Dan Lukiv

Lived School Experiences That Encouraged One Person to Become a Creative Writer-Study III Dan Lukiv

Abstract // In the hermeneutic phenomenological tradition-referring to my original (template) study, completed as partial fulfillment of my MEd requirements at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) in 2002-I had explored through interviews this research question: What, if any, experiences in school encouraged one person to become an adult creative writer? This third work, part of a series of six methodologically identical studies, explored the same question through a different participant. Because creative writing stands as a formal ingredient in Language Arts programs, direction for teachers about what sorts of activities can encourage students to view creative writing seriously merits attention. As a poet, novelist, and short story writer, I naturally have thoughts and beliefs about what activities or events in school encouraged me to become a creative writer; therefore, I attempted prior to the interviews to bracket my biases related to those thoughts and beliefs. I also attempted to bracket themes I had discovered in my template study and in my methodologically identical second study. In addition, I attempted to bracket possibilities-possibilities that I inadvertently came up with based on general reading, conversations with colleagues, and deductive, inductive, and analogy-type reasoning that suggested that certain events in school could encourage students to take up writing. I worked closely with the participant and a peer debriefer to analyze and interpret the data, to formulate themes, and to reduce researcher bias. The peer debriefer read all interview data to look for bias in my questions. He also looked for bias in my analyses and interpretations. Five themes emerged from the data about what lived school experiences had encouraged the participant. Recommendations based on those themes provide direction for educators.