Bringing Creativity into the Classroom: Using Sociology to Write First-Person Fiction

The reading and writing of creative writing have the potential to bring sociology to life in a dramatic way. Literature has been used in sociology in one of two ways: to provide sociological evidence and as an object of analysis--a social institution to be studied in its own right. Previous scholarship has proven that the use of literature in sociology enhances students' critical thinking, applies sociology, and develops sociological imagination. The actual writing of literature by students has been shown to benefit their understanding of sociology through the assigning of critical autobiographies, utopian writing, and third-person fiction. This article presents a fiction assignment in which students will write in the first person rather than the third. The authors will discuss the relevance for reinforcing the sociological imagination of having students write fiction about themselves as employees 10 years in the future. The genre of this assignment compels students to internalize sociological ideas to create the text. (Contains 3 footnotes.)