This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the SPAWN strategy in developing creative writing skills—specifically fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration, among tenth-grade female students in Jordanian public schools. The research sought to answer the primary question: What is the impact of using the SPAWN strategy on enhancing creative writing skills among tenth-grade students compared to traditional methods? To address this, a quasi-experimental approach was adopted, involving two groups: an experimental group (n=25) taught using the SPAWN strategy, and a control group (n=26) taught through conventional instruction. The research instrument was a creative writing test designed to measure the four target skills. After verifying the test’s validity and reliability, pre- and post-tests were administered to both groups, and data were analyzed using ANCOVA to control for pre-test differences. Findings showed statistically significant differences at the (α = 0.05) level in favor of the experimental group, with a large effect size (η² = 0.696), indicating that approximately 69.6% of the improvement in students’ creative writing performance was attributable to the SPAWN strategy. The results confirmed the strategy’s effectiveness in enhancing students’ abilities across all four creative writing dimensions. Based on these findings, it is recommended that Arabic language teachers be trained to apply the SPAWN strategy in classrooms and that it be integrated into teaching guides and national curricula. Future studies are encouraged to explore its impact on other language skills and educational contexts.

Research on writing literacy has largely focused on formal schooling and single educational levels, leaving limited empirical evidence on how reflective, creative, and critical writing skills develop through integrated community–school programs across educational stages, particularly in Global South contexts. This study addresses this gap by examining a community- and school-based literacy program implemented across three learning settings in North Sumatra, Indonesia: a public book club, a lower secondary school, and an upper secondary school. Employing a qualitative field study design, data were collected through participatory observation, document analysis of students’ writings, and reflective texts produced during eight literacy sessions conducted in October 2025. The findings reveal a staged development of writing skills, where reflective writing functions as an entry point for self-expression, creative writing mediates the articulation of values and empathy, and critical writing emerges as a later outcome marked by growing argumentative clarity and intellectual confidence. Participation patterns varied across contexts, yet consistent improvement was observed when writing practices were contextualized and supported through non-evaluative facilitation. This study contributes a context-sensitive literacy model that integrates reflective, creative, and critical writing across educational levels, offering theoretical and practical insights for literacy development in Global South educational ecosystems

ABSTRACT This article considers the object-essays of Vanessa Berry, Rachel Robertson and Brenda Miller, along with my own practice-led research, to suggest the personal essay has key affordances that make it useful for creative writers seeking to represent the active or agential quality of objects – what Jane Bennett calls ‘thing-power’. Using the conceptual framework of the object itinerary, it contends that essaying the active object also provides insight into the ways the essay itself can be ‘object-like’.

This paper investigates the effectiveness of an educational intervention aimed at developing Creative Writing skills and enhancing environmental consciousness in 6th-grade primary school students. Elias Venezis" short story, "Snow White of Parnitha," served as the starting point, around which creative writing activities were structured. The results, based on the qualitative analysis of the students" written texts (narratives and dialogues), demonstrated significant improvement in their narrative and dialogical skills, including the intelligent use of figures of speech. Particularly impressive was the manifestation of great enthusiasm and a strong will on the part of the students for the reconciliation of humans with nature. Whether through critique of the negative relationship or through proposals for its restoration, the texts revealed a deep environmental awareness. The study underscores the power of literature and creative writing as catalysts for holistic learning and environmental education.

This research explored how generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, specifically a writing assistant powered by large language models like ChatGPT, influence the development of creative writing (CW) skills in intermediate EFL learners, focusing on both cognitive and emotional aspects. The research included 92 male participants who were divided into three distinct groups: The High-AI Support Group, the Low-AI Support Group, and the Control Group (CG). Participants completed pretesting with some validated scales. After the pretest, the High-AI Support Group was provided with comprehensive AI-generated feedback, while the Low-AI Support Group received limited AI support, and the Control Group adhered to conventional writing instruction. After the treatment, posttests were given to all groups, and eight participants from each experimental group took part in interviews. Quantitative analyses revealed that both groups receiving AI support outperformed the Control Group, with the High-AI Support Group exhibiting the most significant enhancements. Qualitative insights revealed that students in the High-AI Support Group demonstrated increased engagement and creativity, attributed to tailored AI feedback that alleviated cognitive load by addressing technical aspects like grammatical accuracy. In contrast, members of the Low-AI Support Group appreciated the collaborative interaction between AI and instructor feedback, which enhanced their confidence, independence, and skills in grammar and writing conventions. In summary, this study emphasizes the importance of AI in enhancing both intellectual and emotional growth for EFL learners, advocating for its incorporation as a valuable resource in educational settings.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-025-34416-2.

