language in creative writing pdf

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Creative writing as an important tool in second language acquisition and practice

2013, The Journal of Literature in Language Teaching 2(1) 11-18

Creative Writing is rarely included in the curricula of English language learners in Japanese higher and further education. However, students’ creative use of language, in particular in literary writing, may serve as an aid to certain aspects of language acquisition (particularly grammar and certain kinds of vocabulary), as well as address issues of communicative competence as English L2 learners move beyond the beginner stage of acquisition. Such tasks also appear to be motivating. This paper uses examples from texts and classroom activities to show how asking second language students to attempt poetry and fiction can contribute to central parts of their learning.

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shaista zafar

Nagoya JALT Journal

Jared M Kubokawa

This article will address the place of second language creative writing (L2CW) in EFL curricula by first providing an updated understanding of L2CW and the Japanese form shinhaiku-a nontraditional haiku. Shinhaiku differs from traditional haiku in that it does not utilize the 5-7-5 syllable form. Secondly, the article will consider misconceptions as well as pedagogical implications of L2CW and thirdly, offer a classroom approach to L2CW (poetry writing) utilizing Hanauer's (2012) meaningful literacy framework. The approach was developed from action research and teaching practices, underpinned by Spiro's (2014) reading-to-writing cycle where learners 1) choose L2CW poems that they admire from an EFL literary journal; 2) articulate reasons for appreciation of said poems; 3) apply these ideas to their L2CW; and 4) reflect on the process. The article will also provide examples from student work as well as present a case for why shinhaiku is an accessible form in the Japanese context.

Sreedhevi Iyer

Creative Writing studies, as an academic field, has undergone much expansion in the last 50 years and has increasingly become a staple in most universities’ English and Humanities departments across the globe – including, in some cases, as a rapidly emerging subfield of Stylistics. In tandem with the development of English language teaching in non-English-speaking countries, the necessary advancement of a more nuanced curriculum for learners of English as a second language (or L2 learners, as opposed to L1 or native speakers of English) has extended to the application of Creative Writing pedagogy.

Mary Margaroni

Margaroni, M. & Kouvari, E. (2012). «Concrete Poetry and Didactics of Second Language Learning. The Contribution of a Literature Genre to the Development of Language and Creative Skills of Foreign Language Learners». Presentation at the International Conference entiteld «Arts Education at the Crossroad of Cultures». Organizing Institutions: International Society for Education through Art (InSEA) and Cyprus Society for Education through Arts (CySEA). Limassol/Cyprus, 25-27 June 2012. Publication in the conference proceedings (pp. 443-453). One of the creative instructional materials in second language teaching is the use of literature and more specifically concrete poetry; a lyric form, in which the visual elements are used to enhance the meaning of text and are considered of equal importance to it. The fact that concrete poems make use of the typographical arrangement of words as a comment on the fundamental instability of language is an aspect which could be of pedagogical interest toforeignlanguagelearners. This notion plays a key role in our theoretical study, in which we aim to explore the specific features of concrete poetry in order to examine its contribution to the development of communicative language competence as well as the development of creative skills of foreign language learners. Concrete poems as an authentic text are to be implemented in a project-based, communicative-pragmatic and student-oriented approach of language teaching. More specifically, using examples from teaching German as a foreign language we examine the contribution of concrete poetry in both receptive and productive language skills. This particular approach to foreign language teaching and culture through concrete poetry could encourage learners to use their creative potential more effectively and possibly facilitate foreign language learning.

Abbas Zare-ee

New Writing

Asma Mansoor

Hacer Hande Uysal

Stefanny Couto

Journal of Second Language Writing

This multiple case-study explores how a multilingual poetry task can be used to support multilingual writers in mainstream U.S. high school English language arts (ELA) classes. The purpose of the investigation is to closely examine the affordances of a multilingual poetry task and discuss its innovative pedagogical aspects in terms of the results that the task achieves-the learning it promotes-as well as highlight interdisciplinary collaboration between (English as a second language (ESL) and ELA teachers. I argue that the multilingual poetry task can innovate L2 writing pedagogy, address common problems that multilingual writers and their teachers face, and provide resident immigrant learners with affordances such as innovative developments in multilingual writing techniques, an understanding of compositional aspects of writing via open poetic forms, and an opportunity to explore humanistic aspects of language learning. A qualitative evidence-based approach is applied to analyze samples of multilingual poetry from two resident immigrant writers of diverse backgrounds (e.g., Belarus and Myanmar). This analysis is offset with learner immediate post-course and delayed interviews, learner reflective writing, and classroom observations and interactions. Finally, utilizing data from post-course ELA teacher interviews, the article discusses how interdisciplinary ELA-ESL teacher collaboration can better support emergent multilingual writers and move the field of second language writing forward.

