Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
“LOOKING AWAY”: PRIVATE WRITING TECHNIQUES AS A FORM OF TRANSFORMATIONAL TEXT SHAPING
Peter Thomas¹, Dr Thomas Armstrong²
¹Middlesex University, London, UK ²University of St Gallen, St Gallen, Switzerland
Despite the relatively long history of the private writing techniques of “journaling” and “generative writing”, their potential remains largely underexploited in the field of academic writing instruction. They tend to be seen as forms of prewriting, particularly within approaches such as process writing and writing to learn (e.g. Britton, 1970; Elbow, 1973; Emig, 1977; Zinsser, 1989). Drawing on Derrida’s characterisation of drawing as “lookingaway” (Saltzman, 2006 p.5) and Vygotsky’s conception of “inner language” (Vygotsky, 1962), this presentation throws new light on these private writing techniques. We argue they are transformational due to the space they allow writers for selfreflection and looking away from their publicfacing outputs. The paper discusses instructional interventions in different disciplinary contexts (art/design & natural science) with writers of different levels of expertise/competence (undergraduates and doctoral candidates) in L1 and L2 contexts. We argue that techniques like these can be effective in a range of settings. In the case of the artist/designerwriters the private writing took the form of iterative, generatively written explorations of conceptual elements of their future publicfacing output (pieces of visual art/design work). For the natural scientists the private writing took the form of writing journals in which novice scholars recorded their personal thoughts, evolving insights and reflections on the doctoral writing process, which helped shape their publicfacing research outputs. In both cases, we found that these private writing techniques were transformational beyond writing, providing significant motivational benefits and helping to shape our students’ sense of “self as author” (Ivanic, 1998 p.32).
References
Britton, J. (1970) Language and Learning . London: Allen Lane.
Emig, J. (1977) ‘Writing as a Mode of Learning’. College Composition and Communication 28 (2), 12228
Ivanic, R. (1998) Writing and identity the discoursal construction of identity in academic writing . Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Saltzman. L. (2006) Making Memory Matter: Strategies of Remembrance in Contemporary Art . London/Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1962) Thought and Language . Boston MA: MIT Press.