed them to go from that idea into the final product. We want to do the same thing with AI as well.” 

Frosst, who sings in the band Good Kid, says he doesn’t use large language models to help him write songs – only to help analyze lyrics and themes.  

“I’m not really looking to optimize my artistic expression,” says Frosst, who completed his undergraduate degree in computer science and cognitive science at U of T.  

“I don’t really want to write a new Good Kid song and be less involved. I want to be more involved.”  

Frosst believes AI will change the way art is created, but not to the point where people aren’t interested in the artists who are making it.  

“We want to know who made it, and that’s mostly what’s enjoyable about it.”  

About the hosts: 

Beth Coleman  is an associate professor at U of T Mississauga’s  Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology  and the Faculty of Information. She is also a research lead on AI policy and praxis at the  Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society . Coleman authored  Reality Was Whatever Happened: Octavia Butler AI and Other Possible Worlds  using art and generative AI. 

Rahul Krishnan  is an assistant professor in U of T’s department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. He is a Canada CIFAR Chair at the Vector Institute, a faculty affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and a faculty member at the  Temerty Centre for AI Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM) . 

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The future of creative writing with AI technology

As a writer, have you ever wondered what the future of creative writing holds? Will we eventually see robots producing best-selling novels, or will artificial intelligence (AI) simply help humans become more efficient and imaginative writers? While some may argue that AI could never replicate the creativity and emotional depth of human writing, others believe that the technology is rapidly advancing and could revolutionize the field of creative writing. according to a survey: t he AI writing assistant software market is expected to grow at a rate (CAGR) of 26.94% from 2023 to 2030, reaching a market size of $6.464 billion by 2030

In this article, we'll explore the intersection of AI and creative writing, and consider both the promises and potential pitfalls of this exciting new technology. From chatbots that can help generate plotlines to programs that can analyze the emotional resonance of a piece of writing, the future of creative writing with AI technology is full of possibility. So, let's dive in and explore what the future holds for writers and readers alike.

The role of AI in generating story ideas and plotlines

One of the most exciting potential applications of AI in creative writing is its ability to generate story ideas and plotlines. With the help of machine learning algorithms and natural language processing, AI can analyze vast amounts of text data to identify patterns, themes, and plot structures. By doing so, it can generate new ideas for stories and plotlines that may not have occurred to a human writer.

One way that AI can generate story ideas is through the use of chatbots. These conversational agents can interact with users in natural language, asking questions and providing prompts to inspire new ideas. For example, a chatbot might ask a writer about their favorite genre or a character they find interesting, and then suggest plotlines or themes based on the writer's responses.

Another way that AI can generate plotlines is by analyzing existing stories and identifying patterns that can be used to create new ones. For example, an AI program might analyze a set of mystery novels to identify common plot structures or themes, and then use that information to generate a new mystery story that incorporates those elements.

While AI-generated story ideas and plotlines may not always be perfect, they have the potential to inspire human writers and provide new directions for creative exploration. In some cases, AI-generated ideas may even lead to unexpected breakthroughs or innovative approaches to storytelling. However, it's important to note that AI should be seen as a tool to assist writers, rather than a replacement for human creativity and imagination. Ultimately, the role of AI in generating story ideas and plotlines is to augment and enhance human creativity, not replace it.

AI tools for creative writing

Jasper: Recognized as the ultimate AI writing assistant in the market, Jasper stands out for its unrivaled features and exceptional quality. Seamlessly analyzing seed words, it effortlessly generates well-crafted phrases, coherent paragraphs, or comprehensive documents that align with the desired subject matter and tone of voice. One of its most remarkable capabilities is its lightning-fast ability to produce a 1,500-word article within a matter of seconds, making it an invaluable asset for any writer or content creator.

Copy.ai: Designed specifically for copywriting, Copy.ai is a game-changer in the world of AI writing tools. Its intuitive interface and powerful algorithms make writing compelling copy and publishing blog posts an effortless and efficient process. Whether you need captivating ad copy, engaging social media posts, or persuasive website content, Copy.ai empowers you to create high-quality, conversion-focused content with ease.

Anyword: Anyword is an indispensable AI writing tool that revolutionizes the writing process. With its advanced capabilities, it enables users to generate long-form content that captivates readers and delivers a memorable impact. Additionally, Anyword's intelligent algorithms can create engaging headlines that grab attention and drive click-through rates. By minimizing writing errors and maximizing production time, Anyword empowers writers to enhance their productivity and achieve outstanding results.

Sudowrite: Aspiring fiction writers can rely on Sudowrite to unleash their creativity. This AI writing tool is specifically designed to assist and inspire fiction authors. Sudowrite offers a range of features tailored to the needs of storytellers, from character development and plot suggestion to immersive world-building. With Sudowrite by their side, writers can bring their fictional worlds to life and embark on captivating storytelling adventures.

AIcontentfy: AIcontentfy is a versatile AI content tool that caters to a wide range of writing needs. From creating engaging blog posts to crafting captivating social media captions and compelling website copy, AIcontentfy delivers high-quality content for various purposes. By suggesting relevant topics and keywords based on writers' interests and previous content, AIcontentfy sparks fresh ideas and ignites inspiration, ensuring that writers can consistently produce engaging and impactful written content.

The potential for AI to improve the editing and revision process

Another exciting potential application of AI in creative writing is its ability to improve the editing and revision process. Writing is an iterative process, and the editing and revision stages are crucial for refining and improving a piece of writing. With the help of AI, writers can streamline this process and improve the quality of their work.

One way that AI can improve the editing and revision process is through automated proofreading and grammar checking. AI algorithms can analyze text for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and other common errors that can detract from the readability and impact of a piece of writing. This can save writers time and effort in the editing process, allowing them to focus on refining their ideas and improving the structure and flow of their writing.

Another way that AI can improve the revision process is through the use of natural language processing and sentiment analysis. By analyzing the language and emotional tone of a piece of writing, AI can provide suggestions for improving the clarity, coherence, and emotional resonance of a piece. For example, an AI program might suggest changes to the wording of a sentence or paragraph to make it more impactful or suggest alternative phrasing to make a point more clearly.

While AI can be a powerful tool for improving the editing and revision process, it's important to note that it's not a replacement for human judgment and creativity. Ultimately, the writer is still responsible for making the final decisions about their work. However, by using AI to streamline the editing and revision process, writers can focus on the creative aspects of their work and produce higher-quality writing in less time.

The impact of AI on the publishing industry and the job market for writers

The rise of AI in creative writing has had a significant impact on the publishing industry and the job market for writers. While the use of AI in writing is still in its early stages, it has the potential to fundamentally change the way that we think about the writing process and the role of writers in society.

One of the most obvious impacts of AI on the publishing industry is in the area of content creation . With the ability to generate high-quality writing at scale, AI has the potential to disrupt the traditional publishing model, which has historically relied on a small number of highly skilled writers to produce content. In the future, it's possible that AI-generated content could become the norm, leading to a decrease in demand for human writers and a shift in the balance of power between writers and publishers.

However, it's important to note that AI is not necessarily a threat to human writers. While the technology may be able to generate high-quality writing, it cannot replicate the creativity, empathy, and emotional depth that are the hallmarks of great literature. As such, human writers will likely continue to play a vital role in the publishing industry, albeit in different ways than they have in the past.

One potential area where human writers may find new opportunities is in the area of curation and editing. With so much content being produced by AI, there will be an increased need for skilled editors and curators who can sift through the vast amount of content and identify the pieces that are most worthy of publication.

Overall, the impact of AI on the publishing industry and the job market for writers is complex and multifaceted. While the technology has the potential to disrupt the industry in significant ways, it's important to remember that human creativity and talent will always be a valuable commodity, and that AI is just one tool among many that writers can use to enhance their craft.

Examples of successful AI-generated writing and its reception by readers

As the use of AI in creative writing continues to gain traction, there have been several notable examples of successful AI-generated writing. These range from short stories and poetry to full-length novels, and they have been met with a range of reactions from readers and critics alike.

One of the most famous examples of AI-generated writing is "The Day a Computer Writes a Novel," a short story written by a Japanese AI program called Hikaru-Ai. The story was entered into a literary competition in Japan and received high marks from the judges, who praised its structure, plot, and character development. While the story was not published in a traditional literary journal, its success was a clear indication of the potential for AI to generate high-quality writing.

Another notable example of AI-generated writing is "Sunspring," a short film written entirely by an AI program called Benjamin. The film was created as part of a competition and received widespread attention for its surreal and disjointed narrative. While some viewers found the film confusing or unengaging, others praised it for its experimental approach to storytelling and its willingness to push the boundaries of what is possible with AI-generated content.

More recently, a number of AI-generated novels have been published, including "1 the Road" by Belamy AI and "The Day I Became the Universe" by AIVA. While these novels have received mixed reviews from readers and critics, they represent an important milestone in the development of AI-generated writing and demonstrate the potential for AI to generate long-form narratives that are engaging and thought-provoking.

Overall, the reception of AI-generated writing by readers has been mixed. While some have praised the quality and innovation of the writing, others have expressed skepticism about the ability of AI to replicate the complexity and emotional depth of human writing. However, there is no doubt that AI-generated writing is becoming increasingly sophisticated and that it has the potential to play an important role in the future of creative writing.

The limitations of AI technology in replicating human creativity and emotion

AI technology has made impressive strides in recent years, particularly in the realm of creative writing. However, there are still significant limitations to what AI can accomplish when it comes to replicating human creativity and emotion.

One of the main challenges for AI in creative writing is its inability to truly understand human emotion and experience. While AI can analyze large datasets and identify patterns, it lacks the human experience and intuition needed to fully capture the nuances of human emotion and behavior. As a result, AI-generated writing can often feel mechanical or flat, lacking the depth and richness of human-created content.

Another limitation of AI technology is its inability to generate truly original ideas. While AI can use machine learning algorithms to analyze existing texts and generate new content based on that analysis, it cannot generate truly original ideas in the same way that a human writer can. This can lead to a lack of true innovation in AI-generated writing, with much of the content feeling derivative or formulaic.

Furthermore, AI technology is limited by its reliance on data. While AI can use large datasets to generate new content, it cannot create content that is entirely disconnected from existing data. This means that AI-generated content may be limited by the biases and assumptions inherent in the data it is trained on, potentially leading to problematic or biased content.

Finally, AI technology is limited by its lack of consciousness or self-awareness. While AI can simulate human behavior and thought patterns to some extent, it lacks the subjective experience and self-awareness that is fundamental to human creativity. This means that AI-generated writing may lack the depth and introspection that is often a hallmark of human-created content.

Overall, while AI technology has made impressive strides in recent years, there are still significant limitations to its ability to replicate human creativity and emotion. As AI technology continues to evolve, it will be important for developers and users to keep these limitations in mind and to find ways to balance the benefits of AI-generated content with the unique qualities of human creativity.

The use of AI in developing personalized content for individual readers

One of the most promising applications of AI in creative writing is its ability to develop personalized content for individual readers. By analyzing a reader's preferences and reading history, AI algorithms can generate content that is tailored to their interests and reading level.

This approach to content generation has the potential to revolutionize the way we consume and interact with written material. Instead of passively consuming content that has been developed for a broad audience, readers can receive content that is uniquely suited to their individual tastes and needs.

AI algorithms can analyze a reader's reading history to identify patterns in their interests and preferences. For example, if a reader has shown a preference for science fiction novels or historical non-fiction, AI algorithms can generate content that is similar in genre or style. This approach can help to surface content that the reader might not have discovered on their own, and can provide a more personalized reading experience.

In addition, AI algorithms can also adapt content to a reader's reading level. By analyzing factors such as sentence structure, vocabulary, and complexity, AI algorithms can adjust the level of difficulty of the content to match the reader's skill level. This can be particularly useful for young readers or for adults who are learning a new language or subject area.

Overall, the use of AI in developing personalized content for individual readers has the potential to revolutionize the way we consume and interact with written material. By tailoring content to a reader's interests and needs, AI algorithms can provide a more engaging and personalized reading experience, and can help to surface content that might otherwise go undiscovered. As AI technology continues to evolve, it will be exciting to see how it can be used to further enhance the way we consume and interact with written material.

The role of AI in enabling new forms of writing, such as interactive and immersive storytelling

AI is not only revolutionizing the way we write and consume written content but also enabling entirely new forms of writing, such as interactive and immersive storytelling. With the help of AI, writers can create experiences that allow readers to actively participate in the story, making the experience more engaging and immersive.

Interactive storytelling, in particular, is an area where AI is making significant strides. With the help of AI algorithms, writers can create branching narratives that allow readers to make choices that influence the direction and outcome of the story. This approach can create a sense of agency and immersion that traditional storytelling often lacks.

In addition to interactive storytelling, AI is also enabling new forms of immersive storytelling, such as virtual and augmented reality experiences. With the help of AI, these experiences can be personalized to the individual reader, creating a sense of presence and immersion that traditional storytelling cannot match.

Overall, the role of AI in enabling new forms of writing is an exciting development that is pushing the boundaries of what we consider to be "writing." With the help of AI algorithms, writers can create experiences that are more engaging, interactive, and immersive, allowing readers to become active participants in the story. As AI technology continues to evolve, it will be fascinating to see how writers use it to further enhance and expand the possibilities of storytelling.

The future of AI in creative writing and its potential implications for the field

The future of AI in creative writing is a topic of much speculation and excitement, with many experts predicting that AI will continue to play an increasingly important role in the field. As AI technology continues to evolve, it has the potential to transform the way we write, consume, and interact with written content, and to open up new possibilities for creativity, innovation, and collaboration.

