Chapter 11. ESL students’ perceptions of creative and academic writing

This chapter provides a small scale, qualitative study of ESL students' perceptions of positive and negative creative and academic writing experiences. Previous research has suggested that creative writing provides a more positive experience than academic writing and involves a different set of features. Nineteen ESL students were interviewed about their second language literacy instructional histories and focused on understandings of their experiences of writing. Interview data was coded for positive and negative experiences. The results suggest that creative writing and academic writing involve different sets of experiences and that creative writing involves fewer negative experiences. The chapter argues for the inclusion of creative writing as a component of the second language literacy curriculum.