Next year, Mrs. Christin Orth will be taking over the Creative Writing classroom.

During the beginning of the school year, the creative writing classrooms found themselves without a teacher. Throughout the year, there had been an extended question due to this – what would be the future of this section of the English department? Personally, as a former student of the class, my hope for the future was rather… depleted. After the year prior with both Creative Writing 2 and 3 losing enrollment, I was worried we wouldn’t be seeing creative writing on our course registration. 

And that’s how it stayed for what felt like forever this year, and everyone was asking what would be happening to the class. Until finally, the news broke that Orth, current AP English 11 and Honors English 10 teacher , would be taking over the class next year. She’s the hero Creative Writing needed, but didn’t know it deserved. 

I interviewed Orth to get her perspective and fresh take on the course. She shared her excitement, her fears, and finally her goals for next year.  

What was the conversation around the Creative Writing classroom at the beginning of the year? Was there any idea of where the classroom would be leading – and because of this, how did it fall into your lap?  

This year there was only one class of creative writing. So we knew the numbers were dwindling as it was. This was also mainly in part because students were also doing part time. Electives are not a top priority – they are taking their basic courses at the high school.

Because there’s a lot more to English than just the regular reading, writing, listening, speaking – there was more than the required English classes and we really wanted to save that. Mrs. Kelly Blackburn approached me and said she thought I would be a good fit. I have never taught an elective since I’ve taught high school, I’ve just taught AP, Honors and English – and was excited for a new challenge.  

Do you see this as a permanent thing – or just sort of a thing you’ll be picking up for next year? 

I hope it becomes a permanent part of my schedule. I hope to build the program – and encourage students to take advantage of the courses that we offer here at Bel Air. And not just focus on taking the bare minimum here and leaving for college – and leaving before they have the full experience here in high school. I would add that a lot of students don’t realize the amount of elective opportunities at the high school. They should take the time to explore while the classes are free. 

What are you excited about? 

I’m excited about having more autonomy – like freedom with developing creative projects and bringing in creative writing examples and helping students to see they are capable of writing creatively. I’m also excited to not grade academic essays.  

I want to get feedback from people who have done this for years. I’m sure there is some kind of rubric for different assignments – but I think for a creative writing class there will be more peer and conference feedback than achieving a certain score on a rubric– a class geared towards growth.  

What changes should students expect for Creative Writing this year? 

It’s hard for me to say… [but] I want to definitely bring back the day book. That will have sections where students will be on the lookout for creative writing inspiration in their daily lives. If I only have one level of creative writing I’m excited to be able to explore beyond the basics, creative writing used to just be intro – but if there’s only one class I can move beyond the basics and do things like play writing or script writing. I also want to incorporate independent reading.   

 Any final thoughts?

“The next year will be my nineteenth year – and a lot of people move into administration or change careers or teach a different subject. I have a colleague who’s hoping to move into a different content area. We just need something new, something exciting…and for me this is a new exciting challenge.”