Welch challenges the ethos of scholars who perceive creative writing to be an academically useless faculty. By presenting creative writing as a multi-faceted tool, functioning as both a device for improving critical analysis and an exploration of a writer's personal strengths, she reveals its practicality. Creative writing has often been eschewed by functionalists, but through the experiences of a class of beginning graduate student writers, Welch reveals its real-world functionality. Welch examines the various processes involved in the production of creative writing: its inception, composing difficulties, the revision process and also the critical analysis of one's own work. She also defines creative writing in a social context opposed to isolationists, whom she claims overlook the vast social framework of every work of fiction. Contrasting the idea that a piece of art or writing fails to provoke discussion and further exploration, she presents her students' ideas for future narratives, suggesting their intentions for further growth and development. Welch's writing class schema ultimately explores the notion of 'sideshadowing' as a process and how it opens up new learning experiences through creative writing. [Sierra Moore]