Legal Writing Professor Claire Robinson-May

C|M|LAW Legal Writing Professor Claire Robinson-May presented “Enhancing Understanding by Inviting Student Creativity into the Legal Writing Classroom,” on April 26, 2014, at the Southeastern Legal Writing Conference held at Stetson University College of Law.  In her presentation, May noted that teachers of legal writing rarely offer students an opportunity to be creative. Rather, they regularly ask students to produce research logs, memos, motions, and other documents that are similar to those produced by their peers. But, in addition to teaching legal writing, May is also pursuing an M.F.A. in creative writing. She brought that experience into her legal writing classroom and invited her law students to bring in their creativity as well. May’s presentation described an assignment in which she required students to outline and analyze a statute and then convey the information to the class through a creative presentation. Student group presentations included an original song, an interactive game, a comic strip, a public service announcement, an original children’s book, and more. May believes the assignment enhanced student understanding of the material by engaging student creativity in the learning process.