Creativity in language teaching and learning

Ali Alkhaldi

Despite potential barriers to developing creativity in English language teaching, developing the creativity of learners has many benefits for learning the language and for developing broader learning objectives, values and attitudes (Read, 2015). Second language theories are directly or indirectly embedded in the activities of the textbooks. However, textbooks do not encourage deep creative thinking skills (Alkhaldi & Oshchepkova, 2018). Therefore, this paper critically analyses the creative use of second language theories in an interactive learning environment based on the related literature in an attempt to foster creativity and achieve durable language learning. It enumerates the major components of successful language learning as well-designed textbooks, effective teachers, and active learners. Language theories and activities are useless if the aforementioned major components are not used together in a creative way. Furthermore, the researchers have critically analyzed other variables in this study such as learning styles, motivation, teaching and learning approach, creativity, and creative classroom interaction. This study recommends that textbook writers should include interesting activities that represent effective language theories, Foreign Language (FL) teachers should have professional development training on how to adapt and teach the language activities professionally, and the learners should be initiative and creative to master the language autonomously.

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English and Creative Writing

The Franklin College Department of English and Creative Writing is committed to the careful study of the individual expression and cultural values found in English, American, and world literature.

The department is one of Franklin College’s most exciting intellectual communities. Our faculty of dedicated teacher-scholars share with students their expertise in, and enthusiasm for, literature from a variety of genres, periods, and cultures—works drawn from the traditional canon to the works of emerging artists, from Greek tragedy to graphic novels, from Shakespearean sonnets to postmodern poetry. Small class sizes mean professors get to know their students and can engage with them in intense debates and deep analyses of literary works that continue outside the classroom.

Our dedicated faculty of practicing writers and scholars guide students in small classes and workshops that cover a variety of genres, as well as provide students with frequent out-of-class opportunities to exercise and hone their craft. Creative writing students can expect a rigorous yet collegial environment that allows for engaged learning, collaboration and experimentation.

• Explore This Page
• Why English and Creative Writing?
• Major Handouts & Course Catalog
• Writers' Series

Meet Our People

Why english and creative writing at franklin college.

Dynamic classroom experiences.

Our professors use a variety of approaches that focus on how language and literary forms recreate both individual experiences and the large, impersonal forces that shape cultures and historical periods. In so doing, we seek in our classes to understand the many varieties of the human condition. In addition to taking courses with our award-winning faculty, our creative writing students benefit from the creative writing program’s reading series, which brings talented poets, fiction writers, memoirists, and playwrights to teach and study with them each year.

Experiences beyond the classroom.

Not only do English and creative writing majors learn a great deal in the classroom, they also take part in activities related to the disciplines. Such activities regularly include working on the editorial board of the college literary journal, the   Apogee  (founded in 1961); attending performances and creative-writing readings; and participating in other events in and around Franklin, Indianapolis, Bloomington, Louisville, and elsewhere in the region.

Global engagement.

With opportunities to study abroad during entire semesters, during the college’s four-week Immersive Term, or over the summer, English majors have recently taken courses in England, France, Spain, Costa Rica, Germany, Uganda, Japan, and elsewhere.

Interdisciplinary commitment.

In keeping with the college’s strong interdisciplinary character, English and Creative Writing majors frequently choose to pursue a second major or a minor in disciplines such as  elementary education ,  French ,  history ,  multimedia journalism ,  political science ,  philosophy ,  psychology ,  religious studies,  or  Spanish . Recent English courses have been cross-listed in  theatre  and the liberal arts program, and students may count an upper-level course in  French  or  Spanish  literature toward their English degree.

Connecting passion with work.

Our faculty advisers are committed to helping students find careers in fields that excite them. Recent graduates have used their English degrees to pursue rewarding careers in teaching, publishing, health care, marketing, business, the performing and creative arts, communications, technical writing, and non-profit management. Others have gone on to graduate programs in English, law, divinity, library science, and counseling.

Spark your imagination.

Program handouts.

• English Major Handout
• Creative Writing Major Handout

Courses of Study

Students who choose to study english and creative writing at franklin college can pursue two different majors — english and creative writing. both are also available as a minor. in addition, we offer an additional minor in professional writing..

Immerse yourself in literature, history and the human condition as a Franklin College English major.

