Status of English Creative Writing in Public and Private Schools: A Comparative Study Based on Gender

Abstract

The process of creative writing associated with teaching and learning has always been
compromised in schools of Punjab, Pakistan. In educational institutions, creative writing
plays an important role. Yet, it is ignored in Pakistani English Language Teaching
Classrooms. This research project deals with the act of writing creatively, and it was designed
to investigate the status of English language flair, especially the creative writing skills of 10th
graders. The present research commenced with a literature review; several studies were
identified which analyzed different features of creative writing in English Language Teaching
Classrooms. A need was felt to be important to observe the status of the four levels of English
creative writing, namely descriptive writing, narrative writing, story writing, and functional
writing, among the secondary school level students. A sample of 250 students was selected
from public and private male and female schools in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Twelve
classes of grade 10 both from public and private schools were randomly selected as the
sample of the present research. The study's major objectives were to explore the status of the
four essential levels of English creative writing in teaching English at the secondary level.
Four English creative writing assignments were taken from Cambridge School O-level
examinations and were administered to a smaller sample of the students. The achievement
tests were organized around these tasks. The writing tests were graded quantitatively by
applying SPSS (Statistical Program for Social Science) and with the help of an analytical
scoring approach. For inter-rater reliability, the results of English creative writing tests were
reviewed and affirmed by the relevant English teachers. The results of the study revealed that
the English creative writing skills among secondary school students are dissatisfactory. It was
recommended that English teachers use a communicative approach while teaching English
language skills in secondary level classrooms. It was also recommended that the examination
papers have some unseen tasks to develop the inventive writing proficiency of secondary
school students.