One of the most significant implications of AI for creative writing is its potential to democratize the field, making it more accessible to a wider range of individuals. With the help of AI, individuals with little or no formal writing training can create high-quality written content that is engaging, informative, and entertaining. This can be particularly important in fields such as journalism or content creation, where the ability to write well is often a prerequisite for success.

AI also has the potential to enhance collaboration and creativity in the writing process. With the help of AI algorithms, writers can receive real-time feedback on their work, making it easier to identify areas for improvement and to refine their ideas. Additionally, AI can help writers generate new ideas and explore different creative directions, leading to more innovative and engaging written content.

However, the growing role of AI in creative writing also raises important ethical and societal questions. For example, what happens when AI-generated content becomes indistinguishable from human-generated content? Will readers be able to tell the difference, and if not, what implications will this have for the integrity of written content?

Overall, the future of AI in creative writing is an exciting and rapidly evolving area, with far-reaching implications for the field. As AI technology continues to evolve, it will be fascinating to see how it is used to enhance and transform the way we write, consume, and interact with written content, and to explore the ethical and societal implications of these developments.

The ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI in creative writing

As with any emerging technology, there are ethical considerations that must be taken into account when it comes to the use of AI in creative writing. While AI has the potential to revolutionize the writing process and make it more efficient and effective, there are also concerns about its impact on human creativity, copyright law, and the future of the writing profession.

One of the key ethical considerations surrounding AI in creative writing is the question of authorship. If AI is used to generate content, who should be considered the author of that content? Should it be the programmer who wrote the AI algorithm, the company that owns the algorithm, or the end user who puts the algorithm to work? This is a question that has yet to be fully resolved, and it has significant implications for copyright law and the future of the writing profession.

Another ethical consideration is the potential impact of AI-generated content on human creativity. While AI can be a powerful tool for generating ideas and streamlining the writing process, there are concerns that it may also stifle human creativity by making it too easy to produce high-quality content. Some experts worry that the use of AI in writing could lead to a world where all writing sounds the same, with little room for individual expression or innovation.

There are also concerns about the impact of AI on the job market for writers. As AI becomes more sophisticated, it may be able to replace human writers in certain areas, leading to a decrease in demand for skilled writers and a shift in the balance of power between writers and publishers.

Finally, there are ethical concerns related to the use of AI in the production of biased or misleading content. If AI algorithms are programmed with biased or incomplete data, they may produce content that reinforces existing stereotypes or promotes misinformation. It's important to ensure that AI is used in a responsible and ethical manner, with a focus on promoting diversity, equity, and accuracy in all forms of writing.

Overall, the ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI in creative writing are complex and multifaceted. It's important for writers, publishers, and policymakers to consider these issues carefully as they explore the potential benefits and risks of this emerging technology.

Wrapping up

The future of creative writing with AI technology is a fascinating and rapidly evolving area that has the potential to transform the way we write, consume, and interact with written content. AI algorithms are already being used to generate story ideas and plotlines, to improve the editing and revision process, and to develop personalized content for individual readers. In addition, AI is enabling entirely new forms of writing, such as interactive and immersive storytelling, which allow readers to actively participate in the story.

While AI technology has many exciting possibilities, it also raises important ethical and societal questions, such as the impact of AI on the publishing industry and the job market for writers, and the potential for AI to replicate human creativity and emotion. Despite these concerns, the future of AI in creative writing is bright, and as the technology continues to evolve, it will be fascinating to see how writers use it to further enhance and expand the possibilities of storytelling.

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Writing is a technology that restructures thought — and in an AI age, universities need to teach it more

Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University

Instructor, English, Kwantlen Polytechnic University

Disclosure statement

Joel Heng Hartse receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He is also president of the Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing/Association Canadienne de Rédactologie.

Taylor Morphett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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In an age of AI-assisted writing , is it important for university students to learn how to write?

We believe it is now more than ever.

In the writing classroom, students get the time and help they need to understand writing as not only a skill, but what the language scholar Walter J. Ong called a “ technology that restructures thought .”

“Technology” is not simply iPhones or spreadsheets — it is about mediating our relationship with the world through the creation of tools , and writing itself is arguably the most important tool for thinking that university students need to master.

Perhaps not surprisingly, not everyone agrees.

Role of university writing courses

“Eliminate the Required First-Year Writing Course” was the headline of a provocative article published in Inside Higher Ed in November.

In this article, a professor of writing studies, Melissa Nicolas of Washington State University, writes that while she has seen reason to question how efficient first-year composition courses are before now, “the advent of generative artificial intelligence is the final nail in the coffin.”

In her estimation, “learning to write and writing to learn are two distinct things.” First-year writing courses are “largely about learning to write, but AI can now do this for us. Writing to learn is much more complicated and is something that can only be done by the human mind.”

We take issue with this distinction. From the perspective of human learning and development, the grammatically correct prose produced by generative AI like ChatGPT is not “good writing” — even if it is or seems factually correct — if it does not reflect intellectual engagement with its subject matter. This is not to mention serious questions about the meaning of gaining insight from digital data, issues surrounding data biases, and so on.

First-year composition and other writing courses are a crucial part of the way university students are socialized into ways of communicating that will benefit them far beyond their undergraduate years.

Canadian versus American universities

We propose another solution to the problem Nicolas raises of first-year composition courses being formulaic and outdated. Universities need to devote resources to expanding and improving writing programs, including first-year composition.

We especially need this in Canada, where, as doctoral research carried out by one of the authors of this piece (Taylor Morphett) has shown, first-year composition has traditionally been under-emphasized, and writing has only been taught in a piecemeal way.

When first-year composition courses began to develop at the end of the 19th century in the United States, in Canada the focus was on the fine-tuning of literary taste and the reading of canonical British literature .

The philosophies of education and approaches to teaching that developed from this early time are still present today in Canada. Writing education is often seen by universities as a remedial skill, something students should already know how to do.

In reality, much more writing instruction is needed. Today’s undergraduates are plunged into a sea of texts, information and technology they have immense difficulty navigating , and ChatGPT has made it harder, not easier, for students to discern the credibility of sources.

Writing programs in Canada

In writing courses, students can begin to see the critical variety and power of one of our best technologies: the human act of writing, a system of finite resources but infinite combinations. They learn to think, synthesize, judge the credibility of sources and information and interact with an audience — none of which can be done by AI.

Thankfully, some universities have taken the lead in making writing a cornerstone of undergraduate education. For example, the University of Victoria has a robust academic writing requirement for all students, regardless of their field of study. At the University of Toronto Mississauga, first-year students take an innovative for-credit writing course that takes a “ writing-about-writing ” approach. In this program, undergraduates study writing as an academic subject itself, not just a skill. They learn about the importance, complexity and socially situated nature of academic writing.

Needed at all universities

All Canadian universities should make a beginning academic writing or communication course required for all undergraduates, along with discipline-specific upper-division writing courses focused on scholarly and professional genres in their fields.

Academic and professional writing is a second language for everyone: no one is born knowing how to properly cite sources or craft airtight business proposals.

We need dedicated writing programs to help students understand and communicate complex concepts to a specific audience for a specific purpose in rhetorically flexible ways, with an awareness of their responsibilities to a human community of readers.

Skills and knowledge to make a difference

Generative AI like ChatGPT cannot do this, because it cannot know or “understand” anything . Its raison d'être is to produce plausible strings of symbols in response to human prompts, based on data it has been trained upon.

We have knowledgeable and talented PhDs graduating in communication, applied linguistics, English, rhetoric and related fields whose expertise in these areas is sorely needed at institutions across the country.

If Canada wants to graduate domestic and international students with the skills and knowledge to make a difference in the world, we need to be training them in writing.

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In This Issue

• A Net-working Community
• Podcasting in the Rhetoric Classroom
• Teaching English in Second Life
• Review of Google Docs
• Collaboration for Keiretsu
• Between Lauding and Deriding
• Keynote Address Abstract
• Social Networking I
• Social Networking II
• Social Networking IV
• Social Networking V
• Social Networking VI
• Learning Management Systems I
• Learning Management Systems II
• Technology and Collaboration I
• Technology and Collaboration II
• Technology and Creative Writing I
• Technology and the Classroom I
• Review of the Economics of Attention

2007: Currents in Social Software

• Current Issue
• Statement of Purpose
• Interview with Rita Raley
• Networked Activism, Hybrid Structures, and Networked Power
• Resisting the Robust: the Internet Defense League and the Potential of Networked Kairos
• From Activism to Occupation
• Subtle Democracy: Public Pedagogy and Social Media
• Deletion and Damnatio Memoriae: Theses on the Eventfulness of Forgetting
• Interview Highlights
• Interview with Alex Reid
• Interview with Barbara Biesecker
• Interview with Josh Gunn
• A Building that Recalls: Memory, Housing, and Politics of Living On
• Sculptures and Avatars: Mediating of the Memory of Odissi Dance
• Nietzsche was a DJ
• DJ Spooky Interview
• Common Sounds
• inter.Virtual.Vitalism. views: Aural Encounters
• How Music Speaks: In the Background, In the Remix, In the City
• Writing Without Sound: Language Politics in Closed Captioning
• 'Digimortal': Sound in a World of Posthumanity
• Thinking Across the Neck: Playing Slide with Fret/work Blues
• An Autoethnography of Sound: Local Music Culture in Colorado
• Inquiry as Telos
• A New Composition, a 21st Century Pedagogy, and the Rhetoric of Music
• Remixing the Personal Narrative Essay: "The Hardest and Best Thing I Have Ever Done"
• Auralacy: From Plato to Podcasting and Back, Again
• Digital Lyrical
• Contributors' Notes
• Whose Literacy Is It Anyway? Examining a First-Year Approach to Gaming Across Curricula
• Computer Games Across the Curriculum: A Critical Review of an Emerging Techno-Pedagogy
• What Games Have to Teach Us About Teaching and Learning: Game Design as a Model for Course and Curricular Development
• Four Ways to Teach with Video Games
• Life in Morrowind: Identity, Video Games, and First-Year Composition
• Stings and Scalpels: Emotional Rhetorics Meet Videogame Aesthetics
• The Avatar that therefore I Am (Following)
• Machinima-to-Learn: From Salvation to Intervention
• Procedural Rhetorics / Rhetoric's Procedures: Rhetorical Peaks and What It Means to Win the Game
• Gone Gitmo: An Interview with Co-Creators Nonny de la Peña and Peggy Weil
• Serious Games Interactive Interview
• Lessons in Value
• Thoughts About John
• A Sustainable Culture: John Slatin's Ludic Pedagogy
• “The Meanesse of Our Witt”
• Rethinking Usability for Web 2.0 and Beyond
• The Challenge of Implementing Organizational Learning
• Yes and Yes-and: Time in the Compshop
• Libretto: Act I
• Libretto: Act II
• Libretto: Act III
• Anna Slatin Interview
• Photo Gallery: John Slatin
• Commons, Corruption, and the Next Ten Years
• Commons-Based Pedagogies
• Literature+
• Video Production and Distribution
• The Modernist Journals Project
• (Re) Make it New
• Spring 2001
• Spring 1999

Technology and Creative Writing I: “Technology and Community in the Creative Writing Classroom”

by Jade Faul

This panel provided detailed insight on how to use technology in a field that has been slow to adapt to new technological movements and computer-assisted pedagogy, and this field is creative writing. Christina Olson opened the session by introducing the panelists and discussing their purpose: “Traditionally, creative writing has been a field that is not technologically friendly.” Therefore, this panel addressed the benefits of uniting creative writing and teaching with technology.

Jean Prokott next introduced the idea of establishing community in the creative writing classroom. A sense of community enhances communication and, thus, leads for openness in the workshop environment, which serves to better students’ writing, according to Prokott, and the communicative tools offered by technology can establish the sense of community and improve the educational experience.

Reed Stratton next discussed how he has incorporated the use of Desire2Learn, an online learning management system, into his daily agenda in the creative writing classroom, including the chat feature that allows students the opportunities to role-play the characters they create. Stratton stated this technology helps students better understand their characters while allowing them to communicate with one another, have fun and develop trust.

Jenny Amel discussed her experience with teaching creative writing in a non-computer classroom, confessing that the lack of technology is a disadvantage. She required students keep handwritten journals, but she could not access them as easily as she could online journals or blogs, thus making it harder to leave feedback and interact with students on their creative writing projects. Amel also noted that type script is easier to read than handwriting, but the absence of the backspace key allows students to understand more about their own writing processes.

Christina Olson next discussed her use of the chat feature to prompt class discussion from everyone, especially those afraid to speak in class, claiming that students establish a greater sense of community by getting to know one another via chats, which is vital to creating community in the creative writing classroom.

Lastly, Trisha Shaskan detailed how the use of Desire2Learn’s discussion board feature brought forth sophisticated and detailed class discussions regarding poetry. In one example, Shaskan had students cut lines of a poem, post them on the discussion board and discuss them. Shaskan admitted this use of technology seemed to inspire students to be specific in ways that they may not be otherwise and helped to establish community more than other approaches.

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Daphne Leprince-Ringuet Sanjana Varghese

Technology is changing what it means to be creative – here's how

We might be slow, prone to making errors and quick to tire, but humans still have the edge over technology when it comes to nuance and creativity. It's easy enough teaching a voice assistant to laugh, for example, but you'll need a human to tell you whether that laugh's creepy or endearing.