Experiment with language and style, developing a unique voice.

Creative Writing

Carlson-stauffer visiting writers’ series.

The English and Creative Writing department is proud to sponsor the Carlson-Stauffer Visiting Writers’ Series, which brings nationally recognized authors to campus. All events are free and open to the public.

Series Background

The series is named for two beloved professors emerita, Kathy Carlson and Emily Stauffer, both of whom retired in spring 2015. Together, their combined service at Franklin College spanned close to 70 years. The series began in 2015 and has allowed the department to host dozens of writers from across the country. Writers hold a publicly open reading. Typically, they also interact with creative writing students at a meal, visit creative writing classes to conduct a masterclass in their genre, and/or offer feedback on students’ writing.

Participating Writers

Visiting writers have been poets, fiction writers, YA authors, writers of non-fiction, and multi-genre writers. Some notable names include:

• Marcus Wicker, 2015
• Maggie Messitt, 2016
• Jamaal May, 2017
• David Tomas Martinez, 2018
• Terrance Hayes, 2019
• Nafissa Thompson-Spires, 2019
• Ross Gay, 2019
• Adrian Matejka, 2020 (and 2023)
• Brooke Lauren Davis (’15) — YA novelist and alumna
• Samantha Fain (’20) — poet and alumna
• Eugene Gloria, 2021
• Dan Chaon, 2022
• Saundra Mitchell, 2023
• Angela Jackson-Brown, 2023
• Matthew Minnicucci, 2023
• Brittany Means, 2024
• Monica McClure, 2024

This fall (2024), the department will welcome back Samantha Fain (’20) to celebrate the release of her latest poetry collection,  Are You There .

On Nov. 28, 2023, the department welcomed poet Matthew Minicucci for his second visit in our series. Matthew read from his fourth poetry collection, Dual, which was released by Acre Books. The event was held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023 in the B.F. Hamilton Auditorium. A book signing followed the reading.

“I believe that you get a sense of belonging and that you matter. Personally, I enjoy the conversations with professors and other faculty members and getting to know them.”

Emmarae Arensdorff ’22

Express your creativity through apogee, our annual literary journal., apogee is franklin college’s student-run literary magazine that accepts previously unpublished work in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, drama, and visual art. apogee is an annual publication published in late spring. submissions are open during the summer and fall..

Questions about  Apogee ? Contact our Faculty Advisor.

Learn more about English and Creative Writing at Franklin College

Our mission.

By honing a diverse set of reading and writing skills, the English and creative writing department’s majors and minors recognize the artistic achievements, insights, and possibilities inherent in literature to create their own meaningful work as they prepare for professional positions, graduate study, and civic engagement.

Student Learning Outcomes

Students in English and Creative Writing will be able to:

•     Read and communicate effectively through creative and expository writing.
•     Make arguments about texts using literary terms, techniques, history and movements.
•     Access, analyze and synthesize complex information, using diverse perspectives.
•     Solve unstructured problems individually as well as collaboratively.

Our Faculty

In addition to their commitment to the classroom, faculty in the English and creative writing department maintain active scholarly agendas, publishing their research and presenting at major national and international conferences on a wide variety of topics, including the intersections of narrative theory and gender theory; the limitations of humanity in Shakespeare’s  Richard II ; modernist irony as a response to colonial exhibitions; flipped classroom pedagogy; landscape and medieval gender roles; feminist readings of global modernism; and deforestation in contemporary Anglophone Caribbean literature. In addition, our creative writing faculty have won awards and national attention for their work.

Requirements

Introductory courses provide students with an understanding of different creative genres, as well as the fundamentals of creative writing processes, literary citizenship and the contemporary literary landscape. Students learn to read like writers, engaging in literary analysis to appreciate the nuances of text construction. In later courses, students perform genre-specific studies, closely studying, deploying and sharpening particular writing techniques, and engaging in significant revision and experimentation as they hone their unique voices and join ongoing literary conversations.

As creative writers, we untangle texts and cultural contexts to discover new strategies for reading and writing, with students interrogating both the worlds of the texts they read and write, and their own world, understanding how texts communicate, shape and move all of us. Through guided practice, students gain confidence, empathy, and practical critical writing and thinking skills that allow them to make powerful contributions to the world.

Meet the talented professionals who will help guide you on your creative journey.

Emily Banks, MFA, Ph.D.

Katie Burpo, M.F.A.

Susan Crisafulli, Ph.D.

Richard Erable, Ph.D.

Anna James, Ph.D.

George Phillips, Ph.D.