In increasingly multilingual and culturally diverse EFL classrooms, creative writing offers a transformative space for learners to develop linguistic skills while negotiating personal and cultural identities. This study investigates how integrating creative writing into undergraduate literature courses, Drama, Poetry, and Short Story at King Khalid University (Saudi Arabia) impacts learner engagement, self-efficacy, and intercultural competence. A mixed-methods action research design was implemented over a 12-week semester with 45 female students. Participants engaged in structured creative writing tasks and submitted weekly reflective journals. Quantitative data were collected via two validated Likert-scale instruments: the Creative Writing Engagement Scale (CWES) and the Self-Efficacy and Autonomy Scale (SEAS). Thematic analysis of 135 reflective journals revealed three core themes: Voice and Self-Expression, Cultural Reflection, and Empathy and Perspective-Taking. These accounts illustrate how writing supported identity exploration and intercultural empathy. Structural equation modelling confirmed a substantial direct effect of creative writing engagement on self-efficacy (β = .79, p < .001), and a significant indirect effect on perceived language development (β = .43, p < .001). These findings suggest that creative writing is not only academically beneficial but also emotionally and culturally enriching. The study recommends the broader inclusion of creative writing in EFL curricula as a learner-centred strategy that fosters linguistic growth, identity expression, and intercultural competence.

Kamala Das and Banu Mushtaq are the two prominent female writers in modern Indian literature.Both of them have tried to present the position of women in the family and society- their dreams and frustrations, their desires and sufferings,and their hopes and despairs.Kamala Das mainly explores the troubles of women in the male dominated Hindu family and society while Banu Mustaq explains the severe contrains prevailing in the Muslim family and society faced by the women .Women are treated merely as sub-human entities in the male dominated society;they are bereft of basic human amenities. Both of them have been relentlessly trying to describe the unbearable tortures borne by the women in the world. As social activists and creative writers they intend to unearth the status of women the family and society and explain their vehement protest against the inhuman injustice to women.

In Portugal, Creative Writing is still an academic field in formation, yet it is necessary to reflect on the creative use of language in the construction of literature within the university context. Thus, the aim is to position Creative Writing as an academic discipline that relates interdisciplinarily with Linguistics, History, and Literary Theory. On the one hand, the intention is to consider language in connection with a poetics of writing—that is, to understand it as a poiein, a process of interpreting reality and the possibilities offered by language; on the other hand, it is to discuss the concept of literary originality, associated with the ways texts relate to one another, recognizing the inevitability of intertextuality as well as the notion that language itself creates fiction.

In the contemporary era, artificial intelligence has progressively permeated all facets of human existence. Its impact on the educational sector, in particular, is profound. Creative writing, as a conventional pedagogical approach in English instruction, is frequently employed to enhance students’ linguistic competence and literary cultivation. Consequently, investigating the supportive role of artificial intelligence in English creative writing assumes significant importance. This study, based on the continuation exercises of endings for Langston Hughes’ Early Autumn authored by both students and artificial intelligence, conducts a comparative evaluation of their respective merits and demerits across three dimensions: narrative design, diction and syntax, and descriptive techniques. The findings indicate that AI-generated texts demonstrate superior narrative construction, more precise diction, and a capacity to accurately emulate the original author’s style through meticulous language use. In contrast, student compositions exhibit greater strengths in creativity and authenticity, often unconstrained by the source text and achieving effects that are “unexpected yet reasonable.” Therefore, in future English pedagogy, artificial intelligence should be integrated into students' creative writing processes to optimize their expressive and rhetorical outcomes, while ensuring that students’ autonomous creativity is not stifled.

