Transcript Pros and cons of writing retreat and writer’s group

Pros and cons of
writing retreat & writer’s group
Rowena Murray
University of Strathclyde
[email protected]
Underpinning principles
• Writing is a social act that benefits from
discussion with peers who also write.
• Feedback is helpful throughout the writing
process.
• Working in a group can motivate writers to
initiate and progress writing projects.
• Goal-setting and monitoring help writers
create and meet deadlines.
• ‘Snack’ and binge writing …
Invent your own principles
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Start with these principles.
Discuss: add/cut/revise/invent.
Make group’s purpose explicit.
Don’t wait for general agreement.
Develop consensus as you go along.
Allow for participants’ differences.
Agree the structure for meetings.
Writing Retreat
Features of structured retreat
• 2 or 5 days
• off-campus
• residential
• all writing in same room
• non-surveillance
• without email/internet/mobile
• peer discussions of work-in-progress
‘Writing sandwich’
9.15-9.30 Discussion
9.30-11.00 Writing
11-11.30 Break
11.30-12.30Writing
12.30-1.15 Lunch
1.15-1.30 Discussion
1.30-3.00 Writing
3.00-3.30 Break
3.30-5.30 Writing
Strengths
of the structured approach
‘The structured, focused nature means
you can’t just bow out’.
‘I achieved more in that one weekend
than I had for the months prior to
that’.
The facilitator ‘kept order’ and
‘ensured [we] remained focused’.
Changing writing practices
‘I am actually more disciplined when it comes
to writing practice’.
‘I now have a more realistic sense of what I
can achieve in a given time’.
‘Change is slow, especially when it comes from
deep-seated anxieties’.
‘Retreat has encouraged me to prioritise
writing and recognise it as part of my job’.
Sustaining change: ‘repeat retreat’
‘If I had three or four retreats a year I would
never ask for study leave’ .
‘When people buy into… or see that
additionality, then they can accept quite
easily the guided, directional nature of
retreat’.
‘I think it’s important in terms of underlining the
importance that the department puts on
research and publication’.
Using containment theory
• Retreat contains anxieties associated
with writing.
• It holds writing as the primary task.
• It prevents anti-task activities.
• Previous anti-task activities become
times to refresh, discuss and
give/receive feedback.
6 participants’ outputs
March 2008 retreat
1. Revised paper for submission to journal
+ wrote 5,000 words of book chapter
2. Completed conference paper and
journal article + half of second chapter
of thesis
3. Revised article (following reviewers’
comments) + completed 80% of
dissertation by pulling documents
together
Outputs (cont.)
4. Drafted book chapter, received
feedback from group and revised +
wrote 2 conference posters +
results section of a journal article
5. Completed journal article + 1st
draft of another paper + conference
poster + 80% of another poster +
outline for next journal article +
750-word assignment
6. Wrote first draft of methodology
chapter of thesis (10,000 words)
What are the pros of
writing retreat?
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Prioritises writing.
Leads to achievements and outputs.
Develops discipline of writing.
Provides emotional containment.
What are the cons?
• Activities are not replicated in
workplace and personal settings.
• Cost.
• ‘Catch up’ pressure on return to
campus.
• Not addressing problem of lack of time
and space for writing in workplaces.
References
Grant, B (2006) Writing in the company of other
women: Exceeding the boundaries. Studies in
Higher Education, 31(4), 483-95.
Moore, S (2003) Writers’ retreat for academics:
exploring and increasing the motivation to
write, Journal of Further and Higher
Education, 27(3): 333-342.
Murray, R & Cunningham, E (2011) Managing
researcher development: ‘drastic transition?,
Studies in Higher Education
Murray, R & Newton, M (2009) Writing retreat as
structured intervention: margin or
mainstream?, Higher Education Research and
Development, 28(5): 527-539.
Writing warm up
What writing [for publication, or for your thesis, book,
proposal or project] have you done, and what would you
like to do [in the long, medium and short term]?
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5 minutes’ writing
In sentences
Private writing -- no one will read it
To discuss in pairs/groups
Writer’s Group
Purposes of writers’ group
• Making time to write.
• Getting writing into workplace
settings.
• Providing pre-peer review.
• Taking the sting out of peer review.