Department of english and creative writing.

101 Branigin Blvd. Franklin, IN 46131 Johnson Center for Fine Arts

317.738.8271

Monday - Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridfay, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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Examples and Guide to Creative Writing

The roots of creative writing lie in creative thinking. But what if you're not the most creative person in the room? That's simply not a good enough reason to lose hope in writing the best creative piece anyone's ever read. In this article, I will show you what you need to get started and the tools with creative writing examples that will help you learn how to write creatively.

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is a form of writing that diverges from the more formal and structured types of writing like technical or academic writing. It typically includes various genres and styles, focusing on character development, narrative, and plot, infused with imagination and storytelling. The primary objective is to evoke emotions and create a vivid experience for the reader.

Creative writing includes many forms, such as children's books, creative nonfiction, graphic novels, memoirs, novels, plays, poetry, screenplays, and short stories. Each form offers unique opportunities for writers to explore different themes, styles, and storytelling techniques. Essential elements of creative writing include as follows that work together to create engaging and immersive narratives that resonate with readers.

Action: Characters’ actions should be purposeful and drive the story forward, based on their motivations and goals.

Character Development: Characters should be unique, three-dimensional, and relatable, with distinct personalities, appearances, and backstories.

Conflict: Essential for moving the story forward, conflict creates tension and stakes, making the story compelling.

Dialogue: Realistic and meaningful dialogue reveals character emotions and advances the plot without being overly expository.

Genre: Creative writing spans various genres like romance, mystery, thriller, horror, fantasy, and more, each with its own conventions and appeal.

Pacing: The speed at which a story unfolds, determined by scene length and information distribution, affects the reader’s engagement.

Plot: The sequence of events that make up a story, starting with an inciting incident and building through rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

Point of View: The perspective from which the story is told, such as first person, second person, or third person, shapes the reader’s experience.

Scenes: The building blocks of a story, scenes vary in setting and advance the plot while containing tension and conflict.

Setting: The time, location, and physical environment where the story takes place, contributing to the story’s atmosphere and context.

Style: An author’s unique way of communicating with words, shaped by their voice and overall tone, which can vary based on the type of writing and target audience.

Tension: Keeps readers on the edge of their seats by creating stakes and suspense, essential for maintaining interest.

Theme: The underlying message or concept an author wishes to convey through their work, offering deeper meaning to the narrative.

Examples of Creative Writing

The best way to prompt yourself to write creatively, even when your creativity is running low, is by seeking inspiration. I'll be sharing some examples of creative writing to help you get inspired and understand the essence of creative writing. But first, let's explore the different genres of creative writing:

Fiction is all about creating imaginative stories with characters, events, and settings that are not simply real. This genre allows for complete creative freedom, enabling you to build intricate worlds and compelling narratives from scratch. For instance, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling is a fantasy novel that introduces readers to a young wizard's magical adventures, showcasing how fiction can transport readers to entirely new realms.

2.Non-Fiction

Non-fiction, on the other hand, focuses on real-life events, facts, and people. It aims to provide truthful and informative content. A prime example is "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank, which offers a poignant glimpse into the life of a Jewish teenager hiding from the Nazis. This genre captures reality and shares genuine experiences, often leaving a profound impact on readers.

Drama is written to be performed, typically on stage or screen. It centers around dialogue and action, aiming to convey a story through live performances. Shakespeare’s "Romeo and Juliet" is a classic example of drama, a tragic play that explores the intense emotions and conflicts between two young lovers from feuding families. The dramatic structure and dialogue drive the narrative forward, engaging audiences in a powerful live experience.

Poetry uses rhythmic and often figurative language to express emotions and ideas in a compact and evocative manner. It can vary from short verses to lengthy compositions, and its flexibility allows for deep personal expression. Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Raven" demonstrates poetry’s ability to create a haunting atmosphere through rhythmic and lyrical language, inviting readers into a world of mystery and emotion.

5.Complex Genres

Beyond these primary categories, there are complex genres that blend elements of traditional writing with unique formats:

Blog posts, for instance, offer an informal and conversational approach to writing about various topics. "10 Tips for Traveling on a Budget" provides practical advice for budget-conscious travelers, showcasing how blog posts can combine personal insights with useful information in a relatable manner.

Screenplays are another complex genre, focusing on scripts for film and television. "The Social Network" by Aaron Sorkin presents the story of Facebook’s creation through dialogue and scene descriptions, illustrating how screenplays translate a narrative into a visual and auditory experience for the audience.

