Place-Based Pedagogy and the Creative Writing Classroom

Although compositionists have long appropriated and discussed place-based pedagogy’s ability to encourage environmental awareness and engage community issues, creative writing as a discipline has largely ignored place-based philosophies and environmental education. In fact, creative writing pedagogy often undermines place-based pedagogy by encouraging students to “write what they know” while simultaneously encouraging work with national rather than regional appeal. This article takes the first major step toward addressing this oversight by exploring the field’s assumptions about “place,” how these assumptions are influencing our classrooms, and how place-based composition and pedagogy could—and should—challenge and expand the ways we teach creative writing