Axon: Creative Explorations

This collaborative paper addresses a pressing institutional problem: how to respond to burnout as teachers of creative writing in a university setting? While many academic staff – both sessional and ongoing – have limited control over institutional constraints that contribute to burnout, we do have a measure of autonomy in the classroom itself. We propose that envisioning the creative writing classroom as a playground, in which the tutor and lecturer model and participate in creative play, is not only a valuable pedagogical approach for the students, but can also mitigate some of the effects of staff exhaustion. Drawing on our combined teaching experience of 25 years, we share a philosophy of teaching that centres play, curiosity and experimentation in a respectful, safe environment. We approached the writing of this paper in the spirit of such play, drawing on the work of Berg and Seeber who advocate a ‘pedagogy of pleasure’ with the belief that such an approach can ‘combat stress and cynicism’ (2016: 32). As such, we have devised two playful metaphors that correspond to practical pedagogical tools enabling the creative writing tutor to participate in the fun of the classroom: establishing the ‘rules’ of the playground (setting the tone and clarifying expectations during the first tutorial); and clipping on the zipline (partaking in classroom writing exercises).