Memoirs, like Michelle Obama’s "Becoming", offer personal reflections and stories tied to a larger theme. This genre allows authors to explore their experiences and convey significant life lessons to readers, creating a connection through shared humanity.

Graphic novels combine text with illustrations to tell a story, as seen in "Maus" by Art Spiegelman. This genre blends art and narrative to explore complex themes, making the storytelling experience both visually and textually rich.

Examining these genres reveals the diverse ways creative writing can be approached. Fiction allows for imaginative storytelling and world-building, while non-fiction grounds writing in real-life truths and experiences. Drama and poetry bring unique stylistic elements to their narratives, whether through performance or lyrical expression.

Complex genres like blog posts, screenplays, memoirs, and graphic novels add further depth to creative writing, each offering distinct ways to engage and entertain audiences. Understanding these genres can provide valuable insights and inspiration, helping you find your own creative voice and craft compelling stories.

How to Start Creative Writing?

Starting your creative writing journey can be an exciting and rewarding experience. As someone who's passionate about writing, I'm eager to share some insights that can help you begin your own creative writing adventure. As we learn how to write and improve our creative writing skills, I'll also teach you how to use tools like WPS Office that fit naturally into the process of writing poetry, articles, and guides. So let's begin the journey of exploring our creativity and transform these thoughts onto a piece of paper or a document in WPS Writer.

Explore Your Thoughts

The first step to beginning any form of creative writing is exploring your thoughts. I believe we all have our own creative side—thoughts and dreams that we wish to bring to life. Creative writing is a way to express these thoughts and help others visualize them.

Start by imagining a scene. For example, envision a magical hero living in a village surrounded by mystical powers, facing troublemakers. Type this down in WPS Writer, which you can access even on your mobile. This allows you to save your thoughts and revisit them later when you have more ideas. Your work will be saved and accessible anywhere because inspiration can strike at any time.

Ponder Your Thoughts

Next, ponder these thoughts. Think deeply about the scene, the characters, the setup, the background story, and the mystical powers you want to include. A well-thought-out story is always more compelling. If you need help, use the WPS AI assistant to brainstorm ideas for your story. With AI, you can boost your imagination and develop richer narratives.

Start Writing

Now, start writing down your thoughts or the ideas from your brainstorming session with WPS AI. This process can take time; you might finish your story in one sitting, or you might write it over several sessions. If you're on a deadline and need to submit your creative story quickly, ask WPS AI to write it for you. Simply describe your plot to WPS AI through a prompt, and have your short story ready in no time. Be sure to edit a few parts to add your unique touch.

Refine Your Story

Once your story is complete, ensure it flows well, uses words correctly, and clearly expresses your thoughts to your readers. If you think improvements are needed, ask WPS AI to make those enhancements for you. The WPS AI “Improve writing” feature can help students and writers refine their stories to make them more effective.

Proofread Your Story

Proofreading is crucial. A story with grammatical errors can leave a poor impression on your readers. Fortunately, WPS Writer, with its built-in AI spell check, can help you make all the corrections with a single click.

Format Your Story

The story is complete, but there's still some work left to do. Your story should not only read well but also be easy to navigate. To achieve this, use WPS Writer's formatting tools: set clear headings, choose a readable font, and adjust the line and paragraph spacing.

Proper formatting can be crucial to engage your readers because if your story looks cluttered, it can negatively impact their reading experience and ultimately their opinion of your writing.

Share Your Story

Finally, save your story and share it with your family, friends, and teachers directly from WPS Office via email. Let others enjoy your writing and discover the creative side you've been nurturing!

While I can't provide a step-by-step guide to writing creative pieces because freehand writing is highly valued in creative writing, I can emphasize how incredibly helpful WPS AI can be in assisting with creative writing tasks. From crafting non-fictional stories to writing poems, brainstorming, and formatting, WPS AI can offer invaluable support in every aspect. It's a perfect writing partner not just for creative writing but for all your academic needs.

Here are some creative writing examples generated with the help of WPS AI:

Start with Observation

The world around you is full of inspiration. Take a moment to truly observe your surroundings.

Read Widely

Reading is essential for becoming a better writer. Explore different genres and styles to broaden your horizons and inspire your own work.

Write Regularly

Like any skill, writing improves with practice. Try to write a little bit every day, even if it's just for 10 minutes. Use WPS Writer to jot down your ideas and format your work as you go.

Embrace Imperfection

Remember, your first draft doesn't have to be perfect. The most important thing is to get your ideas down on paper. You can always revise and polish later.

