In school, children are required to take core classes, such as Math, Science, History, and English. But not all of these classes play a significant role in a child’s emotional development as much as English classes do. In fact, English classes are very beneficial to students because they broaden vocabulary, strengthen critical thinking skills, and shape a student’s voice. Not to mention, the majority of these developing skills come from writing, specifically creative writing. However, in schools like Texas, creative writing is overlooked because of the weight of district tests, specifically STAAR tests, which stands for State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. These state tests take over a majority of student’s learning and district curriculum. So, English classes do not focus solely on creative writing; instead, they focus on the learning framework provided by their school district.
    In Alvin High School, the school I attend, I noticed this significant shift in the lesson plans my English class follows. So, I propose that Alvin High School English classes should incorporate creative writing at least once a week in the daily 10 to 15 minutes set aside for reading. 

FINDINGS

    In elementary school, a common practice is writing personal narratives. This builds a child’s creativity and strengthens their emotional development. But, in the transition from elementary to middle school, creative writing is no longer a priority in lesson plans. And, by the time students reach high school, creative writing is rarely practiced at all. Even though high schools do not intentionally suppress creativity, limiting the practice of creative writing hurts a student’s inventiveness in writing. In fact, a study orchestrated by Professor Asraf at International Islamic University of Malaysia, shows that having “freedom in writing” (or creative writing) leads to success in education because it stimulates a student’s ideas, strengthens flow, and builds vocabulary. Basically, the practice of creative writing improves a student’s overall quality of writing, which can be transferred to improve academic writing.
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    Not only would practicing creative writing help students improve their skills, but it would also increase their engagement in the classroom. For example, the staff writer of EdWeek Market Brief who covers all levels of education, Emma Fittes, notices that “students are lacking a curiosity at school that is crucial to learning.” This is primarily because students do not feel connected to the assignments given to them, especially if such assignments are structured with “right or wrong” answer choices. Professors Nadani Mittal and Rahul Agarwal at Amity Business School support this concern and decide to study what factors increase student engagement. Their findings conclude that in order for students to be engaged in the classroom and learn efficiently, three factors should be taken into account: behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, and cognitive engagement. After the professors incorporated these elements in their teachings, they gathered that “excited and engaged students learn more… they [also] memorize and recall better.” Overall, students become excited and willing to participate when they are allowed to write creatively because, not only does it give them a sense of pride in their creations, but it also encourages them to express their feelings, ideas, and thoughts in ways that other assignments do not.

​    However, going back to the effect STAAR tests have on high school classes, English teachers feel that they cannot spare time for students to practice creative writing because they are required to extensively prepare students for such testing. In the Alvin Independent School District (A.I.S.D), teachers are given a learning framework that they must follow through the school year in order to ensure their students pass the STAAR tests. However, the learning framework also requires students to independently read daily for 10 to 15 minutes during class time in order to grow reading endurance. The Reading Language Arts Instructional Coach (IC) of Alvin High School Rebecca VanHorne has mentioned that some teachers have come to her with their concerns, asking her “how [they can] balance both the curriculum and independent reading.” They have expressed that they cannot teach anything other than reading and writing related to STAAR. So, with the pressure to cover all the content they are required to in the little amount of time they are given, teachers feel that prioritizing creative writing cannot be done. 
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    While I do agree that there is a constraint on the amount of time teachers can spare, they would only need to take one of the 10 to 15 minutes set aside for reading and replace it with allowing students to explore creative writing. For instance, Faculty of Education Member Wen Tian and teachers at National University of Malaysia hosted an experiment to see if creative writing could improve their students concerning test scores. They took two groups of students and allowed only one group to practice creative writing, while the other stayed true to their standardized, multiple-choice assignments. At the beginning, each group of students took a pre-test with their initial writing samples as a starting point for potential improvement. After two months, the students were given Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), which is a test similar to STAAR. In the end, the experimental group of students showed a greater quality of writing than the other group. Tian remarks that the experimental group’s “linguistic accuracy increased by 0.8, narrative coherence by 0.8, creative novelty by 0.7, and structural rationality by 0.7.” Whereas the control group “showed minimal growth over the same period.” Overall, this small sacrifice was for the greater good of their students and also improved their academic performance. So, in reality, no harm would be done if this change were to take place at Alvin High School. And, if anything, this change would benefit students more than just reading independently.