We often hear from students that they don’t like writing. Sometimes students even tell us that they are taking courses in a Visual Arts department because they are hoping that they will be able to avoid doing much writing. If this is an expectation or a hope you have for this class, we are sorry to disappoint you. We will be doing writing assignments and exercises regularly in this class. Writing is important no matter what the subject matter.

However, we take these concerns seriously and in this course we will be working with you to demystify and take the stress out of writing. We are certainly aware that sometimes the way writing is taught or graded can be incredibly stressful. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Written communication is an important way to share ideas and contribute to knowledge. Whether you are writing research papers, short stories, reports for work, art reviews, blog posts, or opinion pieces, writing is a skill that takes time and practice to do well. It is a skill that even your professors are continuing to work on!

There is no quick shortcut to learning to write–it takes time, patience, and careful work to improve. But here is a really important secret about writing: the more you do it, the easier it becomes! Honestly. Practice (and more practice!) is what helps us start to feel more comfortable with writing.

Writing does not have to be stressful and yet it often is for so many students. Sometimes the way they have been taught writing reinforces this stress. Students often learn that if they don’t format things exactly right or if they don’t follow all of the grammar rules they will get a bad mark and that, in turn, they are “bad at writing.” The stress and anxiety that this kind of thinking about writing causes can be really damaging. No wonder so many people want to avoid it!

Perhaps you might find this hard to believe, but writing does not have to feel like this. Yes, it is important to follow some key rules (citing the work of others is, perhaps, the most important here), but at its core writing is about the exchange of ideas. And that can be exciting! You have unique perspectives and important things to say, but those can get lost if you get too bogged down in worrying over things like formatting, page numbers, and grammar.

Collectively we have over 20 years experience in postsecondary classrooms. Each year the questions we get from students about writing are almost always about these kinds of details (Can I use the word “I” in my paper? Do I have to have a title page? Do I have to have a bibliography? What font do you prefer?) instead of the actual ideas and content of their papers and projects.

We want to invite you to flip this dynamic in this class. What if you could focus instead on things that actually mattered to you? We will be doing in-class writing exercises to help you find your voice, to build confidence, andt to help your ideas take shape.

While it is always important to follow the instructions given to you for an assignment, try not to let the “rules” bog you down. Formatting can happen at the end of a project, but if you are too focused on this kind of thing right from the beginning it is hard to generate the ideas and excitement about a topic that are at the heart of writing.

Freewriting to the Rescue!

How often have you sat down to write something (an essay, an email, a report for work, a birthday card for your grandmother) and found yourself feeling stuck? When it seems that the words just won’t come, freewriting often helps.

Freewriting is a very useful tool that can help writers at all levels. It is a relatively simple concept that can lead to some pretty big results.

In this course we will be doing a lot of freewriting as it is an important tool in any writer’s toolbox. Many students have had success in changing their relationship with writing once they began to incorporate freewriting into their work habits.

Good writing is about being able to clearly communicate your ideas. But how can we do that when sometimes the ideas and concepts we are working with are complex and confusing? Freewriting can help us untangle some of the things we are thinking. It can help us make connections we might not realise we are thinking about, and it might generate new ideas for our projects.

How to Freewrite

1. Set a timer for a designated amount of time. If you are new to freewriting, try 5 or 10 minutes to start. Once you get used to it, you will likely find yourself wanting longer freewriting sessions.
2. Open a notebook or a blank word processing document. Gather everything you need to write–a pen, a cup of tea, your lucky sweater, etc. You may wish to switch your phone’s notifications off and close your door so you won’t be disturbed. When you are ready to start, set your timer to begin.
3. Once the timer starts, just start writing. This will feel counterintuitive. You are probably thinking “If I knew what to write, I wouldn’t need to do this!” Trust us, we get that. You can write things like: “I don’t know what to write.” Or, “this assignment is stressing me out.” Eventually you will get tired of that and start to get at the root of what you are trying to figure out.
4. Keep that pen moving/keep typing. Do not stop until the timer goes off.
5. Do not edit or reread what you are writing. Just let the flow happen. Pretty much everyone who uses the freewriting technique writes a bunch of stuff they think is silly or unusable. But in the midst of that is often a real nugget, a core idea that you might not even know you were thinking or were struggling to put into words.

