What is your worst writing experience?
This is one of my favorite questions to ask new Writing Studio consultants (and writing students too!) because, whether we realize it or not, our worst experiences tend to shape our beliefs about writing and the writing process.
For example, many students’ worst memories of “writing in school” include that disappointing moment in their education—usually around third grade—when writing assignments switched from imaginative poetry and short stories to austere five-paragraph essays about topics as dry and flavorless as eating Grape Nuts cereal sans milk. By the time these students reached Concordia University Irvine, they tended to see creative writing as “fun” but nonacademic and academic writing as both “boring” and noncreative. And who can blame them?
Other students’ worst experiences involve a “strict” grade school or high school teacher, who returned their papers dripping with red ink and covered in seemingly arbitrary (and often illegible) notations. For these students, the writing process became an obstacle course of figuring out each of their teacher’s particular “pet peeves” and avoiding those at all costs. In other words, they learned that writing is about pleasing a teacher or passing a test – not about exploring new ideas or seeking answers to perplexing questions.
What have your worst writing experiences taught you?
One goal of the Writing Studio is to help Concordia University Irvine students overcome these negative experiences in order to develop healthy, productive relationships with the writing process. In light of that goal, we stumbled upon a quote by Voltaire that became the inspiration for the title of our blog:
“Writing is the painting of the voice.”
Writing is voice paint.
At the Writing Studio, we view writing as a unique opportunity to share our voices with others – to add a new idea or compelling question to an ongoing academic conversation, to explore, dissect, and synthesize issues we deal with in and out of the classroom, to shout OUT LOUD from the pages of our essays. In short, writing allows us to be heard.
But writing is also an act of creativity – whether you’re writing a funny poem about your pet dog or a 10-page analytical paper on Don Quixote, you have the chance to develop, refine, and present an original idea to an audience of readers, to make artistic choices that draw readers in and make them think, see, smile, laugh, cry, rage, change.
Join us at the Writing Studio, and learn to paint your voice!