Seek Inspiration from Various Sources

Look beyond books. Movies, art, music, and even conversations can spark creative ideas. Try writing a story inspired by your favorite song or describing a character based on a painting you love.

Remember, everyone's creative writing journey is unique. Don't be afraid to experiment, make mistakes, and find your own voice. The most important thing is to enjoy the process and keep writing. Who knows? Your next sentence could be the beginning of something amazing!

How to Improve Creative Writing

When you're done with your creative writing piece, you might feel like there's still room for improvement. Identifying where it needs improvement is the first step to figuring out what to fix. Once you know what needs adjustment, you can start making those changes. Here's how you can improve your writing and create a better version of your piece.

What is Good Writing?

Good writing is natural and flows effortlessly, without the writer appearing self-important or overly serious. It's one of the least precise forms of communication since the true intent of the writer is often ambiguous unless they explicitly state their biases and purposes. Writing often reflects another person’s reality, which might not align with our own and can sometimes lead to misunderstandings.

Essentially, good writing should make you forget you are reading. It should be immersive, making you feel connected to the writer’s thoughts as if they were your own. When done well, it creates a seamless experience where you feel as though you know the writer personally and can predict their next words. This connection is achieved through clarity, organization, and a strong sense of purpose.

Ways to Improve Your Writing

If your writing isn't good enough, it might be lacking in several key areas. Consider the following:

1.Usage of Verbs Instead of Adverbs:

Strong verbs can make your writing more dynamic and precise. Instead of saying "ran quickly," say "sprinted."

2.Showing and Not Telling:

Good writing often involves showing rather than telling. Instead of saying "he was angry," describe his actions and expressions, like "his face turned red, and he slammed the door."

3.Diversity of Sentences:

Varying sentence structure can keep your writing interesting. Mix short, punchy sentences with longer, more descriptive ones.

4.Editing After Finishing Your Writing:

The first draft is just the beginning. Revising and editing your work is crucial for clarity, coherence, and overall quality.

5.Using WPS AI to Improve Your Writing:

Tools like WPS AI can help enhance your writing by offering suggestions for clarity, style, and grammar. It's a valuable resource for refining your work and ensuring it's the best it can be.

6.Real-Time Grammar and Syntax Suggestions:

WPS Office includes a powerful grammar and syntax checking tool that operates in real-time. As you write, it continuously scans your text for grammatical errors, punctuation mistakes, and syntactical issues, highlighting them immediately. This helps you maintain a high standard of writing by ensuring that your text is free from common errors. The real-time feedback allows you to correct mistakes on the go, preventing them from accumulating and making the editing process much smoother.

7.Detailed Explanations and Recommendations:

Beyond simply highlighting errors, WPS Office provides detailed explanations and recommendations for corrections. When it detects a grammatical mistake or a syntactical issue, it offers suggestions and explains why a particular correction is needed. This feature is incredibly beneficial for learning and improvement, as it helps you understand the rules of grammar and syntax better. By consistently using these recommendations, you can enhance your writing skills and produce more polished and professional creative pieces.

1. What is the great opening line for a story?

A compelling opening sentence is almost as crucial as the entire story that follows. It draws the reader in, piquing their interest and establishing the story's atmosphere. They can be startling, humorous, enigmatic, or poignant. Writing can seem daunting when uncertain about topics, but story starters or writing prompts effectively engage the imagination from the outset. Hence, they also inspire students who may face challenges in generating ideas. Here's an example of a great opening line:

"As I wandered through the old, abandoned house, I stumbled upon something overlooked by everyone else."

This opening sentence creates a mysterious and captivating atmosphere, prompting readers to ponder the discovery made by the protagonist and anticipate the unfolding events.

2. Can creative writing be taught?

Yes, creative writing can indeed be taught. Here are some effective methods:

Workshops and Constructive Feedback: Participating in workshops provides a supportive environment where writers receive valuable feedback from peers and instructors. This collaborative process helps refine their skills and discover their unique voices.

Mastering Craft and Technique: Creative writing classes teach essential techniques, including character development, plot structure, and dialogue. These skills develop gradually through practice and guidance.

The Reading-Writing Connection: Exposure to diverse literature enriches a writer’s understanding of storytelling. By reading widely, writers gain insights that inform their own writing practice.

Consistent Practice and Dedication: Regular writing practice, combined with persistence, leads to improvement. Like any skill, creative writing benefits from dedicated effort.

