Art—the expression of emotion through creative mediums. Traditionally, the word “art” triggers images of painters, dancers, photographers, and musicians, but one artist tends to remain forgotten: the writer.

The idea, the style, the voice—all components of a story must interact in order for the author to express himself, and classes such as Creative Writing certainly require a level of creativity from students as they organize their emotions and imagination into a structured form of writing. Liberty students who take

Creative Writing write short stories, poems, and screenplays, all of which are platforms for self-expression. But even with the essentials of any arts course, this class remains labeled as a general elective.

Currently, the Washington State Board of Education states that an arts course must “[set] out a coherent structure for building students’ knowledge, understanding, and skills, while also encouraging them to explore and express their own creativity.” Creative Writing fits these standards through its open-ended prompts, which call for previously-acquired writing abilities from English classes as well as imagination to bring personal stories to life.

“If art is about expressing yourself in a variety of ways, then that’s what Creative Writing is,” English teacher and Creative Writing major Henry Level said.

As a result of the ‘literature’ aspect of it, Creative Writing may initially feel more like an English credit than anything else, but what separates Creative Writing from other English courses stands the abundance of creativity. In typical English classes, students usually focus on the analytical aspects of writing and scrutinize others’ works. In Creative Writing, however, students create ideas and stories.

This course also encourages students to explore poetry, a widely-accepted form of art. Poems take many forms to convey emotions and allows for the experimentation of self-expression through a rhyming verse rather than a drawn picture.

Storytelling and poetry both resemble art in that they are human creations designed to produce emotional responses. Since both of these lay the foundation for Creative Writing, the course certainly holds value as an arts course and should seriously be considered for fine arts credit.