This article explores how Iverson's APL (A Programming Language), a distinctive programming language, was integrated into Oulipo's Atlas de littérature potentielle by Paul Braffort (1923–2018), the group's AI and programming expert. For Braffort, APL was more than an efficient tool for algorithmic text processing and text generation; it served as a pedagogical “tool of thought” that enabled creative writers to abstract and formalize their ideas about constrained writing. We examine Braffort's technical and aesthetic rationale for adopting APL over more common programming languages. By uniting science (computer science in a broad sense) and humanities (literature) cultures, Braffort embodied a new figure in French experimental literature of the 1970s–1980s: the writer–mathematician–programmer, updating the previous figure in the Oulipo of the writer–mathematician epitomized by Queneau. In today's era of generative AI with natural-language interfaces, his forward-looking vision of modeling literary ideas in APL as a formal language remains both relevant and original. At present, with free access to modern APL tooling and abundant resources, creative writers can more readily than in 1981 experience APL as a powerful “intellectual tool”, a tool that has empowered creative artists beyond the field of literature. Braffort's work with APL in the Atlas stands as a milestone in French computational literature, characterized by the crossing of constrained writing, programming, and the formalizing spirit of early AI.

The article discusses the teaching of creative writing at the university and within literary and cultural life, using as its case study the development at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań of the artistic-literary specialisation established in 2007 and the degree programme Creative Writing introduced in 2020. It draws attention to the still developing position of creative writing among the disciplines of the humanities, a position that calls for clearer definition, as well as to its place between academic education and the institutions and participants of literary and cultural life beyond the university – a relationship that deserves further support and development. An important element of artistic education is the combination of workshop-based classes with philological courses, in which the art of interpretation plays a central role. Interpretation is understood here as a practice that brings together skills of literary analysis and the practical craft of writing, supporting students in developing both interpretive competence and a growing awareness of literature as a cultural practice.

Integrating artificial intelligence into learning processes is becoming increasingly common, with research highlighting its potential to enhance students’ creative writing skills. This study examines the effects of AI-based creative writing on fourth-grade students’ writing motivation, anxiety, and creative output, as well as their views on the process. Conducted with 41 students (20 girls, 21 boys) from a public school in Türkiye, the research employs a quasi-experimental design with pre- and post-tests for experimental and control groups selected via convenience sampling. Data were collected through the Writing Motivation Scale, Writing Anxiety Scale, students’ texts, and focus group interviews. Over five weeks, the experimental group participated in creative writing activities using ChatGPT, while the control group followed traditional paper-and-pencil methods. Quantitative data were analyzed using t-tests, and qualitative data underwent content analysis. Results showed that AI-based creative writing significantly improved creative writing skills and reduced writing anxiety in the experimental group. However, there was no significant difference in writing motivation. Students highlighted benefits like idea generation, enhanced creativity, and a fun process but reported challenges such as technical issues and repetitive responses. The study concludes that AI-supported creative writing effectively improves skills and reduces anxiety but has no significant impact on motivation.

VJP Saldanha was a quintessential Konkani novelist writing in Kannada script. His series of novels on the painful history of Konkani Christians of coastal Karnataka bears witness to the suffering and the resilience of this community. While one may find problems with some of his factual representations, one must understand that he was not a historian but a creative writer. No one can question his literary genius, which has brought forth so many versatile Konkani novels. As the Konkani world celebrates his birth centenary, it is fitting that writers, Konkani enthusiasts and readers take his writing seriously.

ABSTRACT Domestic workers remain curiously absent from the story of Hong Kong, a story they helped to build. It is this context that informed the development of The Writer’s Toolbox, our collaboration with Migrant Writers of Hong Kong, a creative writing network founded by writers and domestic workers, Maria Nemy Lou Rocio, Ailenemae Ramos and Liezel Fernandez Marcos. This collaboration comprised three series of creative writing workshops from 2021 to 2024 that sought to develop creative writing pedagogies for migrant domestic workers. Our model was grounded in a focus on the lives and care of writers/storytellers and stories. Starting from an ethos of care for storytellers and stories allowed us to delve into the connections between craft and care, and critique as encounter and co-invention. This framework created space for stories that highlighted under-examined dimensions of labour migration. As migrant domestic worker creative writers gain visibility in literary and public arenas in Hong Kong, an attentiveness to care may allow for a greater re-visioning of the relationship between domestic workers and the city.