Ignite Your Creative Spark with WPS Office

If you are writing anything, unless it is strictly professional, adding a touch of creativity can make it far more interesting and help you engage with your readers, drawing them into your work. The challenging part about writing creatively is finding that initial spark to make your writing come alive.

WPS Office can help you ignite and sustain that creative spark. It enhances the quality and impact of your creative writing, ensuring that your work is not only technically sound but also engaging and evocative. So, download WPS Office —you might just discover your creative spark there!

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What Does It Mean for AI to Understand?

December 16, 2021

Maggie Chiang for Quanta Magazine

Introduction

Remember IBM’s Watson, the AI Jeopardy! champion? A 2010 promotion proclaimed, “Watson understands natural language with all its ambiguity and complexity.” However, as we saw when Watson subsequently failed spectacularly in its quest to “ revolutionize medicine with artificial intelligence ,” a veneer of linguistic facility is not the same as actually comprehending human language.

Natural language understanding has long been a major goal of AI research. At first, researchers tried to manually program everything a machine would need to make sense of news stories, fiction or anything else humans might write. This approach, as Watson showed, was futile — it’s impossible to write down all the unwritten facts, rules and assumptions required for understanding text. More recently, a new paradigm has been established: Instead of building in explicit knowledge, we let machines learn to understand language on their own, simply by ingesting vast amounts of written text and learning to predict words. The result is what researchers call a language model. When based on large neural networks, like OpenAI’s GPT-3, such models can generate uncannily humanlike prose (and poetry !) and seemingly perform sophisticated linguistic reasoning .

But has GPT-3 — trained on text from thousands of websites, books and encyclopedias — transcended Watson’s veneer? Does it really understand the language it generates and ostensibly reasons about? This is a topic of stark disagreement in the AI research community. Such discussions used to be the purview of philosophers, but in the past decade AI has burst out of its academic bubble into the real world, and its lack of understanding of that world can have real and sometimes devastating consequences. In one study , IBM’s Watson was found to propose “multiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations.” Another study showed that Google’s machine translation system made significant errors when used to translate medical instructions for non-English-speaking patients.

How can we determine in practice whether a machine can understand? In 1950, the computing pioneer Alan Turing tried to answer this question with his famous “imitation game,” now called the Turing test. A machine and a human, both hidden from view, would compete to convince a human judge of their humanness using only conversation. If the judge couldn’t tell which one was the human, then, Turing asserted, we should consider the machine to be thinking — and, in effect, understanding.

Unfortunately, Turing underestimated the propensity of humans to be fooled by machines. Even simple chatbots, such as Joseph Weizenbaum’s 1960s ersatz psychotherapist Eliza , have fooled people into believing they were conversing with an understanding being, even when they knew that their conversation partner was a machine.

In a 2012 paper , the computer scientists Hector Levesque, Ernest Davis and Leora Morgenstern proposed a more objective test, which they called the Winograd schema challenge. This test has since been adopted in the AI language community as one way, and perhaps the best way, to assess machine understanding — though as we’ll see, it is not perfect. A Winograd schema, named for the language researcher Terry Winograd, consists of a pair of sentences, differing by exactly one word, each followed by a question. Here are two examples:

Sentence 1: I poured water from the bottle into the cup until it was full. Question: What was full, the bottle or the cup? Sentence 2: I poured water from the bottle into the cup until it was empty. Question: What was empty, the bottle or the cup?

Sentence 1: Joe’s uncle can still beat him at tennis, even though he is 30 years older. Question: Who is older, Joe or Joe’s uncle? Sentence 2: Joe’s uncle can still beat him at tennis, even though he is 30 years younger. Question: Who is younger, Joe or Joe’s uncle?

In each sentence pair, the one-word difference can change which thing or person a pronoun refers to. Answering these questions correctly seems to require commonsense understanding. Winograd schemas are designed precisely to test this kind of understanding, alleviating the Turing test’s vulnerability to unreliable human judges or chatbot tricks. In particular, the authors designed a few hundred schemas that they believed were “Google-proof”: A machine shouldn’t be able to use a Google search (or anything like it) to answer the questions correctly.

These schemas were the subject of a competition held in 2016 in which the winning program was correct on only 58% of the sentences — hardly a better result than if it had guessed. Oren Etzioni, a leading AI researcher, quipped , “When AI can’t determine what ‘it’ refers to in a sentence, it’s hard to believe that it will take over the world.”

