Collaborative Creac Drafting: Co-Creating an Example in Context

The quickest way to a student’s mind is through engagement. As legal writing professors, we can assign pages on how to organize an analysis, provide helpful examples, and orally describe the process. However, some students need a more hands-on approach. In this article, I explain my process of actively engaging students to draft their first CREAC together.

By collaboratively working together to assemble this ungraded CREAC over a series of classes, the students develop an understanding of how to properly organize their analysis of a discrete issue based on the assigned facts and law. For each part of the CREAC we draft in class, the students are directed to apply their newfound knowledge to tackling the memorandum’s remaining CREACs on their own. The results of this teaching technique are clearer expectations, increased self-confidence, and higher quality work product.