Creativity as Queer Praxis: History, Pedagogy and Academic Assessment

Abstract This article draws upon insights from queer pedagogy to explore the ways that creative assessments can be used to disrupt rather than reproduce existing power structures within the academy. Queer pedagogy challenges essentialist categories, centres questions of subjectivity and addresses how knowledge is socially produced. I propose that creative writing can be used to ‘queer’ assessment practices by encouraging teachers and students to rethink what counts as ‘academic’, both in terms of the ways we think about skills and learning outcomes, and in terms of the questions we enable students to ask about the past.