However, the ability of AI programs to solve Winograd schemas rose quickly due to the advent of large neural network language models. A 2020 paper from OpenAI reported that GPT-3 was correct on nearly 90% of the sentences in a benchmark set of Winograd schemas. Other language models have performed even better after training specifically on these tasks. At the time of this writing, neural network language models have achieved about 97% accuracy on a particular set of Winograd schemas that are part of an AI language-understanding competition known as SuperGLUE . This accuracy roughly equals human performance. Does this mean that neural network language models have attained humanlike understanding?

Not necessarily. Despite the creators’ best efforts, those Winograd schemas were not actually Google-proof. These challenges, like many other current tests of AI language understanding, sometimes permit shortcuts that allow neural networks to perform well without understanding. For example, consider the sentences “The sports car passed the mail truck because it was going faster” and “The sports car passed the mail truck because it was going slower.” A language model trained on a huge corpus of English sentences will have absorbed the correlation between “sports car” and “fast,” and between “mail truck” and “slow,” and so it can answer correctly based on those correlations alone rather than by drawing on any understanding. It turns out that many of the Winograd schemas in the SuperGLUE competition allow for these kinds of statistical correlations.

Rather than give up on the Winograd schemas as a test of understanding, a group of researchers from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence decided instead to try to fix some of their problems. In 2019 they created WinoGrande , a much larger set of Winograd schemas. Instead of several hundred examples, WinoGrande contains a whopping 44,000 sentences. To obtain that many examples, the researchers turned to Amazon Mechanical Turk, a popular platform for crowdsourcing work. Each (human) worker was asked to write several sentence pairs, with some constraints to ensure that the collection would contain diverse topics, though now the sentences in each pair could differ by more than one word.

The researchers then attempted to eliminate sentences that could allow statistical shortcuts by applying a relatively unsophisticated AI method to each sentence and discarding any that were too easily solved. As expected, the remaining sentences presented a much harder challenge for machines than the original Winograd schema collection. While humans still scored very high, neural network language models that had matched human performance on the original set scored much lower on the WinoGrande set. This new challenge seemed to redeem Winograd schemas as a test for commonsense understanding — as long as the sentences were carefully screened to ensure that they were Google-proof.

However, another surprise was in store. In the almost two years since the WinoGrande collection was published, neural network language models have grown ever larger, and the larger they get, the better they seem to score on this new challenge. At the time of this writing, the current best programs — which have been trained on terabytes of text and then further trained on thousands of WinoGrande examples — get close to 90% correct (humans get about 94% correct). This increase in performance is due almost entirely to the increased size of the neural network language models and their training data.

Have these ever larger networks finally attained humanlike commonsense understanding? Again, it’s not likely. The WinoGrande results come with some important caveats. For example, because the sentences relied on Amazon Mechanical Turk workers, the quality and coherence of the writing is quite uneven. Also, the “unsophisticated” AI method used to weed out “non-Google-proof” sentences may have been too unsophisticated to spot all possible statistical shortcuts available to a huge neural network, and it only applied to individual sentences, so some of the remaining sentences ended up losing their “twin.” One follow-up study showed that neural network language models tested on twin sentences only — and required to be correct on both — are much less accurate than humans, showing that the earlier 90% result is less significant than it seemed.

So, what to make of the Winograd saga? The main lesson is that it is often hard to determine from their performance on a given challenge if AI systems truly understand the language (or other data) that they process. We now know that neural networks often use statistical shortcuts — instead of actually demonstrating humanlike understanding — to obtain high performance on the Winograd schemas as well as many of the most popular “general language understanding” benchmarks .

The crux of the problem, in my view, is that understanding language requires understanding the world, and a machine exposed only to language cannot gain such an understanding. Consider what it means to understand “The sports car passed the mail truck because it was going slower.” You need to know what sports cars and mail trucks are, that cars can “pass” one another, and, at an even more basic level, that vehicles are objects that exist and interact in the world, driven by humans with their own agendas.

All this is knowledge that we humans take for granted, but it’s not built into machines or likely to be explicitly written down in any of a language model’s training text. Some cognitive scientists have argued that humans rely on innate, pre-linguistic core knowledge of space, time and many other essential properties of the world in order to learn and understand language. If we want machines to similarly master human language, we will need to first endow them with the primordial principles humans are born with. And to assess machines’ understanding, we should start by assessing their grasp of these principles, which one might call “ infant metaphysics .”

Training and evaluating machines for baby-level intelligence may seem like a giant step backward compared to the prodigious feats of AI systems like Watson and GPT-3. But if true and trustworthy understanding is the goal, this may be the only path to machines that can genuinely comprehend what “it” refers to in a sentence, and everything else that understanding “it” entails.

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