Aesthetic Literacy and the Voices of Youth: Creative Writing, Navigational Competence and Educational Practice

Creative Writings at the Association before the Algerian Revolution: Ben Badis's Innovation in Literary Reform as a Model

My Blue World: Ambivalence of the Meaning of the Colour Blue in Adolescent Creative Writing – between Aesthetic and Efferent Reading

In the the present global context, the international flow of human beings from one nation to another in search of greener pastures has attained unprecedented proportions. And both creative writers and literary critics have respectively captured this reality and critiqued it in their works over time, highlighting the contours of this phenomenon that is characterised by ambivalence. Communities and individuals succumb to the flux of change, yet they feel the need to militate for cultural preservation. This paper attempts to investigate immigrants’ predicament as they are torn between the home and host countries in Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers. The paper hinges on the hypothetical premise that Mbue’s migrant characters in Behold the Dreamers create a Third Space as a route of escape from the tensions they experience as they are torn between the changes brought about by globalisation, and the desire to remain rooted in their culture. Postcolonial theory is handy as the frame of analysis of Mbue’s novel as it sheds light on characters’ dilemma and these characters’ efforts at creating the Third Space through negotiation, subversion, transgression and resistance. Mbue’s choice to make her characters come back to Cameroon as heterotopia is evidence that the characters’ dystopic perception of Cameroon is corrected, a suggestion that the millions of Cameroonians in the diaspora and those that are still leaving the country today to find an utopia elsewhere can come back home, or stay home, and create their eldorado here.

This research is motivated by the low ability of students to write descriptive texts in German, which is largely caused by the use of conventional learning methods and limited active student involvement in the learning process. The aim of this study is to improve students’ writing skills through the implementation of PjBL that emphasizes collaborative and reflective project activities. This classroom action research was conducted in two cycles, involving 36 eleventh-grade students as subjects. Data collection techniques included observations of student activities and descriptive text writing tests, while data analysis was carried out using both quantitative and qualitative descriptive approaches by comparing learning outcomes between cycles. The results indicated a significant improvement in students’ writing performance: the average score increased from 65 in cycle I to 82 in cycle II, while the completion rate rose from 30.56% to 86.11%. Observational data revealed that students actively engaged in group discussions, confidently expressed ideas, responded to peer feedback, and demonstrated higher motivation in completing writing tasks. Furthermore, the quality of their descriptive texts improved, particularly in terms of structure, vocabulary, grammar accuracy, and creativity. These findings suggest that the PjBL model effectively enhances not only students’ descriptive writing skills but also their collaboration, critical thinking, and creative expression. The study theoretically contributes to the growing literature on PjBL in foreign language education, providing evidence of its impact on student learning outcomes. Practically, the findings serve as a valuable reference for teachers aiming to develop innovative, student-centered, and effective strategies for teaching descriptive writing in German, promoting active learning and sustained engagement in the classroom.

ABSTRACT The integration of generative artificial intelligence into creative domains raises critical questions about human agency in AI-assisted creation. In this two-study article (study one, n = 6; study two, n = 7), we explored how people experience creative agency during co-creative tasks with AI, focusing on image generation and writing. Using think-aloud protocols and post-task semi-structured interviews, we conducted an analysis to identify four central dimensions of agency: creative self-efficacy, control over creative action, autonomy in the creative process, and ownership of the creative product, as well as the self-regulatory and metacognitive mechanisms that support sustaining agency. Preliminary findings reveal that agency in human – AI co-creation fluctuates across the creative process. Participants employed adaptive strategies – such as progressive refinement, selective appropriation, and counter-inspiration – to reinforce agency when navigating unpredictable AI outputs. However, moments of diminished control and uncertainty about ownership were common, particularly when AI contributions deviated from user expectations. To contextualize these experiences, we applied the Co-Creative Framework for Interaction Design, highlighting how tool affordances shaped participants’ sense of agency. Participants’ shifting experiences of agency suggest a need for adaptive system features that align with evolving user goals.