Vol. 4, No. 4 (Summer 2023)
Christin Wright-Taylor, Manager, Writing Services, Wilfrid Laurier University
This term, I seem to be meeting with more students who struggle to start the writing process. I tallied my writing appointments so far and found that 32% of them have been dedicated to helping the student generate writing for their assignments. For me, this has been an increase over previous terms. I’ve enjoyed these appointments, but I’ve also found myself hesitating on the precipice of a guided freewriting prompt, wondering: Do these work?
I can report that, yes, they do!
However, the experience of guiding my students through this formative, messy, unruly part of writing has made me reflect on what I often forget about the act of writing: it requires trust. Trust in me as the writing consultant, and both our trust in the process.
Each of these generative writing appointments has begun in similar ways.Students come to the appointment with the assignment instructions and little to no writing. The instructions are sometimes two to three pages long, every minute detail of the assignment anticipated, and yet, students still struggle to write. Still, they are wracked with worry and an inner critic that tells them not to mess up―perhaps because they are overwhelmed by the instructions and left unsure of where to start.
Often, the student will bat away my invitation to start with freewriting. How could I ask them to do the very thing that is eluding them? Isn’t the appointment for getting advice? Aren’t there step by step instructions I can give?
They tell me all the ways they have tried to research before writing. They pepper me with questions about how to structure the assignment or how to create an outline. They double back and ask if they should do more reading before beginning to write. They want me to tell them specifically how to write a particular section of the paper before they begin.
It’s not Beyond-cé your abilities
It took me a few appointments to realize that I couldn’t resolve all the students’ worries, and what they actually needed was to write. But not the pressure-filled, high stakes, polished version of writing that their assignments pointed to with all those fine-toothed instructions. Instead, they needed to begin with low stakes writing. Writing that is messy. Writing that is meandering. Writing that is exploratory. Writing that is thinking without boundaries.
Often, the student will bat away my invitation to start with freewriting. How could I ask them to do the very thing that is eluding them? Isn’t the appointment for getting advice? Aren’t there step by step instructions I can give?
To that I say, “Didn’t Beyoncé sing, ‘My torturer became my remedy?’ Sometimes, the best remedy for the torture of writing is to write.”
It’s one thing to say this, though. It’s another to guide a student through the generative writing process. I’ve found that for some students, I’ve had to ask permission to lead them through the process. This started after an anxious student kept deferring the writing prompt through questions, hang-ups, and worries. I realized they were spinning. So, I stopped, and asked, “Do you trust me to lead you through this process? The goal here is that by the end of our time together you will have a chunk of writing you can use on the assignment.” This interaction reminded me that the writing process can be scary.
An act of trust then a leap of faith
Perhaps the student doesn’t understand the writing process as a whole, or perhaps they don’t know that surrendering to the freewriting process can deliver them to the kinds of prose they hope for. It’s an act of trust to freewrite. They have to trust that by the end of five, 10, or 20 minutes they will have something that is, in part, useful. This starts with a deepening trust that freewriting won’t be a waste of time.
And also, the student has to trust me to lead them through the process. They have to trust that I know what I’m doing, that I won’t lead them astray, that I won’t misuse the time together and deliver them somewhere completely irrelevant to their assignment when they have a deadline over their heads. I need to keep this at the front of my tutoring practice.
Afterall, I’m a writer as well. And no matter how long I’ve been writing or how often I’ve engaged in the process, I still find myself at the start of a writing project wishing I could somehow jump over the messy middle and end up at the finished product.
Finally, I’ve realized that engaging in freewriting requires me to trust the writing process for the student. When the student and I can find each other in this place of trust, they are pleasantly surprised by how fruitful the time has been. And I’m relieved that the process worked again!
If I’m honest, it’s a leap of faith for me, too.
Afterall, I’m a writer as well. And no matter how long I’ve been writing or how often I’ve engaged in the process, I still find myself at the start of a writing project wishing I could somehow jump over the messy middle and end up at the finished product. I still groan inwardly at the time and energy it takes to generate prose that is ugly, sloppy, and unbidden in the pursuit of “thinking” through my writing. I still doubt that the freewriting process will actually be useful, and I still have to surrender to the process without the possibility of the desired outcome. It never seems to come any easier. In short, in the same ways I have to trust the writing process for myself, I have to trust it will work for the student, too.
On this journey of trust, I’ve found Peter Elbow’s Loop Writing Process to be a worthy guide. He divides the writing prompts into “The Voyage Out” and the “The Voyage Home.” I offer it below for anyone who might like to use his prompts in their writing appointments.
This is how I use it. I show students the list of prompts from “The Voyage Out” and ask them to pick three that resonate. Then I give 5 minutes for each prompt. I tell them not to worry about grammar. Not to worry about polish. I tell them to write in their home language if they want, and then to flip back and forth between English.
After each 5-minute sit, I have them stand, shake it out, breathe deep before going back for the next prompt. From there, I ask them to reflect on the experience of using the freewriting prompts. We talk about it. How did it work for them? How did it feel? Did they come up with anything they found useful? Then I send the whole Loop Writing method home with them to keep writing and reflecting.
By the end of the session both the student and I have been on a journey: both of us having surrendered to the free fall that is guided freewriting, both of us trusting that the process will land us back home.
Return to your topic. Look at your assignment guidelines. Think about your audience. Think about the purpose for writing the assignment. Then look over the writing you generated during the Voyage Out and identify any useful ideas or insights for your paper.
Peter Elbow’s Loop Writing Process
The Voyage Out
Pick one or two of the writing prompts below. Allow yourself to follow where they lead you. It’s okay to lose sight of your topic for a bit. You’ll come back to your topic in the Voyage Home.
- First Thoughts: Before reading, researching, or planning, write down as fast as you can all the thoughts and feelings you have about the topic.
- Prejudices: Write about your potential biases in the area of your topic.
- Instant Version: Denying the need for research or planning, write a quick sketch of your final piece.
- Dialogues: If you have different opinions or feelings on a topic, give each feeling its own voice and allow them to have a conversation.
- Narrative thinking: Write the story of your thinking on the topic. “I thought this, then I thought that.”
- Change the audience: Write about your topic for someone very different than your final audience for the paper.
- Change the writer: Write on the topic as if you were someone who has a different view from your own.
- Change the time: Write about your topic as if you were living in the past or the future.
- Errors: Write down half-truths or misunderstandings about the topic.
The Voyage Home
Return to your topic. Look at your assignment guidelines. Think about your audience. Think about the purpose for writing the assignment. Then look over the writing you generated during the Voyage Out and identify any useful ideas or insights for your paper.
Voyage out, voyage home: Peter Elbow’s Loop Writing Process
Here is this process as PowerPoint slides.
References
Elbow, P. (1998). The loop writing process. In Writing with power (pp. 59-77). Oxford University Press.