2023 Theses Doctoral

Under Wendy Bishop’s Eye: An Autofictional Account of Teaching and Learning in a 21st Century (Creative) Writing Program

Roosevelt, Maura

“Under Wendy Bishop’s Eye” examines the teaching, learning, and social environment of a graduate student in an American creative writing MFA program in the early years of the 21st century. This dissertation is a work of autofiction; it is both an autoethnography and a fictionalized story written in the form of a novel. The project uses the scholarship of writing studies’ leader Wendy Bishop to discuss and analyze the dynamics of graduate student learning in creative writing courses, undergraduate learning in creative writing courses, graduate student teaching in creative writing courses, and graduate student teaching in expository writing or first-year composition courses at a four-year college.

The project addresses the limitations of the “workshop method” for teaching creative writing, while supporting the benefits of writing pedagogy that includes cross-genre writing exercises in all university-level writing courses, specifically bringing “personal writing” and creative non-fiction into both creative writing and first-year composition course.