To the Editor:
In response to Will Fitzhugh’s Commentary “Romantic Fiction” (Sept. 15, 2004):
There needs to be room in the classroom for both academic and creative writing. Academic writing is necessary, but creative writing is vital, too. For instance, it may enable students to “work through” ideas that don’t make sense, and feelings that are confusing and frustrating to them.
Creative writing gives students who are scared, those who are worried about school success or family problems, and those students with everyday anxieties a release from the academic, social, and other pressures that exist in all communities, and are greatly magnified in schools. It allows the “unclenching of the fist,” so to speak. When feelings become words written on paper, the student is allowed to view the matter from the outside, and, if necessary, to return to it until he has worked it out.
Elizabeth Thomas
Columbia, Conn.
