L.S. Vygotskii and Higher Psychological Functions
(from Mind and Society, p. 57)
"An interpersonal process is transformed into an intrapersonal one. Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applied equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relations between human individuals."
It seems to me that if we are to grant one purpose of creative writing classes to unlock higher order thinking in students, then traditionally we have been going about it completely backwards. The effort in the workshop always goes in at the front end, and the comments we recieve afterward are looked at amusingly but with little weight. The point, traditionally, has been to protect the "autonomy" of the individual creativity.
Rather, if we are to accept Vygotskii's claim that internalization happens after social interaction, then the post-workshop analysis of comments from the writer's peers is the most critical and crucial moment. Students should be asked to investigate and hypothesize on why their peers reacted the way they did. Doing so internalizes the command of language for future employment. The point being, students will begin to be able to turn an involuntary, external form of action in terms of generating writing into a voluntary and internalized action. At this point, writing becomes a true form of communication with others instead of a primal act of unrefined "expression."