Why We Need to Write Short Stories Essay Example
What makes a good curriculum? This is a question that teachers of every subject and every school ruminate on. As teachers plan for their students to finish the school year having learned something new, they worry about the possibility of their teaching curriculum being ineffective. These include English teachers, whom before coming up with a curriculum must understand the components of a not only auspicious but also interesting, teaching curriculum. To form an exemplary English teaching plan, one can examine an example - writing short stories. Writing short stories should be incorporated into English education because it elevates one’s imagination, helps one reimagine moral and philosophical ideas, fosters the ability to think beyond compulsory education, and stabilizes emotional peace.
Writing short stories is a fantastic way of cultivating artistic and creative expression in students. Not only does creative writing offer a chance of writing without the confines of requirements, but it elevates one’s creative ability to make something unique to them alone. Tom Kenny, a famous application and website designer, said, “Creativity isn’t something you’re born with. It comes easier to some people than others, but no matter who you are, it has to be exercised like a muscle.
Those who practice creativity more, find it much easier to be more creative because they’re used to it.” In Kenny’s words, writing short stories helps exercise and refine one’s creative cognition. The process of writing a short story, intrinsically, is a process of creating a unique story, world, plot, and characters; coming up with all of these factors require deep thinking, and through this process one can progress in critical creativity. This ultimately leads to the writer to stand out. As it is much easier to float through life thinking what others think and saying what others say, creativity is revered. In contrast, to come up with an idea and to attain it is the most impactful experience one can have. This circles back to short story writing, and how its ability to elevate imagination is important for an individual, and thus should be included in a curriculum.
Following this, writing short stories also helps one comprehend moral and philosophical concepts. By creating characters who go through a story, the writer reflects on the character’s journey and empathize with them. Percy Bysshe Shelley, an influential English Romantic poet, believed that moral imagination helps people find better ways of being, and can put one in touch with all that is beautiful and truthful. For example, I once wrote about a young girl who had a widowed mother, and the child, fraught with uncertainty, depended too much on her mother.
From writing this story I came to realize the vitality of existential struggle and finding purpose. Through simulating characters who go through a life-changing experience, I was able to connect to their moral burdens and grow from it. Writing different stories with different kinds of characters helps the writer reflect on their actions, the moral lessons they learn, and the meaningful messages within the stories. As a result, the writers become better people and citizens of society in the future. That is why writing short stories is an important component of an English curriculum.
Writing short stories allows one to embrace styles of thinking outside of compulsory education. Schools we have today are like factories - in which raw products (in this context, children) are fashioned and manufactured to meet the demands of life, but not to think and create things unique to them alone. Frederick Taylor Gates, an advocate of compulsory education, argued, “We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply.” What he means is, the great thinkers and geniuses that reside among the student body should not be encouraged, and in turn should be fixated to a common belief.
But compulsory schooling confines students to a narrow horizon, breeding students like a herd of clones, and often times can feel suffocating. To bring forth a story from nothing is an arduous and at times, frustrating thing to do. But, it exercises the mind to think wisely. To be able to transcend an elementary form of education, and to be able to think in an artistic and free manner, is possibly the greatest form of self-cultivation available to the free mind. Thus it trains the people of today to think more critically, which becomes crucial in future careers. Once again, writing short stories proves to be essential for an English curriculum as it introduces a way of thinking beyond the compulsory level.
Lastly, writing short stories opens the path of redirecting one’s life and understanding themselves as a person. Creative writing has proven to help individuals going through a rough emotional state, finding purpose, and finding a passion that does not rely on inanimate materials. “What we construct as wisdom over time is actually the result of cultivating that knowledge of how our emotions behaved,” says USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, “and what we learn from them.” Damasio simply says that creative writing allows an individual to organize their thoughts and fathom traumatic experiences, and in turn, helps them study their emotions.
By expressing one’s emotions through creative writing, one is able to discover their deepest self and the inner workings of their psyche. Thus, they begin to learn healthy practices of psychological peace; not measuring their self-worth from the frowns or smiles of their parents and peers; finding happiness in not materials or sensual pleasure, but in pursuing a passion; attaining purpose in even the greatest of hardships. Writing short stories should be included in a learning curriculum as it provides ways of securing emotional stability.
As everything comes together, it is conspicuous that writing short stories is what raises a good English curriculum to a great one. Writing short stories upgrades one’s creative ability, lets the writer reevaluate moral concepts, teaches the writer to think beyond a compulsory level, and facilitates emotional harmony. For one who can obtain authenticity is the wisest of them all. Creative insights pulsate a more meaningful engagement with the world along with feelings of wonder and joy. To partake in authentic creativity is to manifest something in the world unique to one. It is to leave one’s stamp on a single letter; it is to remain true to oneself; it is to lull the mind into higher consciousness for the duration of this short flicker of time which one lives.
