Teachers as writing students : narratives of professional development in a leisure-time creative writing community

Abstract

The authors explored five in-service teachers’ experiences of professional development (PD) in Studies in Writing (30 ECTS programme at a Finnish open university) they participated in during their leisure time. Data consist of the teachers’ creative writings and semi-structured interviews. Reflexive thematic analysis was employed to holistically determine how the participants associated the creative writing community with their PD. The following themes were created: (1) Me as a writer, (2) Teaching and pedagogy, and (3) Writing and emotions. To illustrate these findings, three creative narratives were composed based on data excerpts. These ethnodramatic dialogues gave voice to the teachers’ diverse PD experiences, enabling the authors to create evocative narratives that can be accessible to broader audiences. They suggest that creative writing communities can support teachers’ PD holistically by offering peer support and pedagogical ideas, promoting narrative identity work, and offering a time and place for recovery and flow.