Many students and professors alike tire of familiar five-part, thesis-driven essays and many students engage more intimately with a text if their assignment allows a sense of individual creativity. We've compiled a list of a couple suggestions for creative writing assignments that might be used to allow instructors and students some flexibility in the classroom. In the spirit of creativity, these can obviously be modified so that they best serve the needs of your particular academic goals.
1. Editorials, Newsletters, and Brochures
Produce a seminar newsletter or editorial magazine containing student writing. Have students consider audience, conceptualization, format, etc. This will allow students to see their ideas in a publication and allow them to show off their writing skills while exerting creativity and leadership qualities as well.
2. Letters
Have students write to someone in a position of authority about an issue. This will allow them to develop a professional tone while taking a position, defending it, presenting solutions to a problem, and discussing both feasibility of solutions and plans detailing their implementation.
3. Dialogues
Have students create a dialogue between two authors or characters with whom they've become familiar in class. This will allow them to demonstrate their understanding of conceptual themes, editorial positions, characterization, and argumentation.
4. Imitation of a Text
Have students create a "newly discovered" Canterbury Tale, Pentagon paper, or Gospel--have them create a government memo as Chaucer may have written or an explication of a scientific principle as Loren Eiseley would have done. This will ensure that students are critically engaging with their primary text and doing significant research as to period language usage, discourse, form, etc., and will also give students a chance to put a personal spin on a professional work.