Can we teach writing to look and feel more like designing?
At the beginning, I hadn’t really thought about my research question and what that might be. I did however know that for my Action Research Project I wanted to continue with my Intervention Proposal which would be to set up pop-up writing workshops to support students less confident in essay writing and to integrate the practice of writing into studio practice sessions.
I chose this project because I was interested in exploring ways in which contextual studies could mirror some of the methods and approaches used in studio practice. For instance, contextual studies may consist of lectures and seminars where students are engaged with passive learning, whereas a typical practical studio session might include a short lecture / presentation followed by practical discover, explore, make and create tasks, review of work-in-progress, peer to peer feedback, tutor-led critiques.
I was also interested because I struggle with writing and as Jac Cattaneo (2013) points out
not all students have received the training in essay writing that is traditionally provided by the academic A-level.
Jac Cattaneo (2013)
She then describes the varying levels of student education, or mature students returning to education without having written an essay since school, not forgetting students with dyslexia or students whose first language isn’t English. An important insight she highlights is the uncomfortable writing experiences some of these students may have experienced in the previous education, so the prospect of having to write a formal essay may well be off putting for some.
My practice then involved teaching both contextual studies and studio practice on BA Graphic Design programmes at various universities and where I would often see a disconnect between the writing assignments of the course and the practical studio projects with students wanting to spend more time on their practical project rather than their written assignments. Borg (2012, pp. 5) had noted that within Art and Design students ‘identify themselves with their creative practice and see writing in opposition to that practice’. As one PHD student in Fine Art Practice interviewed by Borg had said to him,
I’ve been thinking I’m not good at expressing myself in words, that’s why I chose art, and I wonder sometimes, “Why am I doing, doing this?” to write up, you know, a big chunk of essay to get the PhD. I like painting, I like painting, that’s what I’ve been trained for, I don’t know, it’s more natural doing my practice than reading and writing
Borg (2012, pp. 5)
Similar sentiments were often heard when teaching contextual studies to second year BA Graphic Design students about having to write and or not seeing writing as part of their creative practice. I had identified a potential point between the delivery of the writing assignment brief and its submission deadline where students would go off on their own to write their essay with tutorial support and access to Academic Support. University level assumes students know how to write. The idea of the pop-up writing workshops would be to provide additional support (but not in replace of Academic Support) to those students feeling less confident in their writing skills and or who may not want to tackle the essay alone.
The structure of these writing workshops would be designed to support and encourage students to approach essay writing in stages and over time rather than tackling the essay in its entirety, with other conflicting deadlines and in some cases alone. A writing workshop proposal can be downloaded here.