Features of writer’s group
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Self-selecting
Mixture of disciplines
Active/intending writers
Writing (SU)/peer reviewing (TCD)
90 minutes, twice a month
Starting with 5-minute warm up + 10-minute
discussion of writing goal for 90-minute slot
• Ending with review of achievements, setting
new goals
What is a writing sub-goal?
• Specific content to be covered.
• Specific length -- number of words.
• Specific time -- number of hours or
minutes required to do the writing
task.
• What can you write at writers’ group?
• What can you write between meetings?
What writers say about
making time to write
‘… by the end of the [writers’ group] meeting,
I had thought of so many things that I need
to do that I began to panic about when to do
them all…. I was a bit envious when most of
the others spoke of how they intended to set
aside some time during the working day.
That unfortunately is a bit of a luxury as far
as I am concerned’.
What writers say about
obstacles to writing
‘There are many obstacles to the writing
process. These include priorities of work and
home life, inappropriate conditions for
writing and the inability to get started. The
greatest difficulty for me personally is in
overcoming the need to have the essay or
paper fully researched, planned and a
framework set out prior to starting to write’.
What writers say
about pre-peer review
‘At the very early stages of the writing process, the
step between an idea for a paper and the actual
publication is enormous. However, as the topic and
themes are developed, target dates are set and
initial drafts are subjected to peer review, the
enormous step is transformed into a series of more
gradual steps interspersed with landings or stages
for review and reflection. The whole process
becomes more manageable’.
What writers say about
peer review
‘So what of the confidence that is necessary to
produce a paper for publication? Here we
have a problem of committing ideas and
views to paper and exposing them to a wide
audience. Furthermore, that audience will
include people who have extensive
knowledge of the subject of the paper and
may disagree with the views expressed’.
What writers say about
learning to write for publication
‘I was very unsure of the writing process and
was very nervous about committing to
paper…. I can remember the way in which
my approach to writing changed as I read
some of the theory on writing and adopted
some of the ideas. I am now more confident
of the structure and approach to writing an
academic paper. However, I still have a long
way to go’.
What are the pros of
writer’s group?
• Makes real time for writing on campus.
• Makes connections between writers.
• Builds research- and writing-oriented
relationships between academics.
• Cuts across disciplinary boundaries.
• Makes visible what writers do, so
writers can learn from each other.
What are the cons?
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It is easily dislodged by other tasks.
There can be clashes and unmet needs.
It can get ‘old’.
Extra-departmental is marginal.
Makes visible what writers do, so they
may be intimidated by each other.
Writers learn from each other
10 ways not to prioritise writing
1. Open your email first thing and don’t quit.
2. Keep your writing goals quite general.
3. Don’t talk about your writing-in-progress.
4. Only seek feedback when you have a
complete draft.
5. Don’t write unless you know exactly what
you want to say.
… more ways not to prioritise writing
6. Wait till you’re really ready to write.
7. Don’t bother defining sub-goals -- you know
what you want to do.
8. Don’t bother with the 5-minute warm up for
writing -- just start writing.
9. Only ever write in large chunks of time.
10. Try and find more time for writing.
References
• Carnell, E, MacDonald, J, McCallum, B & Scott, M
(2008) Passion and Politics: Academics Reflect on
Writing for Publication. London: Institute of
Education.
• Murray, R (2002) Writing development for lecturers
moving from further to higher education: A case
study, Journal of Further and Higher Education,
26(3): 229-239.
• Murray, R (2009) Writing for Academic Journals, 2nd
edn. Maidenhead: Open University Press-McGrawHill.
Time: the final frontier
• Academics must write for publication, but
find it difficult to make time to do so.
• Even when ‘permission’ is given for writing
in the workplace, other tasks have priority.
• Even when skills and behaviours are
developed, they are difficult to sustain
(Murray & Newton, 2008).
The Exercise Consultation
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1-to-1 motivational interview
Aims to change priorities
Aligns priorities with personal values
Widely used in health promotion
Uses goal setting, balancing advantages and
disadvantages of different courses of action
and social support to initiate behaviour
change.
The Writing Consultation
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1-to-1 interviews, pairs of academics
Focused on writing goals
Reviewing barriers to achieving goals
Developing strategies for overcoming them
Mutual peer support
Proved workable with academics in informal
trials (e.g. at end of retreat)
• Published journal article
Aims of the Nuffield study
• To implement and evaluate the
writing consultation
• To answer 2 questions:
1. Does taking part in a writing
consultation initiate change in writing
behaviour leading to prioritisation of
writing?