So how do you blend the human and the digital? At WIRED Live , some of world's smartest and most creative thinkers came together to explore what the future of humanity looks like. Here's the best of what we learned from a packed speaker lineup that included Andy Serkis, Hannah Fry and Jim Al-Khalili.

Technology is often the problem – not the answer

“As humans, we have a problem with over-trusting technology,” says Hannah Fry, associate professor at University College London’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis . “But algorithms make mistakes. So, when you put an algorithm in a position of power, you have to trust that humans will have enough judgement to recognise its errors.”

This is particularly relevant in some US courtrooms, where AI is already being used to help determine sentences. And while this can fix human flaws, such as bias or inconsistency, it also has to be kept under tight human control. Where an algorithm’s mistake could lead to an unfair sentence, there is no space for blind over-reliance on technology.

Context is everything when it comes to voice assistants

One of the biggest challenges for the team behind the Amazon Alexa is making sure that the voice assistant doesn't come across as creepy – something the tech firm didn't get quite right earlier this year when users started reporting that Alexa was laughing at unexpected moments.

“This is a great example of a natural human feature that we successfully designed for Alexa – laughter – becoming creepy because it is used at the wrong time,” says Toni Reid, vice president of Alexa experience at Amazon. That is where the company’s next challenge lies: how to make sure that Alexa acts like a human would?

Reid explains that the key lies in predicting customer behaviour and adapting to their expectations. The goal is to learn to know what is natural in given moments: a user waking up in a hurry, for instance, may want an efficient assistant rather than a highly-personalised one. “It’s very easy to get it wrong,” says Reid. “You don’t want to surprise customers.”

Building trust is a delicate balancing act

Rachel Botsman, lecturer at Oxford University and author of In Tech We Trust points out that there’s a handful of ways we can measure trust. “There’s a formula, and it doesn’t matter who you’re trusting – Alexa, an Uber driver, your boss,” she says. “It’s the presence of these four measures – competence, reliability, integrity and benevolence.”

The flip side is responsibility, too. The havoc and change that the tech sector has wrought on modern society are unprecedented, and even the executives themselves couldn’t have known what was going to happen. But companies are more likely to stick around if they own up. “We have to make responsibility the new normal,” says Martha Lane Fox, who cofounded doteveryone, a digital think tank, and is a peer in the House of Lords. “All of society needs to come together and think about technology.”

Computers could learn a lot from human interactions

It’s easy to forget that just a few decades ago, computers were mostly used for military purposes, rather than surfing the Internet for memes or sending emails. Computers and computation have caused a dramatic shift in the fabric of society, as a new substance that we haven’t quite qualified the change of. Yet, as we’re so used to them now, we risk splitting up the world into “digital” and “real”, and don’t think critically about how we represent our physical world in the digital one.

This means changing the way that machines function, so that they operate like we do, by exchanging ideas and working together. “Even though things are connected logically to the rest of the world, this machine cannot really in any meaningful way connect to any other computer,” say John Underkoffler , a user interface expert and advisor for films such as Minority Report and Iron Man . Underkoffler’s company, Oblong Industries, has built a system which lets computers work collaboratively. “So we need critical dialogue about user interface, and what’s good and what’s bad. We have to put the world back into computation.”

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Andy Greenberg

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Amanda Hoover

We're only just beginning to understand the impact of quantum physics

Recent research has shown that there may be overlap between quantum physics and biology. In other words, some mechanisms within life, such as photosynthesis, can be attributed to quantum physics. “Quantum biology is a whole new branch of science,” says theoretical physicist and author Jim Al-Khalili. “And it may well end up explaining how life is what it is. There is even speculation that quantum mechanics could explain consciousness.” And what this could mean for artificial intelligence, genetic engineering or neuroscience can only be left to the imagination.

Technology will turn all of us into actors

“If there is one thing that we do know for sure, it is that humans have a passion for stories. And that is not likely to end soon,” says the actor Andy Serkis. That's why Serkis, famous for his impersonation of Gollum in Lord of the Rings, created The Imaginarium Studios in 2011. Serkis and his team are interested in building an environment to drive interplay between emerging new delivery platforms for actors. And their latest partnership with Magic Leap is radically changing the dynamic of theatre, bringing performance-capture inside the viewer’s living room through virtual reality, and letting them interact directly with animated characters.

Spectators, therefore, are becoming an active part of the story they are watching, in a breakdown of the traditional rules of theatre. A development that Serkis sees as confirmation of his motto, which he has taken from Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal: “Anyone can do theatre, even actors, and theatre can be done everywhere, even in a theatre.”

Interactive storytelling is only getting started

Last year, CEO of Atlantic Productions Anthony Geffen teamed up with the London Science Museum to create a VR experience that lets users sit inside a space capsule as it descends down to earth at high-speed. Working with astronaut Tim Peake, his team ensured that every detail within the experience was accurate; and now the museum is touring underprivileged areas in the UK with its “VR experience bus” to let children see what it's like to be an astronaut.

By the sound of it, therefore, immersive storytelling is already a well-established craft. But not according to Geffen: “We are only ten per cent there on the journey,” he says. “We haven’t seen anything. The challenges are huge: lack of funding, lack of business models, and lack of skill.”

If you concentrate on the facts, the world isn't all doom and gloom

Our understanding of the world is often primed by extraordinary events, as Gapminder Foundation’s co-founder and vice president, Anna Rosling explains. Gapminder works on creating a fact-based framework that help us understand the world better, rather than letting our overdramatic brains exaggerate our worst tendencies. They created a fictional street called “Dollar Street”, which compares the living circumstances and items owned by families around the world. By doing this, Gapminder wanted to highlight the differences and similarities between people of different cultures, and demonstrate how the world has changed.

“We have to keep in mind that even if something is bad, it might still be better than it used to be,” explains Rosling. “It’s much better to take things one at a time - so maybe, when we’re looking at scary news, we can add a picture and a warning.”

Technology is the best when it’s sharable

In the northern Netherlands, a 32 kilometre dam on the side of a causeway plays an integral role in stopping the rest of the country from being submerged under water. Daan Roosegarde, a Dutch artist and designer, used the idea of taking infrastructure for granted to come up with a public art installation about climate change.

It involved projecting blue light in major city squares, at a height where water would rise without these dams. One night, 60,000 people showed up, and others come dressed up as mermaids. “It’s very interesting, what happens when tech jumps out of the computer screen,” he says. “We can create a collective experience. If you allow people a certain physical space, then you give them the mental space, and people start to occupy and personalise it.”

This article was originally published by WIRED UK

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Technology in the Writing Classroom

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Technology affects both the process and product of composition. Students often complete multimodal writing assignments that combine traditional textual elements with pictures, data visualizations, video, sound, animation, etc. Similarly, students' use of many technologies while composing an assignment can impact the final product. This is true even for technologies that aren't directly involved in the writing process in the way that, for instance, word processors are. Mind mapping technologies can help students relate ideas to one another. Graphic design programs can help students organize their ideas visually or let students write for specific audiences and contexts. Audio recording technologies can give students expressive freedom beyond the constraints of written work. Countless more examples abound.

These technologies, however, should not be introduced to the classroom without forethought. One danger inherent to any technology is that an assignment that uses that technology can inadvertently become more about learning to use the technology than about the intended learning outcomes. Thus, making sure students understand what they are being evaluated on (i.e., their work, and not necessarily their skill with the technology), have access tohelp materials, and have time to get familiar with the technology can all mitigate this danger. These strategies tend to hold true no matter the age of the students. While it's typical to assume that younger students have greater facility with technology because they are "digital natives," research suggests that that's usually not the case. Young students still need to learn to use a new technology just like they would learn any other new skill.

When handled with care, technology can be a boon to the writing classroom. Generally, the benefits of technology in gaining new literacies, learning independent problem solving skills, and showing students the wide range of applications of composition in their lives outweigh the risks. In this resource, we suggest some ways that teachers can take advantage of widely available technologies to teach writing outcomes and help students develop multiple digital literacies. 

Mindmapping

There are a number of free options for mindmapping and similar exercises online, including MindMup , Bubbl.us , and Lucidchart , but common office programs like PowerPoint can also do the job.

Stages of the writing process:

• Invention/pre-writing
• Peer review
• Visually organizing an essay or argument
• Synthesis (spatially relating different concepts)
• Reverse-outlining an existing draft to understand how the pieces fit together

Affordances:

• Mindmapping digitally allows for easier movement, erasing, and re-doing than with pen and paper
• No constraints of paper size — maps can go wherever students take them
• Can use images, links, etc. from research in the maps
• Can spatially show (and compare/contrast) the relative importance of points, check for balance in developing arguments

Activities:

• Have a peer reviewer reverse-engineer an outline of their peer's paper and let the writer compare their own outline with the reviewer's. The writer and reviewer can discuss differences between the two outlines, evaluate the reviewer's response to what the writer intends to show in the paper, and make a revision plan.
• Have students synthesize multiple sources together using a mind map; first, make a mind map for each source summarizing its points, then connect the nodes to understand how the sources relate to one another, agree, and disagree.
• Have students create an outline of their paper with a mind map. Compare outlines on the board/projector to understand how different arguments can be organized through visual shapes (narrow at the top and broad at the bottom, like a triangle; narrow at beginning and end and wide in the middle, like a diamond; etc), and what each of these shapes can do.

Collaboration

Especially when teaching remotely, collaboration on writing projects is a common part of writing instruction. Leveraging technology effectively to help facilitate collaboration can help students focus on building collaboration skills rather than focusing on getting in touch with each other, and can help teachers more effectively monitor and help with collaboration in the moment. Tools for collaboration can vary depending on what's available, but Google Docs , Slack , and various kinds of video conferencing software (e.g., Zoom ) are common tools.

Stages: 

• All stages, but especially:
• peer review/revision
• brainstorming

Purpose: 

• Sharing work among students, especially when remote teaching or in case of absences, not finishing work in class, etc.
• Responding to feedback in a way that leaves a written record
• Co-writing documents for a group project
• Brainstorming, taking collaborative notes, or creating a wiki in class
• Rather than discussing peer review or feedback verbally in class, students can write feedback down in comments in Google docs or similar word processing software for later review
• Students can assign action items by tagging their classmates ("@Purdue Pete, could you look at this paragraph when you get a chance and let us know what you think?"); teachers and students can see division of labor in who is participating the most on the document 
• Students can still participate remotely in the case of illness or other absence
• In class, students can all contribute to a class document at the same time to create a crowdsourced wiki about a topic, share notes, etc.
• Have students doing group projects write a team charter memo collaboratively, laying out expectations for how their team will work together, solve conflict, and help each other get their work done.
• Have students use separate pages in a Google doc to answer discussion questions or take notes during a think-pair-share activity, so all the notes are available to all students afterwards.
• When introducing a new technology, have students create a list of tools or functions in the technology in a collaborative document, and then assign one tool or function to each student to research and create a guide on how to use it. Assemble the guides into a wiki that students can refer to when using this technology on another assignment.

Audio Production

Writing is not a purely textual endeavor: much of the journalism we encounter is in podcast form. This is not the only audio genre whose production is intertwined with the writing process, however. For instance, pop music can teach poetry in a way that engages young students. Similarly, audio dramas that tell stories with sound design are experiencing a resurgence from the days of radio. Assigning an audio composition can be a great way to help students learn multimodal literacies while still teaching organization, structure, and argument. Additionally, because the various genres of audio composition are more commonplace or "real" for students than something explicitly tied to school, like a traditional essay, these genres can give students opportunities to engage with audience and context in new ways. Though many programs can allow students to edit audio, one free, especially easy-to-use platform is  Audacity .

• Remediation
• Reflection after writing
• Specific audience and genre characteristics help students learn to analyze a rhetorical situation and adapt appropriately
• Finding and incorporating fair use music, sounds, and effects teach students about fair use, copyright, and attribution practices in public settings outside school
• Working with speech, sound effects, music, timing, and delivery encourages students to develop multimodal literacies that interact with and build on traditional written literacies.
• Have students produce a 3-5 minute podcast remediating a previous project, like a research paper or a literary analysis. Students can write a script, record the script, and include effects, music, and edit their own speech to fit the time constraints and needs of the piece. Students can then write a short reflection detailing how they rethought their original project with a new audience and context to create the podcast, and what design choices they made to achieve those goals.
• Have students record a voiceover for a PowerPoint or other presentation deck to make a presentation remotely; students can write a short reflection describing how they made conscious rhetorical decisions in accompanying their slide deck.
• Have students record an interview with a classmate, family member, teacher, etc., and edit the interview to tell a cohesive story in 5-10 min. Students can write a short reflection describing how they came up with interview questions, how they decided which material to keep and which to trim or delete, and how they set up the story for an interested audience with music and effects.

Visual Production

Much of the writing we encounter in our daily lives is accompanied by or part of a visually designed composition; blog posts include pictures and GIFs, websites focus on usable design, marketing materials grab our attention with photos and data visualizations, and infographics condense pages of text into quickly digestible bites of information. Many free online tools such as Canva  and Piktochart  give users templates to start with and the power to customize most features. Commonly available office software also has robust visual design capabilities, and students with access to professional-grade products like Adobe Photoshop can develop facility with industry-standard technology. 