Freewriting Tips:

• Freewriting works best when it becomes part of your regular habits.
• Clear a space for your freewriting session. If your desk is too cluttered, move to the kitchen table, for example. You want to be able to focus.
• Try to find a space where you won’t be disturbed during your freewriting session. Close the door if possible, and tell your family or housemates that you need 10 minutes of undisturbed time to focus. Also, silence your alerts on your phone and flip it upside down so it won’t distract you.
• Many people find that freewriting works best with pen and paper, but it can be done with digital tools as well.
• Try to silence your inner critic. This is not supposed to be polished writing. Let your thoughts out on the page, no matter how silly or partially formed they may seem to you in the moment.
• Know that there will be a lot of nonsense and unusable material in your freewriting. This is normal. Freewriting isn’t supposed to be good.
• Know that often in the midst of all that unusable material there may be a kernel of an idea, something that you can expand on as you work on your essay/report/email.

Here is a sample freewriting session. Note how unpolished this is. That is ok. This is not a final draft, not even close! But this freewriting has helped this student come to an understanding that they didn’t have when they began. And this is the beauty of freewriting–it can help unlock thoughts you didn’t know you had and it can help pull together ideas that were seemingly unconnected. Freewriting can help you articulate where the gaps in your understanding are and can help you think through some of the thorny issues that are making you feel stuck.

Don’t worry if freewriting doesn’t feel totally comfortable at first. When you first start out it will likely feel a bit strange. But just like with any exercise or activity, the key to improving is in the practice and the repetition.

A note about AI and Writing in the arts and Humanities

Recently we have seen the rise of natural language processing tools like Chat GPT. These kinds of tools are driven by AI (artificial intelligence) and can be used to generate written text. There are many pros and cons to using these kinds of tools, including many complex ethical and environmental implications. For example, they often generate misinformation, have a large environmental footprint, can amplify and reproduce biases and stereotypes, and some artists are raising the alarm about how these tools are scraping their copyrighted work without compensation or permission.

Tools such as Chat GPT can quickly generate content that seems impressive at first glance, but upon closer inspection it is usually pretty obvious that this content lacks depth and meaning. In other words, it often sounds perfect–too perfect, like it was written by a robot with a thesaurus. When we look closely at the sentences these tools generate, we can often see that the words strung together don’t say much of substance and lack the specificity that really gives writing meaning and demonstrates knowledge and understanding about a topic. Further, the content returned by these tools often is inaccurate.

If you use these tools for your writing, try to go beyond simply cutting-and-pasting the content into your assignment.  To demonstrate that you understand course content, supplement the “robotically perfect,” empty-sounding text with specific examples and details that come from your own thoughts and understandings of the topic. It is far better to have somewhat clunky or awkward-sounding sentences with substance than polished, vacuous text. And always be sure to fact-check!

(**A note for students taking VISA/IASC 1Q98 through Brock University: it is very important to pay careful attention to assignment instructions as permitted use of artificial intelligence tools varies from project to project depending on the associated learning outcomes. Failure to adhere to these instructions may result in a violation of academic integrity.)

In addition, while AI tools can be useful in some contexts, it is important to recognize that they are very limited when it comes to replacing the creative, critical thinking that human writers and artists can offer the world. In other words, these kinds of tools can prevent us from meaningful connections with one another through the process of sharing our thoughts, ideas, artwork and writing–things that are deeply personal and shaped by who we are as a person. The desire to create runs through human history. When we paint, sculpt, write a poem, invent a fantasy world through graphic art, tell stories, and, yes, even write about academic topics that matter to us, we are sharing our unique perspectives. And this matters. Your voice matters!

AI tools may be here to stay and it may be important to learn how to use these tools for a wide variety of tasks. But it is equally–if not more so–important for us to be able to find confidence in our own voice so that we can express our thoughts and communicate our unique understandings of the world through our writing and our art.