The benefits and challenges of creative writing assessment in French: Un geste pour un autre by Jean Tardieu

Crahay, Géraldine

Abstract

This article aims to highlight and defend the benefits of creative writing assessment in higher education language modules. While the latter traditionally prefer essay-like assignments over creative ones, creative writing allows learners to develop a great variety of academic and personal skills, such as intercultural awareness, cooperation, problem-solving, engagement with literary texts and self-expression. Specifically, this article analyses a written assignment that was given in a post-A-level French module at a British University based on the French playwright Jean Tardieu’s short comedy Un geste pour un autre. Learners received the beginning of this absurdist play and needed to complete it, while also incorporating three lines from the original play into their texts. The task invited them to demonstrate their understanding of theatrical conventions, engagement with the original extract, ability to write a coherent text, language skills (grammar, syntax, vocabulary, register), linguistic innovation, imagination and problem-solving. In addition to exploring the strategies used by learners to cope with the task, this paper highlights the challenges encountered by evaluators to mark creative writing assignments, notably the lack of suitable assessment criteria in their institutions. It also examines students’ reception to such an unusual language assignment and offers some suggestions about how to better implement creative activities in the language curriculum.

Citation

Crahay, G. (2024). The benefits and challenges of creative writing assessment in French: Un geste pour un autre by Jean Tardieu. Enhancing Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 1, 5-20. https://doi.org/10.62512/etlhe.3

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 29, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Feb 29, 2024
• Publication Date: Apr 22, 2024
• Deposit Date: Apr 22, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 22, 2024
• Journal: Enhancing Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 1
• Pages: 5-20
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.62512/etlhe.3
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2393161