Creative writing and iconicity in English as a foreign language

Abstract

Creative writing workshops in high-school English-as-a-foreign-language education have had little attention from researchers so far. Addressing this gap, this paper investigates the creative production of Brazilian high-school students after a workshop unit on iconicity. Their iconic poems are analysed visually, thematically and stylistically. Despite variation in students' self-identified language proficiency, the results show that the poems presented visual and thematic diversity. The stylistic analysis evidenced the richness of students' creations notwithstanding their lack of English proficiency. Although some surface language infelicities are identified, these do not limit their expression. Overall, the findings reveal that iconicity was not only an appropriate topic for these students, but it also proved to be a genuine way by means of which they could freely express their individuality, breaking away with conventions, reflecting on a variety of matters, and registering their observation of the world and of themselves.

Language-literature integration in high-school EFL education: investigating students’ perspectives

“…Their outputs evidence that they mastered the pattern presented and used it skillfully (see Viana and Zyngier 2019).…”

Arts‐based responses to teaching poetry: a literature review of dance and visual arts in poetry education

“…This theme highlighted a movement beyond a mere focus on alphabetic texts and allowed for creative responses to poetry, which can allow students to demonstrate poetry reading and writing skills in different ways. Such responses challenged conventional written responses to poetry (Bryer et al, 2014; Callahan and King, 2011; Curwood and Cowell, 2011; Smith, 2019), enabled meaning‐making with poetry despite students' linguistic limitations (Jusslin, 2019; Viana and Zyngier, 2019) and deviated from assessing students' understanding of poetry with heavily scaffolded written essays (Bryer et al, 2014).…”

“…Many articles explicitly built the arts‐based responses on students interacting and working collaboratively to respond to poetry (Coles and Bryer, 2018; Curwood and Cowell, 2011; Jocius, 2018; Jusslin, 2019; Smith, 2019). Through arts‐based responses, the reading and creation of poetry interpretations could become more complex (Cowan and Albers, 2006; Jusslin, 2019), and students had active roles in the classroom (Viana and Zyngier, 2019). This prompted meaningful interaction among students (Curwood and Cowell, 2011) and stimulated students' engagement in teaching (Wandera, 2016).…”

“…The fourth theme, emergent in 10 articles, concerned students on a personal level by accentuating how dance and visual arts draw on and utilise students' personal knowledge, reflection and experience in the classroom. Using art‐based responses could relate poetry to students' prior experiences and feelings (Archambault and Carlson, 2011; Smith, 2019; Viana and Zyngier, 2019) as well as let them express and share their identities with others (Curwood and Cowell 2011; Curwood and Gibbons, 2010). Students were also enabled to draw inspiration from personal contexts in their poetry interpretations (Bryer et al, 2014; Curwood and Gibbons, 2010; Giovanelli, 2017).…”

The year’s work in stylistics 2019

“…An account of the poem ‘Machines’ by Michael Donaghy is produced on a mobile phone, building on work in a previous article (O’Halloran, 24(2)), to demonstrate how students’ interpretation of poetry can be assisted and enhanced by the use of digital technologies. Creativity, poetry and pedagogy are also at the centre of Viana and Zyngier (2019), an article which investigates iconic poems produced by high school English as foreign language (EFL) students in Brazil. The poems, such as a heart-shaped poem on love, a clock-shaped poem on time and a star-shaped poem on eternity, illustrate that iconicity is a powerful enabler of creativity, reflection and expression for EFL students.…”