2. Does it increase motivation to write?
Methods
• 14 (>13) academics who attended either/both
writer’s group & writer’s retreat.
• Met every 2 weeks in pairs for period of 8 weeks
(time commitment of 4 hours).
• Used the Writing Consultation template.
• 30-minute interviews by external researcher.
• Ethical approval from the University.
• Interviews transcribed verbatim and checked.
• Analysis for core constructs: stages of change,
decisional balance, goal setting, social support.
Findings: stages of change
& decisional balance
• Both seen as useful at 1st meeting, but
repetitive at subsequent meetings, as
position of writing was unlikely to change in
such a short period.
• Decisional balance useful for discussing pros
and cons of writing and not writing: ‘a good
outlet for discussion on the position of
writing’; ‘helpful to strengthen my values
and beliefs about writing’.
Findings:
goal setting & social support
• Setting and monitoring goals with others generated
sense of achievement: ‘being able to meet these
goals put [me] in a better place, and that has a
knock-on effect’; ‘lost that constant feeling of low
grade failure’.
• Useful to discuss barriers to achieving goals and
ways of overcoming them.
• Main reported benefit was social support: ‘you know
that the fears you have … you are not alone’.
Compare this with
productive writers’ attributions
• 4 categories of attribution:
collaboration, passion/curiosity,
research skills, time management.
• ‘Time management was found to have
three sub-categories: elimination of
distractions, scheduled time to write,
and social deadlines’ (p. 53).
Note the importance of
dedicated writing time
‘All of the surveyed authors are extremely busy
with institutional duties, meetings with
graduate students, teaching classes,
responding to emails from colleagues and
students around the country, and, of course,
maintaining a personal life at home. Thus,
to produce academic work they must isolate
themselves and block out distractions’
(Mayrath, 2008).
Note the key ability
of productive writers
‘I think the key to academic productivity
is the ability to ignore, screen out, and
avoid distractions’ (author quoted in
Mayrath, 2008: 51).
Conclusions to this study:
behaviour change
• Behaviour change leads to prioritising writing.
• Writing consultation raises awareness of importance
of goal setting for writing in the time that we have.
• Study revealed limited awareness that unrealistic
goals lead to failure.
• Setting goals and achieving them feels good and is
highly motivating.
• Writing goals are more likely to be achieved away
from academics’ offices.
Issues
• Those in a structured supervision process reported
less behaviour change.
• A small minority see the approach as managerialist.
• The concept of behaviour change initially seemed
alien, as did the stages of change model.
• Some confusion of ‘goals’ and ‘actions’.
• This confusion and perception of repetition suggest
concepts are not yet fully adopted.
• Is having a ‘therapeutic’ effect what it’s for -- is
that enough?
The advance-retreat model
• Advance in writing may require retreat
from other activities.
• Retreat from other activities is
associated with productivity.
• Writing happens ‘in retreat’, in
different times and spaces, from other
activities.
(Murray & Moore, 2006)
References
• Bandura, A (1997) Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New
York: Freeman.
• Loughlan, C & Mutrie, N (1995) Conducting an exercise
consultation: guidelines for health professionals, Journal of
the Institute of Health Education, 33: 78-82.
• Mayrath, M (2008) Attributions of productive authors in
educational psychology journals, Educational Psychology
Review, 20: 41-56.
• Miller, WR & Rollnick, S (2002) Motivational interviewing:
Preparing People for Change, 2nd edn. London: Guildford Press
References
• Murray, R & Moore, S (2006) The Handbook
of Academic Writing: A Fresh Approach.
Maidenhead: Open University Press-McGrawHill.
• Murray, R & Newton, M (2008) Facilitating
writing for publication, Physiotherapy, 94:
29-34.
• Murray, R, Thow, M, Moore, S & Murphy, M
(2008) The writing consultation: Developing
academic writing practices, Journal of
Further and Higher Education, 32(2): 119128.
Acknowledgements
• The British Academy funded research
on writing retreats run at Strathclyde
University in 2005-06.
• The Nuffield Foundation funded two
projects: (1) writers’ practices 1 year
on from a Writing for Publication
course (2005) and (2) evaluation of the
Writing Consultation (2009).