• All, but especially:
• Working multimodally encourages students to adapt to changing rhetorical contexts and audiences
• Genre conventions for visual compositions help students gain genre awareness while building visual literacy
• Generally, visual production assignments allow students to play with arrangement and meshing textual and visual elements, similar to audio production
• Since some tools have premade templates students can use as starting places, there can be less anxiety about having to start from nothing; by the same token, students learn how to make customization decisions in accordance with their audience and context
• Like audio production, using a mix of elements means students have the opportunity to learn about citation and fair use outside of a school setting
• Have students remediate an essay or other project into an infographic for public consumption (or poster, to hang in classroom for future students, etc). Students can write a short reflection describing how they decided to rework their original project into something new for a new rhetorical situation.
• Have students create a photo essay with captions; students can write a reflection discussing their choices and intentions.
• Have students redesign a book cover, poster, course syllabus, assignment sheet, or other document to be both more visually appealing and more useable; students can write a reflection describing their rhetorical choices.

The Impact of Technology on Students’ Creative Writing: A Case Study in Jordan

• Ali Ata Alkhaldi American University of the Middle East

Creative Writing (CW) is a crucial skill for foreign language learners as it helps them develop their writing and language abilities. It also enhances their thinking skills. Nevertheless, CW is difficult to master due to traditional ways of teaching and a lack of experience. Therefore, there is a need to examine the use of technology in developing learners’ CW skills in an attempt to improve their writing and develop their creativity. This study aims to investigate whether the use of technological tools can improve students’ CW skills. Data was collected from a sample of university students in Jordan, before and after using technological tools, and analysed to evaluate the effectiveness of technology in improving students' creative writing. The findings revealed that the use of technological tools had a positive role in improving students' writing performance, lexical abilities, and imagination. As a result, this study recommends the effective use of technological tools in teaching CW activities. It also recommends that the writers of language materials include technology-based activities to improve the learning and creativity of their students. 

Author Biography

Ali ata alkhaldi, american university of the middle east.

Liberal Arts Department

Abu-Hussein, H. A., Al Jamal, D. A., & Said, I. (2020). Students' reflective journals and creative writing in EFL. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 7(2), 3484-3495, DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2020.080823.

Ali, S. S., & Ramana, V. L. (2018). Academic writing challenges at Universities in Saudi Arabia and solutions. International Journal of English Language and Humanities, 4(10), 291-298.

Alkhaldi, A. A., Ozdemir, E. A, & Alhasan, R. F. (2022). ESP creative writing from engineering students’ perspectives: A case study. International Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, 11(3), 136-146

Alkhaldi, A. A. (2019). Once upon a time: A framework for developing creative writing in ESP and EAP. IJALEL 8(4):81-87.

Alkhaldi, A. A. & Benaggoun, J. (2015). Creative writing of engineering students: A Case Study in Abu Dhabi. Humanising Language Teaching, 17(6). Retrieved March 13, 2022, from http://old.hltmag.co.uk/dec15/mart03.htm

Alkhaldi, A. A. (2014). Language theories donation through materials development: A case study in Jordan. IJALEL 3(3), 112-123.

Almelhi, A. M. (2021). Effectiveness of the ADDIE model within an e-learning environment in developing creative writing in EFL students. English Language Teaching, 14(2), 20-36.

Al-Mukdad, S. (2019). Investigating English academic writing problems encountered by Arab international university students. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 9(3), 300-306.

Bakeer, A. M. (2018). Effects of information and communication technology and social media in developing students’ writing skill: A case of Al-Quds Open University. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 8(5), 45-53.

Barbot, B., Tan, M., Randi, J., Santa-Donato, G., & Grigorenko, E. (2012). Essential skills for creative writing: Integrating multiple domain-specific perspectives. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 7(3), 209-223.

Barkaoui, K. (2007). Teaching writing to second language learners: insights from theory and research. TESL Reporter 40, (1), 35-48.

Boden, M. (2001). Creativity and knowledge. In A. Craft, B. Jeffrey, & M. Leibling (Eds.), Creativity in education (pp. 95-102). London: Continuum Publishing.

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18 Expert Tips to Foster Creativity in Technical Writing

Technical writing job continues to grow over the years. In fact, it is #4 in Best Creative and Media Jobs and is expected to have a further vertical rise in 2022.

By definition, technical writing is any written form of writing or drafting technical communication used in a variety of technical and occupational fields, such as computer hardware and software, engineering, chemistry, aeronautics, robotics, finance, medical and consumer electronics, and biotechnology.

Learn how these skilled writers add creativity in writing technical articles that help readers understand the subject effectively.

Christoph Trappe, The Authentic Storytelling Project

Any form of writing can use creativity. Find a new way to tell the story AND remember to actually tell a story. Sometimes cheesy can be fun and work for some brands even.

Warren Whitlock, WarrenWhitlock.com

All writing should use stories. Especially technical subjects. It’s science! Our brains are wired to store information as stories.

Our memories are connected to things like when we heard something, how we feel about things, and how things work together. Weave a story and your writing will be enjoyed and remembered.

Mariah Obiedzinski, MedTouch

Technical doesn’t have to mean dry. Infusing technical writing with conversational, recognizable language not only makes the piece more interesting to read but also makes it easier for readers to digest.

Less processing time gets them to the next step quickly and efficiently.

Lilach Bullock, LilachBullock.com

It can be difficult to find the right balance between the two, but I am a firm believer that injecting some of the writers’ personalities into technical writing can make for a better reading experience.

You can still be objective and critical even if you let your personality influence your writing; whether it’s a certain writing style, a pop culture reference, a real-life example, it brings more value to your writing and makes it stand out. That said, you also need to judge when it’s OK to show off your own writer personality and when you need to tone it down.

Nathan Bracy, Revenue River

Regardless of the technical nature of your blog, you have to understand that you’re creating content for people. Being creative in technical writing is a great way to present information in a new manner, and it’s a lot easier than you think.

Good writers will be able to creatively share information that makes it feel like their writing isn’t overly technical, and it’s easy to consume. This makes it valuable, which is the ultimate goal for any content piece.

Nina Mancuso, NinaEMancuso.com

It is always difficult to be creative with Technical Writing because the clients should always follow our written processes step-by-step for the best results.

However, whenever I edit content from the software developers, I look at the sentences as if they are a word puzzle.

Oftentimes, software developers have their own language, and it can be difficult to translate their words into procedures that our clients can understand. When that situation happens, I take apart the entire paragraph and read each sentence individually so that I can understand the process.

After I have an understanding, I rewrite the paragraph to be as clear and concise as possible by deleting the unnecessary words and restructuring the sentences. I enjoy puzzles so this editing aspect of Technical Writing is the most creative for me.

Unfortunately, I do not do anything creative that would make our manuals and help systems more interesting to read because most people using our documentation need it to install software or run updates, and those are specific procedures. But I do use colorful highlighters for all of my meetings and tasks because it is a fun way for me to keep track of all of my responsibilities.

Maddy Osman, The Blogsmith

There’s a story in even the most boring topics. The trick is to dig deep enough to find it. It’s not enough to consult just one source or one type of content.

Consider video content, infographics, interviews, and more as part of your initial information gathering.

When writing and editing your technical piece, keep asking yourself “Is this something my target customer would actually want to read?”. If the answer is “No”, a rewrite is due until you strike gold.

Zac Johnson, Blogging.org

If you want to bring boring content to life, it’s all about using visuals, quick headlines, and breaking apart your content. This is simply one of the best ways to get your point across, while also making it easier for your audience to consume and stay engaged.

With more people using mobile devices and focusing on visuals in social media, this is how content creation and marketing need to be approached as attention spans continue to drop.

Srish Agrawal, Srish.com

When publishing content on our site or to be shared on social media, we like to focus on infographics and visual graphs.

Many people think you need to have a lot of great internal data to accomplish this, but you can also use industry reports and simply reference them as the source.

Turn this data into an infographic and watch as it appeals to a much greater audience and receives more social shares in the process.

Sumit Bansal, Trump Excel

While the scope for being creative is limited in technical writing, we can think a little out of the box and make our article better. Before writing an article, first, decide the purpose of the article.

If it’s meant to answer a query, it’s better to keep it to the point and try and answer the query as soon as possible. You can take more creative freedom when you are writing an article to engage. One of the things that I have found really effective is using a current trend or buzzwords in your articles.

In one of my articles , I used the data from the ‘Game Of Thrones series to show my readers how to create a dashboard. I could have done it with any boring dataset, but with a little out-of-the-box thinking, I was able to create something that got a lot of responses and engagement.

Since I have to often explain difficult concepts and formulas in Excel to my readers, I try to take practical examples to make it easy. For example, in one of the Excel functions, I tried explaining it by taking an example of a chessboard .

James Nuttall, Ben Sherman

While the likes of instruction manuals, white papers, and journal articles don’t leave much room for adjectives, quotes or metaphors, creativity can often be fostered in the approach rather than in the actual practice.

Technical writers need to be creative in their way of thinking; what are the most digestible and effective way of presenting the information they are given? How will it be most accessible to all levels of readers?

This process takes a great deal of experimentation, which requires a creative thinker to be able to put together documents that can be interpreted and understood by all ranges of experience levels.

In turn, it often means that documents need to be drafted and re-drafted until the technical writer is satisfied that the documents are accessible for all levels. This can often stretch your creativity further than trying to write the greatest American novel ever could.

Paul Francis, The BHW Group

It is completely possible to include creativity in technical writing. In fact, we believe creativity is paramount to constructing a great article.

Technical writing can often be dense and difficult for readers to get through if you only present them with technical content.

Finding creative ways to frame your content not only makes your writing more relatable but also distinguishes you from the crowd. Here are some tips we’ve found to help engage readers and boost the quality of your writing:

• References: When showing example code and samples, use well-known characters, films, or books to make it easier to follow. Not only does this liven up your article, it also leverages shared culture and experiences to convey information in a different way that can make complex topics simpler to digest.
• Analogies: Use non-technical analogies when possible to lighten the tone of an example or section. Even technical writers struggle to make it through an entire article that only talks about technical things. This practice also helps you avoid littering your article with too much jargon that may impede someone’s understanding if they are not an expert in your field.
• Story-building : It’s okay to be funny! It’s also more than okay to construct some sort of narrative to the way the content is presented – people love a good story and this is a chance to add some character to your article.
• Visuals: Whether it’s a diagram or simply a cover photo for your blog, having visuals can break up the monotony of your writing (both literally and metaphorically) and give readers another way to absorb important contextual information on the subject topic.

John Lukaszczyk, Majux

I do SEO writing for law firms, so I avoid loose or light language as much as I can to keep things serious – but sometimes examples of conduct/situations are a good place to get creative.

Technical writing unavoidably uses complex language, and it’s sometimes impossible not to give your readers a headache. It’s important to lighten up your writing whenever you can.

Most of the time, any sort of narrative passage or conversational language can seem incredibly out of place. However, that doesn’t mean you should wholly avoid it.

Sometimes breaking away from a serious tone is exactly what your readers need. Especially if you’re writing for a tech audience (they’re usually a little less “stuffy”) or writing in-house materials (like manuals or documentation), adding creativity to your writing can keep your readers entertained and focused.

As long as your boss/supervisor is okay with the tone and it doesn’t detract from the tone of the content, go for it.

Justin May, Dock

Technical Writers can absolutely be creative. You often need it when you write documentation for products to imagine how a person will first interact with it. But there isn’t too much creativity allowed in the writing itself.

That doesn’t mean technical writers can’t use their creativity in other outlets. Much like many things in life, creativity is a skill that can be practiced and honed.

David Scarola,  The Alternative Board

Based on the research, TAB Vice President David Scarola suggests the following sales tips for B2B business owners:

1. Don’t sell. Teach.

According to TAB’s survey, over half of B2B buyers believe the information they receive from vendors is too sales-oriented.

Win over customers by providing them with the educational resources they need – how your product works and why it’s so important for their industry – rather than focusing on making a sale. By teaching them, rather than selling to them, you create a trust-based relationship.

2. Generate positive reviews of your offering.

One of the best stories to tell about your product or service is a success story. With 93% of business owners turning to independent reviews before making a purchasing decision, it’s a good idea to work with precious customers and online influencers to develop a positive online presence for your product/service.

Third-party validation can make a big difference when convincing a business owner to make a purchase. It removes a lot of the guesswork and potential risk associated with the purchase. A recommendation from a friend, family member, peer, or even online influencer builds a powerful layer of trust, which may even shorten your sales cycle.

Tim Brown, Hook Agency

Recognize it’s crowded content marketing, take inspiration from the top 3, and take a new spin.:

• Talking through technical writing with people writing on our blog, or our client’s blogs – we consistently talk about the fact that the content market is incredibly crowded.
• To poke your head above the crowd, you need to take a fresh new spin on it – get creative in the way you position it, and get to the point quickly, before going more in-depth.

With this formula, and by reviewing all of the top items that currently rank for a particular topic and trying to combine the top 3 in a ‘super article’ you can break through the ‘boring content wall.

Daniel Houseman, Comm-Works

Frequently with technical writing, you are discussing highly complex concepts that people have little or no interest in. In other words, it can get dry quickly. Readers will let their minds drift if they cannot personally connect to what they are reading. Therefore, your writing needs to be both clear and engaging to be successful. This, however, requires great creativity.

Technical writers often need to think out of the box to create engaging content. They must use their creativity to make complicated concepts relevant and fascinating to their readers. One way to approach this is by asking yourself, “ How can I make this interesting for me?” If you enjoy writing the piece, chances are people will enjoy reading it as well.

