Invention and Craft
Exercising Creativity in College Writing and Research
Invention and Craft: Exercising Creativity in College Writing and Research is a first-year college composition textbook that employs creativity theory to augment best practices in writing instruction.
Promoting a problem-solving, insight-driven approach to composing, it casts students in the role of meaning-makers by pinpointing strategies for transforming knowledge, the hallmark of successful expository prose. The book’s explicit treatment of knowledge transfer fosters recognition of patterns within and across genres and encourages students to apply lessons learned in subsequent rhetorical situations. Furthermore, Invention and Craft provides an instructional framework that maps similarities between expository writing and creative activity in other venues as a means of demystifying the former and broadening students’ repertoire of composing strategies.
Acknowledging individual cognitive styles and diverse interests, Invention and Craft places a high priority on energising students and building their confidence as writers.
Ronda Leathers Dively – retired Southern Illinois University Rhetoric and Composition Professor and writing program administrator – is the author of Preludes to Insight: Creativity, Incubation and Expository Writing (Hampton Press, 2006), Invention and Craft: A Guide to College Writing (McGraw-Hill, Inc., 2016) and Creativity and the Paris Review Interviews: A Discourse Analysis of Famous Authors’ Composing Practices (Anthem Press, 2022). In addition, she has written numerous articles on expository writing pedagogy and writing program administration.
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