Creative Writing in the Negro College

Two points of view are prevalent on the role of creative writing in the American college. One, the traditional attitude, insists that writing, unlike other creative arts, cannot be taught and that the neophyte novelist or poet must learn his craft outside the college community or, at least, outside the college curriculum. Such writing courses as are offered are intended rather as instruction in advanced composition or dilettante self-expression than in writing as a profession, and are merely a sop to the student seeking an interesting elective inEnglish. They do not discharge the responsibility of the college to stimulate talented students to produce literature as well as to study it. But creative writing is beginning to take its proper place in the curriculum as a legitimate and serious field of academic specialization. As one of those responsible for this attitude, Paul Engle, director of the University of Iowa's School of Creative Writing, has assembled impressive evidence to indicate that writing can be taught to students who have the background and aptitude for it. He points out that a surprisingly large number of contemporary novelists and poets are products of creative w r it i n g courses in American colleges and universities, and demonstrates that these institutions have become the natural place in our society for talented young people to learn to write.: Basically the new idea is that students must be exposed to a thorough curriculum in writing, taught by experts, and given academic credit for their productions. This approach has advanced to such a point that in at least one major institution a novel may be submitted in lieu of a dissertation as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree in English

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