Another way technical writers can generate interest in their piece is by connecting the topic to things the audience knows and understands. Putting complex concepts in the context of situations the audience has already experienced will make your writing more compelling. The connection, however, is not always clear. It is up to the writer to find a creative context that is both relatable to the reader and relevant to the writing. While it may be difficult at times, the final product is much more intriguing to the reader.

Bonus Tip: Define your audience and create a persona.

Technical writers have a certain audience in mind while they create a document every time. Whether it’s a superior, a colleague, or a client, they realize that each reader will have distinct demands and expectations. That is why establishing your target audience from the start and considering them at every stage of the writing process is critical.

Creating a persona is one approach to get really specific with your audience. A persona is a sort of imaginary person that represents all of the qualities of your perfect reader. You may ensure that you’re always adapting your message to the appropriate individuals by taking the time to develop your persona thoroughly.

When writing for a technical audience, it is important to remember that your reader may not have the same level of expertise as you do. As a result, it is important to use clear and concise language that can be easily understood. In addition, technical terms should be defined clearly and unambiguously. Finally, technical specifications and other information should be presented in an easy-to-follow format. By keeping these considerations in mind, you can ensure that your technical writing is accessible to all readers.

Wrapping Up

Writing should never be a chore. The more you enjoy writing, the more you will do it and improve your skills. Remember to follow the guidelines and make them your own when you work on your next article. If you allow creativity and technical writing to go together, they can work in tandem effectively.

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18.7 Spotlight on . . . Technology

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Implement a variety of technologies while matching them to environments used to address rhetorical situations.
• Match the capacities of different modes and media to various rhetorical situations.

Technology is a crucial element in multimodal composition. In fact, the emergence of digital technology has vastly changed the landscape of multimodal composition in recent years. The rise of technology has resulted in new communication and composition practices in people’s social, academic, and professional lives. Technology also plays a role in the rhetorical approach to writing and composition, increasing the complexity of expression, communication, and persuasion. Indeed, technology has both challenged and transformed long-held ideas about what it means to write.

Within the genre of multimodal composition, there is a growing call for design advocacy, part of which means redefining and recontextualizing the rhetoric of design to make multimodal compositions more inclusive not only for those with differing abilities but also for those marginalized according to social, technological, and cultural equity.

Digital Deserts

One challenge posed by the incorporation of technology in multimodal composition is the presence of digital deserts , or places affected by a digital divide, where residents have no access to the high-speed internet connections required to consume and create digital media. The Federal Communications Commission produced data indicating that in 2017, 21.3 million Americans lacked access to high-speed internet service, and of those people, 2.2 million households had no internet access at all. Studies show that this data may be understated, with even more people living in digital deserts. Rural parts of the country are disproportionately affected, but people living in low-income urban areas make up a significant portion of these numbers.

To participate in the consumption or creation of most multimodal composition, students need access to high-speed internet, defined by the FCC as a download speed of 25 Mbps and an upload speed of 3 Mbps. When no such access exists, cultural, social, and educational disparities arise within the genre of multimodal literature. Students who have less access to the technology required to read, view, or create multimodal works are excluded from this relatively new form of literature, leading to cultural underrepresentation and placing them at academic and social disadvantages.

Enhancing Usability and Accessibility

Other considerations affecting multimodal compositions are usability and accessibility for readers of differing abilities. These may be associated with speech, hearing, vision, and/or motor impairments, among others. Universal accessibility aims to produce content that all people, regardless of abilities, can use, often with assistive technologies, solutions, and tools. Although new fields within the education landscape, such as universal design, have made great strides in usability and accessibility, multimodal content can enhance these strides in unique ways for students and for all consumers of multimodal compositions.

Multimodal compositions often include interaction constraints. These can be thought of as filters that limit a user’s ability to access consumer content effectively. For example, a person who has vision impairment may experience interaction constraints when attempting to consume a photo essay. This constraint can be eased through technologies that help make the media more meaningful, such as text and audio alternatives that help the user experience the composition in a way similar to its original form.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are intended to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities. However, creators of multimodal compositions can adapt and apply WCAG rules and principles, such as those discussed below, even to compositions that are not web based.

Provide Informative Titles and Headings

Content titles and headlines that accurately describe and distinguish the composition from others are helpful for contextualizing the composition. A headline usually refers to a composition within something larger, such as an article in a magazine, whereas a title encompasses an entire entity in itself, such as a novel or story that stands on its own. Consider the headline of the blog post you read earlier, “Celebrating a Win-Win: 30 Years of Progress under the Pollution Prevention Act.” This headline is informative, telling the audience that the post is about the progress of the Pollution Prevention Act. It also informs readers of the author’s perspective on this topic, clearly indicating her belief in the success of the act. For the photo essay about the war in Syria, the student writer revised the original headline to the more specific and meaningful Remnants of War—Syria .

Use Headings and Subheads to Convey Meaning and Structure

Headings and short subheads group related information, clearly describe sections of text or media, and provide an outline of the content. Although they are a standard feature of informational texts, headings and subheads can be explored within multimodal compositions as organizational and accessibility features, as they are used in the poster shown in Figure 18.24 , United Nations poster . The subheads clarify the structure of the composition, indicating features such as the introduction and author’s objectives, and provide transitions between sections.

Make Link Text Meaningful

When using hyperlinks within a multimodal composition, write text that describes the content of the link target. Instead of using vague text such as “click here” or simply using the URL as the hyperlink, use the opportunity to include relevant information about the content of the link. This added content serves as a transition and emphasizes the relationship between the media. Alexandra Dapolito Dunn does this in the blog post in Annotated Sample Reading , specifying in her text the content of the link used:

public domain text President Trump acknowledged the effectiveness of these and other EPA programs in a 2018 Executive Order that directed federal agencies to use EPA’s P2 resources to meet their statutory sustainable purchasing requirements. end public domain text

Write Meaningful Text Alternatives for Graphics

All images and other graphic representations should have meaningful alternative text that helps readers understand the information portrayed in the image and its significance to the function of the composition. Consider Figure 18.26 :

Briefly, the caption provides context and any other important information that cannot be gathered simply by looking at the image. Alternative (Alt) text, in contrast, describes only the information that can be gathered by simply looking at the image (the “what the image shows” part of the caption sentence). Alt text for this image might read “Large crowd of soccer fans waves national flags.” Alternative text is imperative for those who have vision impairments because it enables them fuller comprehension of the media.

Create Transcripts and Captions for Media

Audiovisual content, such as videos and podcasts, can be especially challenging for users with visual or auditory disabilities. Therefore, include clear and specific transcripts and captions to guide users through content in your multimodal compositions. In video transcripts, describe visual content (for example, “Joey enters the room” whenever that action occurs). For audio content, include text that indicates spoken information and other sound that is important for understanding the content (for example, “Trumpets softly play the national anthem in the background”). Again, these small additions make your multimodal media accessible to consumers of all abilities.

Publishing Your Work

One of the most exciting parts of composing is publishing your work. Technology affords multimodal composers numerous options for publishing. Whether or not you create your composition through digital means, you can use technology in the publishing process. First, know that you want your published product to be a finished work that incorporates the revisions and edits you made during the peer review process. This step is occasionally skipped in the multimodal composition process, mostly because digital publishing can be more accessible than other traditional publishing methods. Nevertheless, as a composer, you want your published product to be your best work.

Depending on which modes and media you include, consider the following options for publishing your multimodal advocacy project.

• Blogs , which usually include text, images, and videos, can be self-published on free or inexpensive web-based platforms such as WordPress, Adobe Experience Manager, and others. Any author or group can start a blog and create posts that incorporate multimodal content.
• As an alternative to blogs, consider the digital flipbook format, the equivalent of a digital magazine. Platforms such as Issuu allow content creators to organize content in a format in which the viewer scrolls left and right by “flipping” pages. Flipbooks offer more options for layout, organization, and transitions.
• You may instead choose to publish your completed composition on a video hosting site such as YouTube or Vimeo.
• You can also use technology to publish non-digital multimodal compositions, such as performances, presentations, or hard-copy posters and the like. This kind of publication typically involves another layer of mode mixing, such as recording a live performance or uploading a picture of an artwork to a digital platform.

No matter what technology you choose, you will want to follow an organized writing process and ensure that your choices honor your purpose, your audience, and the organization you have chosen for your work. Thinking specifically about your advocacy project, consider what you want to accomplish and to whom you are speaking. What digital publishing options can accomplish your goals? How does your intended audience consume digital media? Choosing your publication method is as important as choosing the modes and media.

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The Role of Digital Technologies to Promote Collaborative Creativity in Language Education

Moisés selfa-sastre.

1 Department of Specific Didactics, Universitat de Lleida, Lleida, Spain

Manoli Pifarré

2 Department of Psychology, Universitat de Lleida, Lleida, Spain

Andreea Cujba

Laia cutillas, enric falguera, associated data.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

The importance of cultivating creativity in language education has been widely acknowledged in the academic literature. In this respect, digital technologies can play a key role in achieving this endeavour. The socio-cultural conceptualization of creativity stresses the role of communication, collaboration and dialogical interaction of creative expression in language education. The objective of this paper is to study the literature focusing on cases of collaborative creativity and technology embedded in language education. To this end, we carry out a systematic revision of state-of-the-art literature consisting of 26 blind peer-reviewed empirical studies selected from several databases that address our main research question, namely, which specific roles and forms of digital technology can be identified in the existing literature that support collaborative creativity in language education. Results show that the features of digital technology unfold a range of learning opportunities in language education and can play three different roles in promoting collaborative creativity: (1) as a tutoring device that guides the implementation of key co-creation skills; (2) as a tool that enables and shapes the development of co-creative thinking skills; and (3) as a medium that creates rich and resourceful environments to stimulate the emergence of collective creative processes. The paper also reveals that these three roles can be performed using a wide range of interactive technologies that encourage students to participate in a rich, co-creative language learning experience and equip learners with key competences to approach complex problems in a globalised and hyper-connected world. Finally, this paper may contribute to developing future language technology-enhanced learning projects capable of promoting key collaborative and creative processes.

Introduction

Creativity has been identified as the backbone of the skills needed to participate fully in the 21st century society, both in professional and everyday situations that require innovative responses. Also, creativity is regarded as one of the key competences to approach complex problems in a globalised and hyper-connected world ( Gretter and Yadav, 2016 ; Henriksen et al., 2016 ). Consequently, over the last decade and globally, educational policies have been implemented aimed at including in curricula competences and contents that promote creativity and innovation ( Van de Oudeweetering and Voogt, 2018 ).

Recent educational research agrees that creativity is the ability to generate novel, appropriate and valuable ideas that can lead to producing original and valuable products or learning outcomes ( Rojo, 2019 ). Therefore, the definition of creativity includes two characteristics: on the one hand originality refers to novelty, infrequency and uniqueness; on the other hand usefulness refers to utility, appropriateness, fitness or valuableness for the community ( Hernández-Torrano and Ibrayeva, 2020 ).

Recent trends consider creative acts to be socio-cultural in nature and origin. From this perspective, the actions aiming to generate original and valuable products are seen as a social, rather than as an individual phenomenon. Since cultural traditions, social practices and social artefacts regulate and transform the human mind ( Shweder and Sullivan, 1990 ; Glăveanu, 2018 ), there is a profound interdependence between individuals and their socio-cultural context. The transactions, interactions and activities between these two systems are at the root of creativity. According to Vygotsky et al. (1996) , context-mediated action is the socio-cultural genesis of mental functions. Thus, the socio-cultural conceptualisation of creativity emphasises the role of intersubjectivity, communication and dialogical interaction in creative expression ( Glăveanu, 2010 ). There is no doubt that creativity emerges from the close and binding relationship between language and thought.

The focus of educational research on socio-cultural aspects of creativity has led to the coinage of such concepts as collaborative creativity , collaborative creativity , group creativity or distributed creativity ( Sawyer, 2012 ; Glăveanu, 2014 ). Creativity has been defined as a social process ( Sawyer, 2012 ) that emerges and develops among group situations. Indeed, great innovations are often the result of group work, and social judgement and communication play an important role in developing creative products ( Glăveanu, 2018 ). In this respect, collaborative creativity can be considered as the emergence of shared ideas between two or more individuals ( Sakr, 2018 ). Also, Sun et al. (2022) highlight that group processes, such as sharing, negotiation, group communication and interaction processes, are decisive factors of collaborative creativity. Tanggaard (2020) claims that the situated, social nature of creative practices requires a basic dimension of togetherness because we create with the support and engagement of others, and the support of tools and artefacts created by former generations. Sakr (2018) claims the importance of taking into consideration the affective dimensions of collaborative creativity. In this paper, we aim to explore how collaborative creativity supported with technology is promoted in language education.

In the specific case of language education, creativity processes emerge when there is a requirement to meet the challenges posed by language teaching. In this article, collaborative creativity in language education is characterised as the collaborative construction of an original and valuable product that gives a creative answer to language learning challenges. The difference between solving these problems individually or collaboratively is abysmal. While in the former, there is a univocal and unidirectional dialogue, in the latter, i.e. when two or more subjects are involved in the creation of creative thinking, productivity and collaboration between equals is fostered. This results in rich communication of experiences in pursuit of a common good: in other words, ‘students are engaged in higher level thinking activities such as problem solving and discussion of complex ideas’ ( Shuler et al., 2010 , p. 11). There is, therefore, an engagement between people to solve what Montalvo (2011) calls linguistic enigmas . In this scoping review, we only take into consideration those pieces of research that promote creativity in collaborative environments.

