Creative Writing in today's English classes

I will admit that I am completely biased here, but I just gave my sophomore Honors English kids a memoir assignment and, for the most part, it was quite disappointing.  My bachelor's degree is in creative writing, and I think the power to write creatively is more of an asset than having a formula for how to write an essay.  So when I got my 19 memoirs turned in, I realized very quickly that most of them had little to no interest in even writing about themselves.  They went through the motions, and I now check the boxes on the rubric, etc.  I think back to my time in high school, and I would have loved the opportunity to NOT write a boring essay.  The memoir would have been my favorite assignment in all four years, but sadly, I never got to write creatively in high school.

So why the disconnect?  What am I missing?  I know that many of the kids said, "I'm boring.  Nothing has ever happened to me," but I don't think that's it.  My emerging theory is that they have never, ever done it before.  Maybe the last creative piece they did was a sixth grade poetry unit or something like that, but I get the feeling that kids today only ever write anything for a teacher and/or an essay grade.  They couldn't have fun with this because it was scary.  It was new.  It was uncharted territory.

These are honors students, so they will mostly comply when needed.  And I should say that four or five of the 19 memoirs were pretty good, but my fear is that this will be their last creative assignment in high school.  It's a dying skill.  It's a dying idea.  Maybe if I did it with social media or some crafty little APP, the results would have been better, but I even hesitate to go that far.  We have a generation of kids who will DO, but not engage creatively.  I told you at the outset that I am biased, but I'm also afraid for what this means.  In the meantime, I may just push to make creative writing a bigger part of our curriculum at all levels and hope for the best.
Thanks for listening...

Hello everyone,
Forgive me if I'm doing this wrong, but I'm in a social media class and I am to create a blog.  So...how are we all doing?  I've considered doing this in the past, but if I create an online spot, what is the point?  What am I trying to unleash into to the world?  I'm not selling anything, and I'm not sure anyone wants to hear me rant about various social, cultural, or political issues.  As I'm thinking "out loud" here, I'm not sure if I can find a direction for this thing.  Maybe I'll start by doing a weekly post about whatever random events are happening in my world, and if people decide to read it and/or interact with my words of confusion and lunacy, so be it.  Maybe I'll pick a random topic every week and just let 'er rip.  I just hope it won't get me fired.