Writing Gets Personal: Listening at the Intersections of Creative Writing and Writing Tutoring

In this thesis, I investigate the extent to which creative writing impacts the ways writing tutors work with student writers on their academic writing. In doing so, I interview five writing tutors with creative writing experiences for their personal definitions of creative writing, and the extent to which drawing on, or ignoring, creative writing impacts their writing tutoring. Through combining the interviews with reflections into my writer identities, I find creative writing focuses on self-expression and narrative features which strengthen disciplinarity and conventions. Additionally, focusing on creative writing’s influence in the writing center allows tutors to engage as fellow writers able to learn alongside the students they tutor. Specifically, I notice writing tutors perceive a division between creative and academic writing. Crossing that perceived division requires a willingness to confront assumptions about academic and creative writing, but allows for the opportunity for tutors and the students they tutor to deepen their writing processes