Nowadays, we witness the rapid development of digital and interactive technologies connecting people in multiuser working spaces where users can interact, share and externalise their ideas in open spaces, interplaying with others’ voices in different and multiple multimodal channels. As a result of this active online dialogue, new, dynamic and co-created knowledge can emerge ( Pifarré, 2019 ). On this issue, Wegerif (2015) argues that technology shapes human thinking and impacts on how we think and interact with others. Therefore, technology can play an important role in mediating students’ creative actions as well as engaging them into meaning-making and collaborative knowledge creation ( Säljö, 1999 ). Also, Mercer et al. (2019) state that we think with and through artefacts that constitute mediational means endowed with affordances and constraints.

Previous research has characterised distinct features of interactive technology that can play a role in resourcing, promoting and shaping co-creative dialogues ( Major et al., 2018 ). Certainly, digital technologies open up new possibilities for creating and visualising the links between language and thought that allow for a multimodal representation of creative ideas. Ntelioglou et al. (2014) emphasise that the multimodal interaction of technologies facilitates 21st century education in that it promotes broader literacy beyond simple literacy skills by incorporating multiple modes of meaning-making and communication (e.g. auditory, visual, linguistic, spatial and body modes) on the one hand; on the other, the multimodal interaction of technologies provides pedagogical support for learners to optimise their language and literacy learning. For example, digital storytelling has been used to create collaborative storeys as well as to favour language learning specially, learning an L2 in multilingual learning ( Anderson et al., 2018 ; Andayani, 2019 ; Tyrou, 2021 ).

Technology can play a crucial role in solving language learning problems. In fact, there is a growing application of digital and interactive technologies to language education. Our interest focuses not only on learning what types of digital environments have been mostly used to stimulate collaborative creativity in language education, but also on reviewing how technology has been used to foster collaborative creativity processes and what results have been obtained from its use.

Our review paper aims to fill this research gap and provide new knowledge on how research in the field of language education has used technology to promote collaborative creativity processes. In this line, identifying the most salient features of existing research may provide an insight into further research on new pedagogies involving creativity in language education with the use of digital technologies.

Over the last decade, language education has gradually incorporated the use of a wide range of interactive mobile technology widely used in scientific research. The introduction of such technology in language classrooms has generated opportunities and challenges in the design of learning scenarios that promote collaborative creativity competences. Surprisingly, there are no review studies that analyse the role of technology in supporting and organising collaborative and creative processes in the teaching and learning of language content. Such studies could provide valuable knowledge for outlining theoretical frameworks and pedagogical guidelines to better design language teaching and learning projects that use technology to promote creativity.

To fill this research gap, this article offers a review of educational studies that combine the use of pedagogy and digital technologies to cultivate collaborative creativity competencies in language teaching and learning. This review focuses on research conducted at compulsory and post-compulsory education levels during 2008–2021, as will be seen in the Results and discussion sections.

Our research question is ‘Which specific roles and forms of digital technology can be identified in the existing literature that support collaborative creativity in language education?’

Materials and Methods

Bibliographical search and criteria for the selection of studies.

We carried out a scoping review to identify the most relevant studies on the development of collaborative creativity in language education by means of digital technology. This systematic review aims to gather evidence on the role of digital technology in promoting social creativity in language education and carry out a quantitative and qualitative analysis. Our analysis aims to identify and evaluate existing studies rather than use statistical techniques (e.g. metanalysis) that combine results of these studies to obtain global measuring parameters. Our methodological framework follows the PRISMA statement, a recent guide of systematic reviews launched by Page et al. (2021) . The databases consulted are Web of Science (WoS), Scopus and Google Scholar, as they are the most widely acknowledged sources of reference to obtain updated systematic reviews ( Codina, 2018 : 30–33). We carried out searches in these databases through the advanced search function entering the following keywords and phrases: ‘language education’, ‘creativ*’, ‘collab*’, ‘techno*’ and ‘learning’.

On the first search attempt, we realised that the word ‘technology’ could be restrictive as some articles used keywords, such as ‘computer’, ‘digital’ or ‘video’. In view of this, we decided to replace the word ‘technology’ with the keywords: ‘comput*’, ‘digital’, ‘Web’, ‘video’, ‘blog’, ‘Wiki’ and ‘podcast’. As a result, we managed to collect an appropriate selection of studies for our research. It should be noted that our search covered the last 13 years (from 2008 to 2021), as during these years, there has been an increased integration of technology in language teaching and learning classrooms. In this respect, creativity and collaboration among peers in teaching and learning flourish when learners need to give a novel and original reply to the group.

We established inclusion and exclusion source registers for the systematic review. They are indicated in Table 1 .

Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Two independent reviewers conducted all stages of study selection for this review; discrepancies in papers that partially met the criteria were re-examined by a third reviewer and resolved by consensus. Our initial pool was 188 articles, of which 79 were duplicates as they appeared in all three databases consulted. Through the first screening, we discarded the following three types of documents: (a) studies from conferences and/or communications: only blind peer-reviewed articles were considered; (b) books and book chapters were discarded due to the difficulties of having open access to these documents; and (c) articles that were not written in English or Spanish. Figure 1 summarises the screening procedure and the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the paper review selection.

Screening procedure of the papers.

After this first search, 48 scientific articles were read and assessed for their suitability to achieve the objectives of our research. From these, 12 of them were discarded as they were not directly related to the domain of language teaching and learning. In addition, 10 more articles did not directly discuss research linked to the development of collaborative creativity in language teaching and learning processes. Finally, we narrowed down a selection of 26 relevant studies in line with the research question of this study. A description of all the selected papers is shown in Table 2 .

Summary of review studies reporting on collaborative creativity practices with technology in the teaching and learning of languages.

We then categorised the 26 studies as they constituted our research basis. After reading, checking and discussing the 26 selected papers, we agreed on the following: firstly, including the paper in one specific category or role of technology. Secondly, analysing how each type of technology was used in each paper to promote collaborative creativity. Thirdly, checking on the discrepancies solved using a consensus-based approach.

Table 2 provides an overview of the core data extracted from the selected studies. In order to identify the possible roles that technology could play in promoting students’ collaborative creativity in language education, we were inspired by the different ways of conceptualising the relationship between technology and teaching thinking and creativity developed by Loveless (2007) and Wegerif (2015) . For the purposes of this study, as many as three different roles of technology in promoting students’ collaborative creativity in language education were identified as: (1) technology as a tutor that induces and models the execution of key co-creative processes for solving language challenges; (2) technology as a tool whose utilisation and appropriation of its characteristics by the students becomes an instrument to think creatively and collaboratively during language learning; and (3) technology as a medium or an environment that prompts the development of key collaboration and creativity processes.

Figure 2 displays the results of the roles that technology plays in promoting students’ collaborative creativity in language education and the forms of technology used. As shown in Figure 2 , technology as a tool is the most frequent role among the studies reviewed ( n  = 12). This role was introduced using a wide range of digital technologies. In any case, audio and video platforms are the most common forms of technology used as instruments that facilitate thinking co-creatively. Out of these 26 studies, 11 of them promoted the use of technology in language education as a medium that provokes co-creation. Fewer studies were found with a tutor role technology ( n  = 3).

Form and role of the technology.

Six forms of digital technology were identified in the studies reviewed in order to promote collaborative creativity in language education for all students. The studies analysed used mainly audio and video platforms ( n  = 10). A few studies used Blog ( n  = 5) and web-based environments ( n  = 4) and fewer studies used wiki ( n  = 3) or mobile technology ( n  = 3). Finally, a limited number of studies introduced word processing ( n  = 1). Audio and video platforms were the most frequent ones. When digital technologies were implemented as a tutor, Blog ( n  = 2) was the main one.

Recent research has shown that interactive technologies provide a set of tools than can enrich the learning context and nurture collaborative creativity processes ( Henriksen et al., 2016 ). A specific technology imposes certain constraints, establishes preconditions for students’ behaviours and opens up a range of learning opportunities. Because of this, there is a need to analyse how technology is used to promote collaborative creativity in language education.

The qualitative analysis of the papers selected for this review identified three different roles of technology for promoting students’ collaborative creativity in language education, namely: tutor, tool and medium. In this section, we address the discussion of the results obtained in relation to these three different roles of technology.

Technology as a Tutor of Co-creative Thought

Digital technologies can be seen as gadgets selected to guide a creative activity on the teaching and learning of a given linguistic content. From this point of view, technology can act as a tutor that encourages creative thinking by following pre-established guidelines and the design of scripts or prompts that promote the performance of specific creative skills. An example of this use in language learning is developed by Cruz and Orange (2016) and applied to Master studies. For their study, they use the multimedia poster Gloster to support and improve oral communication on a topic. In this study, technology promotes the development of key creative processes as it can increase opportunities to explore and play with materials, information and ideas around oral communication in a given language. The teacher often plays an important role in the use of technology, as it is the teacher who introduces technology in the classroom to teach curricular content creatively. However, the content-related use of technology can help raise awareness of the ways in which creativity relates to learning curricular knowledge.

In the study by Contreras Salas (2012) , Web 2.0 tools are effective in creating information in collaboration with others, organising social networks, sharing videos and photos, and creating wikis, blogs, podcasts and folksonomies . The aim of their effective design was to offer a creative virtual world in which all the proposals related to the use of ICT were collected in a Methodology Guide as a tutorial guide for developing creative thinking. From this guide, teachers, in this case English ones, can draw different possibilities for the use of ICT which are not linear, but transversal and offer multiple possibilities of use and interaction. The result of this study showed that the inclusion of ICT in the teaching of English changed the dynamics of teaching in the learning of this language in 50% of the students. Indeed, students managed time asynchronously as participatory and collaborative work was necessary to carry out learning activities. On the other hand, teachers continuously reviewed the technological learning guidelines contained in the Methodology Guide . In this way, the learning process of the students was positively influenced by the methodological approaches of the language teacher.

Similarly, Montalvo (2011) focused on Peruan primary schoolchildren—years 4, 5 and 6. His study highlights the importance of collaborative learning in linguistic learning situations mediated by digital technologies. These technologies consist in audiovisual riddles which favour the exercise of creative thinking. Riddles represent a dialogical game between two or more people in which the riddle posed by the sender is tackled by the receivers, thereby establishing a dialogical game between the two. In order to ensure that audiovisual riddles are more widely accepted among new generations, the sender resorts to digital technology, giving them a digital treatment through YouTube. As Igarza (2009 : p. 214) points out ‘YouTube is perhaps the Google of the next generation’. In addition to this tool, a blog recorded the response to each of the five riddles posed. Each of the riddles was based on an animated image and a text related to the content of that image. The solution to the task was carried out in groups of two, three or four students, which made it possible to observe the dynamics established among group members when working on the answer to a riddle. The conclusions of the study show that collaborative learning is one of the most functional ways of working in education. It is also closely related to what Montalvo (2011 : p. 130) refers to as collective intelligence , today associated with Web 2.0 and social networks.

Creativity, peer collaboration and the use of technology have been, as shown above, the object of study, application and analysis in language teaching and learning environments, in which learners play an active role. However, as Contreras Salas (2012) points out in a study with Degree students of Elementary Education specialising in Humanities, Spanish and English of the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia, based in Bucaramanga, it is necessary to encourage creativity using technology on teachers who have to teach language content. One of the technological avenues most widely explored in language teaching is Web 2.0, as it allows the teacher to share information and specific guides with the learner through the World Wide Web. Contreras Salas (2012) shows in his research how English teachers create Web 2.0 activities that offer different possibilities of working with ICT.

Technology as a Tool That Facilitates Thinking Co-creatively

Socioculturalism argues that subjects learn to think by internalising the use of cultural tools, such as language or technology, which later become cognitive or critical thinking tools ( Vygotsky, 1987 ). Instrumental genesis ( Rabardel and Bourmaud, 2003 ) addresses the connection of human agents and technical artefacts through the concept of instrument. An instrument is a heterogeneous entity, composed of a technical artefact and a human agent. The instrument arises from a double developmental movement, which connects the artefact and its scheme of use. From this instrument, the agents interact and develop a creative product ( Overdijk et al., 2012 ). Technology can thus be seen as a tool used to shape and develop an activity. Instrumentalization therefore changes the tool at the same time as it changes the subject using it.

Digital technologies offer different possibilities to solve language challenges creatively. Users can convert features of digital technologies into instruments for thinking that promote key collaborative and creative processes for solving a language activity.

The qualitative analysis of the papers selected for this review distinguished three different uses of digital technologies as instruments for promoting collaborative creativity actions in language education: (a) as a co-participation and engagement tool; (b) as a multimedia tool that enhances collaborative and creative writing strategies; and (c) a tool that supports linguistic thinking. Next, we will discuss these three uses of technology as a tool.

Technology as a Tool That Enhances Participation and Engagement of All Group Members to Jointly Create Knowledge

Engagement of all group members and being together is a basis of being creative ( Tanggaard, 2020 ). Technology makes it possible to create and narrate a storey collaboratively by means of such tools as iMovie, iPhoto or digital storyboard ( Stevenson et al., 2015 ). These are examples of the use of technology as a tool that facilitates creative linguistic activity of primary and secondary education students. This tool supports the participation of all group members to create joint knowledge and solve a complex creative task.

