Conclusion Responses from students about this game and their experiences were positive. They were intensely involved in the experience, fighting to keep the identity and inde- pendence of their character. They had some fun while gaining insights and understanding of older people and their problems. Student suggestions and responses have led us to work on offering this experience as a continuing education workshop to health care providers and other interested students. We also are considering other gaming strategies. This creative, multifaceted teaching /learning situation promoted the development of critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills necessary for students to meet the challenges of caring for the elderly. Lynn M. Young, Director, Nursing Education For further information, contact the author at Mohave Community College, 1971 Jagerson Avenue, Kingman, AZ 86401. The Craft of Imaginative Writing: A Short Course on Discipline Though all undergraduate institutions offer a range of English composition courses and many offer courses in creative writing, few programs allow interested, motivated students who are also good writers to hear firsthand how the professional writer of journalism, fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry progresses in the day-to-day engagement with the written word. Sensing an interest in such a course from a sufficiently advanced group of students, I offered “The Craft of Imaginative Writing” during a six-week semester. Over the short summer semester, | invited 15 published writers from a wide range of genres to read to the class from their work and discuss it in terms of influence, craft, intention, and goals. The students, who had read some- thing from the work of each writer, then questioned the visiting author closely, drawing, for the most part, from a pool of relevant questions we had written in our initial class meetings. ¢ Who (and what) have been your major influences? ¢ What is your typical writing routine? Do you write daily? ® Do you keep a journal? Why/why not? e What techniques do you use to find “inspiration”? e Do vou use (have you used) any writing “exercises”? ¢ How much revision do you typically do? ¢ What is the formal content/intention of your work? e¢ What advice would you give a young writer? On days when no writer visited, we compared reactions, discussed similarities and differences in approach, and discussed the work of upcoming writers. Students were to respond to each visiting writer with an extended journal entry and to write a final 10-page paper discussing the work of any writer or writers who had visited the class. The midterm and final essay exams asked students to discuss insights they had gained about the process and practice of serious writing. I was pleased with the results of the course both in terms of what transpired in the classroom and in terms of the insights my students reached in their written work. The course was a pleasure to teach; in fact, I often felt as though, having wound up and started a machine, I had only to stand back and watch it purr. There were surpris- ingly few lulls in the question-and-answer period; in many cases, the discussion lasted an hour or more beyond the allotted class time. My students learned a great deal, too— about dedication and hard work, about the importance of reading, and about how one becomes a writer—simply by writing, and then by writing (and revising) more. The information was both practical and literary: Students learned specific writing practices, and they engaged in discussions of aesthetics and values. Student feedback indicated that the course was not only interesting but that it was, for some, inspiring. For the instructor, the success of such a course as “The Craft of Imaginative Writing” requires hard work in the months prior to the semester during which the course will be taught. It is imperative that the visiting authors not only be interesting, accomplished writers, but that they also be personable speakers who are honestly willing to share. (With the permission of the visiting writers, | make an audiotape of each speaker for use in future classes.) The students must be screened, as well, to ensure they are genuinely interested and are sufficiently advanced in their own writing that they will be able to engage in fruitful discussion with the visiting authors. And a course like this is best taught during a short semester—the experience might lose its intensity and become tedious over a longer term. Michael Hettich, Associate Professor, English For further information, contact the author at Miami-Dade Community College, Wolfson Campus, 300 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33132. Suanne D. Roueche, Editor December 9, 1994, Vol. XVI, No. 30 © The University of Texas at Austin, 1994 Further duplication is permitted by MEMBER institutions for their own personnel. INNOVATION ABSTRACTS is a publication of the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD), Department of Educational Administration, College of Education, EDB 348, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, (512) 471-7545. Funding in part by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the Sid W. Richardson Foundation. Issued weekly when classes are in session during fall and spring terms. ISSN 0199-106X.