Writing is an essential tool for anyone who desires to aim higher when it comes to management and highly paid positions within a company but it is also a forgotten form of expression. Much like music, painting, or drawing, writing can be used as a way for teenagers to escape the stress of high school and life as they grow older.

In addition, the course can also assist them with their writing through practice. Uses of rhetoric, parallel structure, and pre-writing, are all things that could be improved and mastered and touched on more than regular English classes will.

“I hope the class comes back,” said Mrs. Hoffbauer, “I really do. There has been a desire for it. Every year I have heard kids say ‘I wish we had a creative writing class’, but there just have not been either the personnel for it, or the interest or the belief that it’s a necessary class.”

One of the reasons why the creative writing class was dropped was because Mrs. Hoffbauer was needed elsewhere and there was a lack of student and teacher interest in teaching or participating in the class, so it simply disappeared from the rotation.

Principal Scott Buchler stated that he has no issues reinstating the class should there be a larger interest from the students. “I participated in a creative writing class during my education and found it to be very helpful.” Said Principal Buchler

The largest obstacle preventing reinstatement would be the proposed lack of student interest. However, it is not missing, just hidden. In a recent survey, in two accelerated English classes and the journalism group, 4 of 9 boys and 21 of 37 girls agreed that there is a need for classes such as creative writing and would also be willing to participate in a creative writing course.

There are students like Junior Allie Swartz, who writes journals about her high school experience and managed to remain consistent with them since the beginning of freshman year.

“I want to remember everything from High School and pictures can not capture everything,” said Swartz “I feel like with writing you can just explain everything you are going through.”

Junior Matthew Wetmore writes his own music and poetry in between his career as a Johnny Cash tribute artist.

“I think it is beneficial to have somebody correct your work,” said Wetmore. “Just because you read it and fix what you see doesn’t mean other people aren’t going to see other things that you miss.”

A dedicated creative writing course will give students like Swartz and Wetmore practice time to hone their skills and try new things with their work. This also gives them the opportunity to get real feedback from a teacher and their peers.

Writing for enjoyment is not as easy as it sounds. It takes days, months, sometimes even years to produce quality content. There is a lot of work involved and it is critical that aspiring authors receive useful feedback from like-minded students; otherwise these novice writers will continue to make simple mistakes from punctuation to major plot holes.

A creative writing course will not only give students the ability to learn how to master writing and use it as a tool for self expression through practice, but it will also help them in all other forms of writing as well.

“It’s not that we’re disservicing our kids, we’re under-serving them by not giving them that option as an elective,” said Mrs. Hoffbauer.

She is among the few teachers along with Mrs. Adema who would consider teaching such a class. Case in point, the only thing missing that could revive the creative writing class is the voice of the students.