Kukulska-Hulme (2009) explores second language learning in playful digital environments that encourage peer interaction. This research shows the advantages of mobile learning to learn a second language. Taking the youngest generations as the basis of her research, the author shows how English as a second language (ESL) students develop peer-scaffolding strategies to communicate with each other and learn the meaning of new words with a mobile phone.

Multimedia Technology as a Tool That Supports and Generates Co-creative Writing Strategies

The process of writing a digital storey requires the implementation of new strategies related to generating, communicating and negotiating content in a meaningful way through multimedia information, which facilitates the development of literacy that includes aspects related to doing and being ( Sawyer, 2012 ). Moreover, these new strategies developed while using technology favour the learning of processes associated with creativity, such as generation of ideas, their development and improvement, selection of the best ideas and their representation ( Sun et al., 2022 ).

In a project with college English student teachers, Andayani (2019) describes the advantages of digital storytelling as a tool to promote collaborative learning skills when learning a second language. This study reports on the benefits in the learning of English of 31 pre-service students asked to create a digital fairy tale using multimedia and interactive technology.

The author concludes that the use of digital narratives has multiple benefits for future English teachers, such as the integration of technology, the implementation of pedagogical theories they had previously studied, the increase in motivation to finish the projects, the reduction of public speaking anxiety and, finally, the possibility of adding music and sound effects, which helped to better dramatise the storey. In post-project interviews, some of the study subjects state that the use of this tool fostered their creativity in designing English teaching and learning activities for their future students. They also point out the motivation and interest generated by the task, as well as the fact that visually supported storeys are easier for English learners to understand.

In another case study with a sample of 30 students from Kyrgyzstan aged between 12 and 16 years, Chubko et al. (2020) used digital storytelling in science with non-native English students. This study is an extension of a previous study, the Indigenous Sky Stories program, conducted with Australian primary school students aged 10–12 years ( Ruddell et al., 2016 ). The conclusions reached in Chubko et al. (2020) are that the creation of digital narratives promotes the literacy of scientific concepts, both in students who master the language of instruction, and in those who do not have this mastery, as demonstrated in an extensive case study, consisting of a sample of over 300 Australian and Kyrgyz students. The authors claim that the use of digital storytelling promoted creativity in constructing a digital narrative and the processes involved in this construction reduced the gap between native and non-native English students.

Naqvi and Al Mahrooqi (2016) discuss an experience with Omani university ESL students. These students were divided into two equal groups: one group of students collaboratively created a digital video showing an audiovisual message in English about a commercial product; a second group, based on this video, carried out a collaborative writing exercise in English on the form and content of the video. After carrying out this exercise in different work sessions, the researchers of this study designed a questionnaire to analyse the learners’ impressions of learning English as an L2 using digital videos and collaboratively written reports on these videos. The results obtained showed positive impressions of the group of learners related to the good use of digital tools in collaborative and creative environments for ESL students.

Comas-Quinn et al. (2009) carried out a study with a group of English college students of the Open University of how mobile phones favour spatial mobility for language learning. In this way, from a shared blog, the mobile device becomes a tool for capturing inputs of any kind related to linguistic and cultural structures of an L2 which can then be shared among peers in a blog. The way to share them is through the creation of digital texts and narratives.

Technology as a Tool That Develops Linguistic Thinking

Different studies claim that interactive technology features related with the co-presence, in one single space of multiple different perspectives, stimulates further thinking. In this space, students can make their ideas visible, externalise their thoughts and represent ideas using multimedia and multimodal facilities. These features of technology can support the generation of new ideas, the connection between seemingly disparate bits of information from divergent perspectives and the construction of a holistic view of the information involved. As a result, different studies claim that the use of technology to solve linguistic challenges co-creatively can develop variables related to linguistic thinking. This is related with the notion of thinking creatively in terms of ‘we’ and the cultural back as the central axis around which novel ideas are generated and a viable approach for addressing creativity as a culturally diverse capacity ( Tanggaard, 2020 ).

In this line, Ntelioglou et al. (2014) carried out a case study in an inner city elementary school with a large population of recently arrived and Canadian-born linguistically and culturally diverse students from Gambian, Indian, Mexican, Sri Lankan, Tibetan and Vietnamese backgrounds, as well as a recent wave of students from Hungary. The study reports how the use of creative digital tools, such as iMovie and iPhoto for writing descriptive texts, had a positive impact on the expression of personal identity. The texts written by the students included photographs of the selected spaces, descriptions, emotions and experiences of the students in these places. These authors also pointed out that the texts were of very good linguistic quality. Therefore, the students learnt a basic competence in language learning: the written expression of the language. Moreover, the use of technological tools changed the dynamics of learning in the classroom towards more participatory learning processes that included aspects of self-identity and emotions. Therefore, instead of promoting quickly installed functional thinking skills, uniformly defined across cultures, technology promoted creativity as it is a kind of agency in the world, differently defined in various contexts because these require us to act in different creative ways according to the circumstances ( Glăveanu et al., 2016 ).

Lee (2009) describes how through collaborative blogging and collaborative podcasting, university students, from America and Spain, developed their communication and cultural awareness. The blogs and podcasts created were exchanged between the two cultures with a view to offering and receiving feedback for language correctness. The students did not receive prompts on how they should offer feedback, but instead made their own decisions. At the end of the study, students highlighted that they would not have participated in interactive discussions on linguistic and cultural aspects if they had face-to-face meetings.

Tyrou’s (2021) involves 92 university students of Italian as a foreign language in a Wiki environment with a series of activities that encouraged creative thinking, such as visiting virtual museums, and then writing texts collaboratively. The study analysed collaborative writing using Wiki tools in second language teaching. The use of Web 2.0 tools promoted improved learning processes through participation, collaboration and teamwork. This type of collaborative writing mainly improved the process of text revision, favouring both self-correction and peer correction. After analysing student perceptions about web 2.0 technologies for language learning, Tyrou (2021) concludes that ‘online collaborative wikis tools can increase knowledge of culture and foreign language, promote teamwork and familiarise our students with new technologies and virtual museums’ (p. 53). These are recognised creative values capable to develop students’ creative capacity ( Tanggaard, 2020 ).

In this line of work, Mellati and Khademi (2015) explore the possibilities of the WhatsApp mobile application as a tool that favours the sense of belonging to a group. The experience was carried out among 68 Iranian students of English aged between 18 and 35, with an intermediate level of English in the context of a course called Online Mobile Language Learning Course. The experience, in terms of collaborative and creative writing, was very positive. The only drawback observed was that, as the course progressed, a more careless use of the language was observed.

Yang and Yeh (2021) proposed the use of YouTube for teaching and learning the socio-cultural component of the English language. The research was carried out among 71 university students who wanted to learn English. In addition to making videos that were later posted on YouTube, this activity was followed by a critical reflection on the audiovisual production made, in order to reflect with the class group on the socio-cultural component that they wanted to transmit.

Also related to writing texts, Mellati and Khademi (2014) reports on the impact of peer assessment in a technology-based language environment on the quality of creative writing and the development of writing skills. In this study, so-called E-collaboration emerges as a highly intrinsically motivated pathway, as cooperative tasks, specifically based in digital environments, lead to the development of group work and communal learning that positively redounds to individual learning. The results of this research showed that peer learning through Computer-Assisted Language Learning can not only facilitate the development of language skills related to writing texts but also enhance intercultural communicative competence and digital literacy, understood as the ability to locate, organise, understand, evaluate and analyse information using digital technology.

Technology as a Medium That Facilitates an Appropriate Context for Co-creation in Language Education

Dynamic and multimodal interaction within a technology environment affords unique opportunities for learners to co-create in language education. Digital technologies can create rich and resourceful environments capable of acting as a medium which stimulates, orchestrates and supports specific creative processes. Sun et al. (2022) claim that the features of digital technologies can enhance key creative processes, such as emerging of new ideas, identifying connections between seemingly disparate bits of information, fostering collaborations, elaborating the information and promoting imaginative expressions.

The qualitative analysis of the papers selected for this review distinguished three different uses of digital technologies as medium for co-creation: (a) building an immersive and creative experience by providing a wide range of technologies; (b) the use of dedicated technology for building a co-creative writing community and (c) orchestrate the collaborative creativity process. Next, we address the discussion of the results obtained in relation to these two uses of technology as a medium for co-creation.

Building an Immersive and Creative Experience by Providing a Wide Range of Technologies

Technology plays a crucial role when it comes to developing creativity and creative learning environments for second language acquisition. As Lorenzo et al. (2013 , p. 1615) state, such an environment ‘promotes an immersive, creative and collaborative experience in the process of learning a foreign language’. These virtual learning universes can change the nature of teaching by simultaneously providing a social, immersive and creative experience for second language learners ( Canfield, 2008 ; Chan, 2008 ; Cooke-Plagwitz, 2008 ; Jeffery and Collins, 2008 ).

The purpose of the study by Lorenzo et al. (2013) is the creation of a Massively Multiuser Online Learning (MMOL) in university classroom, a didactic strategy that makes use of ICT to improve learning processes in a group of students in face-to-face mode. This integrated platform for massively multiuser learning allows the creation, development and deployment of content and activities for teaching a language in a virtual world. The cooperative, collaborative and socially interactive nature of students as well as teachers is based on a 3D online education environment, which in turn is supported using microcontent immersed in collaborative virtual environments. In other words, the microcontent identified in one of the microformats recognised by the MMOL tool is the basic unit of these environments. The MMOL microformat may be the same as the one used in Web 2.0, but its meta-description requires further improvement so that it can be intensively reused in any virtualised scenario, or, failing that, adapted to the conditions of a specific context.

The results of this action research with the use of MMOL for second language learning show that the possibility to cooperate and collaborate in a 3D educational context, in combination with the use of communication tools (e.g., chat, video chat or VoIP) and intelligent assistants (chatbots or NPCs), help the learner to accept a role of acceptance and objective criticism for group learning, which has a positive effect on individual acquisition of second language linguistic content.

A specific use of audio and video platforms is the Xtranormal environment ( Kilickaya, 2010 ) which allows the creation of animated films with voice audio. The creation of digital products of this type, in an L2 teaching and learning university environment, favours the creation of 3D characters playing different roles for language learning. In this way, listening contexts are generated to improve writing, reading and, in particular, the pronunciation of a second language.

Olivier (2019) explored how the creation of videos can be used to motivate students to interact critically with digital content and participate collaboratively using new technologies in learning a language. The experience was carried out among 82 university students, who produced a total of 50 multimodal creations individually, in pairs or triads. Some of these creations consisted in animations created online, others were animations made with PowerPoint with voice-overs, although they referred to all of these with the umbrella term ‘video’. The recorded videos are short videos with the purpose of being open educational resources, on topics provided by the teacher, all related to language learning. No instructions were given to the students on how to plan, write the script or shoot the videos. The conclusions of this research show that the students had to face difficulties not so much related to the use of technology, but rather content selection and condensing information, since the videos were limited in duration. In the same way, the students became real actors in this teaching and learning process, and valued the use of technology as a means of encouraging creativity, as this methodology broke away from traditional practices in language teaching and learning.

Akinwamide and Adedara (2012) designed a platform that provided different digital tools to help teachers working at different levels of teaching and learning digitalize the teaching and learning of a language. Finally, the article by Anderson et al. (2018) presents the findings of a global literacy project based on digital storytelling. They work on multiliteracy through a methodology based collaborative and dialogic ways, allowing for the sharing of divergent thoughts in each community. This research demonstrates the importance of an integrated and inclusive approach to languages in the framework of multiliteracy. Authors conclude that multimodal storytelling develops creative and dialogic thinking.

Dedicated Technology for Building a Co-creative Writing Community

Mak and Coniam (2008) recommended the use of the wiki for language learning. In their study, they used the wiki as an online, co-creative and multimedia environment for writing in English (ESL) with 11-year-old students from Hong Kong, who were not used to working collaboratively. In groups of four students, they participated in a project aiming to describe the facilities and characteristics of their educational centre to create an advertising brochure for promoting the centre. As the project progressed, the text of the group under analysis improved its quality and complexity. In addition, by writing a collaborative text, the students learned to expand, reorganise and correct their own writing and their group mates’ writing. The study highlights that the brochure included creative and original multimedia information.

Lund and Rasmussen (2008) also highlight the use of the wiki as a collaborative and creative technology with high school students from a Norwegian institute who participated in a collaborative writing project to describe a typical English city, within the framework of the subject of ESL. The creative component of this activity was found in the invention of a city based on the real characteristics of British cities using both textual description and images. The students undertook the presentation of their wiki, making use of their imagination. During the development of the project, the students interpreted, constructed and reconstructed writing processes. They went through each process as a result of the following actions: reviewing the wikis of the other groups and becoming aware of the global work of all their colleagues; adapting their texts; and coordinating with the members of their own groups to divide their workload. This led them to create a group task identity and commit them to the task.

Armstrong and Retterer (2008) investigated how the use of the Blog influences foreign language learning (in this case, students of Spanish, of unspecified ages, with an intermediate level of Spanish). Two different activities were planned as: (1) writing a storey among the whole group-class; (2) writing several personal blog posts for each small group. For the first activity, the students created a storey together, over the course of 3 weeks. The teacher started the storey and the different groups of students continued to build it on the basis of the following instruction: each group had to add information to the storey twice a week, but not on the same day, so they had to read the contributions of their peers. In the end, they recorded the storey as if it were a movie. As a result of the study, students who wrote on the blog using a significant number of words, improved their oral expression in terms of accuracy of verb tenses and also increased the complexity of their sentences. An anonymous questionnaire to the students about their blog writing experience showed that 100% of students felt more comfortable writing in Spanish at the end of that experience.

Rojas-Drummond et al. (2008) focused on 6–9-year-old students in Mexico City and how they learned collaboratively in creative writing projects through the use of ICTs. They started from a working context that adopted the model of a learning community. This promoted the social construction of knowledge among all participants. The construction of texts and multimedia products of storeys created by groups of children from fourth to sixth grade, through the innovative educational programme Learning Together , revealed the dynamic functioning in educational environments of some central socio-cultural concepts. Thus, collaborative creativity came across in the writing of texts that involved co-construction of texts; the establishment of intertextual and intercontextual relationships between the texts themselves using ICT; the development of dialogic and textual production strategies; and the appropriation of diverse cultural artefacts for the construction of knowledge.

Orchestrate the Collaborative Creativity Process in Language Education

Schmoelz (2018) reports how secondary education students who use digital narratives to encourage co-creativity show a greater commitment, at the time of planning the writing activity and a high control and effectiveness in the development and resolution of the activity. In the digital storytelling phase, students experience enjoyment and fun that allows a better-constructed storeys. The qualitative study covers 125 students who are interviewed, questioned, recorded and discussed.

This paper reviews studies of designs of technology-enhanced learning environments that promote collaborative creativity skills in language education. The final objective of this review has been to capture advanced knowledge for designing future language technology-enhanced learning projects capable of promoting key collaborative and creative processes.

This paper aims to fill a gap in educational research around the use of digital technology to promote collaborative creativity skills. Our selection criteria include four essential research variables to enhance creativity in a global knowledge society: collaboration, creativity, technology and language education. Only 26 studies meet all these criteria.

Although digital and interactive technologies are claimed to create a favourable language learning environment capable of fostering creative and collaborative language learning and writing ( Wang and Vásquez, 2012 ), most of the studies reviewed have not been explicitly designed to improve and evaluate creativity as a social and collaborative endeavour. On the contrary, the importance of creativity in these papers is limited to the creation of a purely digital linguistic product, such as a text, a video or a podcast ( Andayani, 2019 ). Therefore, this review paper can be taken as the basis for future research in language education.

From our review study, we conclude, firstly, that the features of digital and interactive technologies enable the design of powerful and rich language learning environments for knowledge co-creation. These technology-enhanced learning environments open up new opportunities for learners to, collaboratively, generate, modify and evaluate new ideas through online and multimodal interaction.

Secondly, the qualitative analyses of the selected papers conclude that technology can play three important roles to favour co-creativity in language education, namely, tutor, tool and medium. Technology can act as a tutoring device that guides the implementation of key co-creation skills. Therefore, there is a pattern of work and action that leads to solving language problems with digital tools that promote collaborative work, albeit in a sequenced way: Blogs, Wikis, WebQuest, Kahoot and YouTube as the most popular environments ( Contreras Salas, 2012 ).

Besides, technology can act as a tool that enables and shapes the development of co-creative thinking skills. Therefore, creative thinking arises from the use of technology that shapes the thinking of its users. This is where creative writing of digital narratives in environments, such as IMOvie, Iphoto, TOEFL Writing Test ( Mellati and Khademi, 2014 ) or MMOL for second language learning emerged.

Furthermore, technology can play the role of the medium that creates rich and resourceful environments to stimulate the emergence of collective creative processes. From this point of view, blogging ( Armstrong and Retterer, 2008 ) or the use of Wikis as online collaborative writing environments ( Mak and Coniam, 2008 ) allows students to improve their co-written writing skills by building texts in digital environments and encouraging e-collaboration between them.

Thirdly, six different forms of technologies have been identified in the reviewed studies that promote co-creativity in language education. They are the following: audio and video platforms, web-based environments, wikis, mobile technology and word processors. These forms of technology support online group learning that enthral students in active and resourceful-user experience for collaborative knowledge creation.

Finally, our work has its limitations that may have conditioned our results because of having discarded papers that could have contributed to answering our research question. Among these limitations, we highlight the following three: (a) limitation in the type of publications considered: only articles that followed a blind peer review procedure were considered; (b) limitation in the language chosen: only articles written in English and Spanish were included; and (c) limitation in the search keyword strategy and that these could be insufficient to include key articles in our field of study. However, in an attempt to minimise these limitations, firstly, a systematic review methodology was followed. Secondly, the most significant and prestigious databases in the field of education were consulted: Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar.

As a final remark, this paper gives evidence of how technology can support the learning of key linguistic and literary processes, such as: speaking, listening, reading and writing. Furthermore, this paper concludes that co-creativity is an intrinsic phenomenon of literary knowledge. However, there is a need to develop future language technology-enhanced learning projects capable of promoting key collaborative and creative processes in language education. We hope this paper may contribute to reaching this objective.

Data Availability Statement

Author contributions.

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

This research has been funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain under Grant EDU2019-107399RB-I00.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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How to Use Milanote as a Creative Writer

I f you’re the type of writer who plans their books or short stories ahead of time, make sure you check out Milanote, a versatile app that helps organize projects.

Here’s everything you need to know about Milanote’s tools for creative writers. See what’s available and try out the features that interest you the most.

What Is Milanote?

Milanote is a platform for planning projects. It's available online, but also as a desktop app , browser extension , and mobile app for Android and iOS .

You can work on your project from any device without missing a beat. And the platform has tools for more than writers. It’s great for designers, marketers, business owners, and more.

In other words, you can use Milanote to organize your whole career as an author, even combine it with other apps to boost your skills and prospects. For instance, practice creative writing on Story Shack’s Taleforge , while managing your book, publication, and marketing campaign.

1. Create a New Board

Milanote is a prime example of why creative writing apps are useful . After signing up as a writer, you gain access to your workspace. It’s a clean-cut grid surrounded by planning tools—plenty of room for your imagination to take shape.

To start a project, click on Board on the left-hand panel and drag your new addition into your grid. Double-click on the new board’s name to change it.

You can also connect boards with arrows and create a map. To do this, select a board. Then, click and drag the white dot that appears in the top-right corner.

Once set, bend the arrow, choose a different color, give it a label, change its thickness, or make it dashed. Play around with your options and make your book’s plan inspiring.

2. Choose a Creative Writing Template

Double-click on your new board to open it. You can start planning from scratch, but Milanote offers templates, too, specifically for writers.

If you don’t like your initial selection, click on More templates > Writing . You’ll get several options to choose from.

Novel Mood Board

You may just want to get a feel for your story. There’s a template that lets you create a mood board with pictures, videos, text, and files.

Brainstorming

You can then expand your mood board into a plan. Milanote starts you off with boxes and arrows that you fill in as necessary to help you specify what your story is about and where you’re going with it.

A big part of creative writing is doing research. Whether you need to know the history of a place, how to pilot a plane, or how to defend against a sword maneuver, note-taking is essential.

Milanote’s research template helps you keep everything in one place, complete with images, links, file uploads, and neat text boxes.

World-Building

To give your story texture and a convincing setting, it's important to give your fictional universe the attention it deserves. World-building apps on Android and iOS are handy, but sometimes you need a grander view of your book.

Try the world-building template on Milanote, where you can elaborate on your narrative’s places, people, history, maps, and anything else you want to add.

With this template, you can organize your whole novel on one board. You start with your inspiration, structure, and characters, not to mention a to-do list, images, and embedded boards. Make changes as you see fit.

Story Outline

The best plots take a lot of thought and planning, which Milanote’s outline template can help with. You can break down every milestone in your narrative and embellish it with text, images, and files.

Another app to consider as a creative writer is Novelist and its book planning tools , also available on both your browser and mobile device.

If you like following established structures, Milanote provides the space to lay out the best possible storyline. Just like the story outline template, the map asks for your narrative’s key moments, but it focuses on more generic concepts, such as the premise, stakes, core conflict, resolution, and lesson.

Three-Act Structure

A well-known layout for any story is the three-act structure. Milanote has a template specifically for this purpose. You get the three acts broken down with text, arrows, and other visuals to make your life as a creative writer easier and more exciting.

Character Profile

If you want to plan each character in depth, go for this template on Milanote. You could even connect the boards on your main grid and organize your cast’s relations.

The template’s default sections include the character’s picture, profile, backstory, characteristics, quirks, flaws, and arc.

Character Relationship Map

If you’d rather use your main grid to plan your overall project, not just your characters, use the relationship map template for a board dedicated to visualizing your full cast.

It lets you add everyone’s names and pictures. You can then connect them with arrows and labels. This is invaluable for a complex plot that completely depends on its characters.

3. Customize Your Template

Milanote provides a range of tools for writers to customize their boards. Here’s what you can do with them.

Edit the Template’s Details

Before clicking Use this template for the one you want, you can also tick the Keep example content box. Otherwise, Milanote will leave your template with blank fields.

Either way, you need to add your own content. So, go ahead and type in your text, upload images or files, and edit any other details the template comes with.

Add Relevant Boards

Your template might already contain its own boards, which you can rename and edit as normal. This gives your plan useful layers.

If something’s missing, the Board button is available here, too. Click and drag your new item into a pre-existing box or the background grid. And adjust the board’s details.

Add Other Features to Your Template

The sidebar offers several elements you can add to your project. We’ve already mentioned boards, images, videos, uploads, arrows, to-do lists, and links, but there’s a lot more.

You can also have different text boxes, columns, maps, sketches, audio files, and even color schemes. Depending on what kind of book you’re writing, your Milanote plan can reflect it completely.

Delete Items as Necessary

Anything you don’t like, you can easily remove. Just click and drag the item to the Trash icon.

Alternatively, right-click on the item and choose Delete from the menu. You’ll see many more available actions, including cutting or duplicating the item, changing its color, and converting it into a template.

The best way to really get to know Milanote’s capabilities is to try it out yourself for various projects.

4. Share, Export, or View Your Book's Plan as a Presentation

While inside a board, you can share it with people you want as editors. A read-only link is also available, which you can customize with enabled comments, downloads, passwords, and other features.

Your next option is to export the board. Choose between a PDF or PNG file, a linear document in a Word, markdown, or plain text format, or a ZIP file.

Finally, you can view your board as a full-screen presentation. Scroll through the whole plan and click on items to zoom in on them.

Master Milanote to Perfect Your Creative Writing

Milanote is easy to use and very versatile, so take advantage of its templates and tools. You can write, organize, and share your book with the help of this multifunctional app.

In the end, instead of a mess of papers and sticky notes, you can have a neat plan for your book on your computer and smartphone. This change can boost your confidence and productivity as a creative writer.

Even if it doesn’t suit you, don’t give up on digital tools. There are many services out there tailored to the creative writing process.

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Write down your thoughts and shred them to relieve anger, researchers say

Writing negative reactions on paper and shredding it or scrunching and throwing in the bin eliminates angry feelings, study finds

Since time immemorial humans have tried to devise anger management techniques.

In ancient Rome, the Stoic philosopher Seneca believed “my anger is likely to do me more harm than your wrong” and offered avoidance tips in his AD45 work De Ira (On Anger).

More modern methods include a workout on the gym punchbag or exercise bike. But the humble paper shredder may be a more effective – and accessible – way to decompress, according to research.

A study in Japan has found that writing down your reaction to a negative incident on a piece of paper and then shredding it, or scrunching it into a ball and throwing it in the bin, gets rid of anger.

“We expected that our method would suppress anger to some extent,” said Nobuyuki Kawai, lead researcher of the study at Nagoya University. “However, we were amazed that anger was eliminated almost entirely.”

The study, published in Scientific Reports on Nature , builds on research on the association between the written word and anger reduction as well as studies showing how interactions with physical objects can control a person’s mood. For instance, those wanting revenge on an ex-partner may burn letters or destroy gifts.

Researchers believe the shredder results may be related to the phenomenon of “backward magical contagion”, which is the belief that actions taken on an object associated with a person can affect the individuals themselves. In this case, getting rid of the negative physical entity, the piece of paper, causes the original emotion to also disappear.

This is a reversal of “magical contagion” or “celebrity contagion” – the belief that the “essence” of an individual can be transferred through their physical possessions.

Fifty student participants were asked to write brief opinions about an important social problem, such as whether smoking in public should be outlawed. Evaluators then deliberately scored the papers low on intelligence, interest, friendliness, logic, and rationality. For good measure, evaluators added insulting comments such as: “I cannot believe an educated person would think like this. I hope this person learns something while at the university.”

The wound-up participants then wrote down their angry thoughts on the negative feedback on a piece of paper. One group was told to either roll up the paper and throw it in a bin or keep it in a file on their desk. A second group was told to shred the paper, or put it in a plastic box.

Anger levels of the individuals who discarded their paper in the bin or shredded it returned to their initial state, while those who retained a hard copy of the paper experienced only a small decrease in their overall anger.

Researchers concluded that “the meaning (interpretation) of disposal plays a critical role” in reducing anger.

“This technique could be applied in the moment by writing down the source of anger as if taking a memo and then throwing it away,” said Kawai.

Along with its practical benefits, this discovery may shed light on the origins of the Japanese cultural tradition known as hakidashisara ( hakidashi sara refers to a dish or plate) at the Hiyoshi shrine in Kiyosu, just outside Nagoya. Hakidashisara is an annual festival where people smash small discs representing things that make them angry. The study’s findings may explain the feeling of relief that participants report after leaving the festival, the paper concluded.

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