[OWL hoot]
Hello, and welcome to this session on why and how to form writing groups.
I'm Vicki Kennel, one of the Associate Directors in the Purdue Writing Lab.
With me today are several of our Writing Lab graduate staff.
I'll let them introduce themselves. Hi, everyone, my name is Victoria.
I am a doctoral candidate in Rhetoric and Composition.
I currently serve as the Assistant Director of Content Development for the
Purdue OWL, and I've worked with the Writing Lab in a number of different positions
over the last five years.
Hi, everyone, I’m Shannon, an MFA Fiction student and a tutor in the Writing Lab.
Hi, everyone, I'm Elizabeth I’m a doctoral candidate in Rhetoric and Composition.
I am currently the Assistant Director of Writing Across the Curriculum
and Workshops at the Purdue Writing Lab, and I've tutored at the Writing Lab for
five years. In today's presentation, we'll share
information about how to create a writing group of your own.
This will be followed by an explanation of best practices for giving feedback
in case you want your group to be a feedback group. Victoria, Shannon, and
Elizabeth will then share their experience with writing groups in more
detail and provide some information about how the Writing Lab can support a writing group.
Thank you for joining us today. If you're here, you're probably questioning whether
you should join and/or start a writing group. Writing groups have the potential to be very
useful for a number of different reasons, but some of the main benefits include
accountability, feedback, social interaction, and support.
So often we talk about how writing is collaborative, but we never talk about
how everyone struggles with writing. You're not alone.
Now more than ever, especially in this new digital and hybrid work environment
that we find ourselves in, writing groups can be a productive and
beneficial space to accomplish your writing goals.
Thinking about goals is one of the first steps to ensure sustainability of your
group and progress for your writing. We recommend thinking about goals for
individual members and for the group at large. Whether for yourself or the larger group,
the thing to keep in mind is developing SMART goals that set a foundation for success.
The acronym SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant,
and time-based. Using these criteria as you set goals will ensure that each
writing session is focused on a target, and it creates a space for writers to
set action plans that guide the use of their time and resources to
maximize productivity during each meeting.
Once these goals have been established, other writing group details like
structure, size, and logistics can be ironed out. How you structure your writing group will
Depend on the goals you've established. If your group is intended to be more formal
and integrate feedback or other discussion, a stricter delegation of time
may be necessary. For an informal group, time delegation is
less important. Maybe you want to socialize, exchange
ideas, share in triumphs, or bemoan setbacks. In this case, simply meeting up casually
with people dropping in may be your preference.
Another option is to have a writing group where everyone writes together.
How strict you want to be on time depends.
Do you want to have writing sprints where everyone writes for 45 minutes and
then breaks to chat for 15? Then having a timer might be helpful.
For how often you want to meet, a formal group may want to meet weekly or more to
stay on task and help as many writers with as much feedback as possible.
This will help maintain membership interest as well.
An informal group, however, may just want to socialize when they have the time in
their schedule, and a writing sprint group may be the same or project-based.
Other logistics to consider when forming these groups are the type of membership
and how you'll meet. A group for writing together or socializing provides more
flexibility for drop-ins. For feedback-based groups, however, a
commitment of attendance could be beneficial.
Otherwise, you might have variable membership, and the exchange of feedback
might be lopsided.
Having specific attendance can also facilitate in-depth workshopping
because the writer can share their document beforehand, giving their peers
time to review it. Type of attendance will also determine
length of commitment. Your group might last the duration of one project or class or
even indefinitely if it's for general support.
For in-person meetings, you may want to meet in a public space such as a cafe
or meet in a private space such as someone's residence.
For virtual, it makes it easier to coordinate schedules and contend with
distances, but technological or connection issues may arise.
How you communicate these logistics depends partly on how leadership is
structured. If you have one designated leader, they
might send out weekly email updates or text reminders.
An egalitarian or shared leadership group might use a group chat such as
Facebook Messenger. Setting up leadership ahead of time will
help facilitate a cohesive sustainable group.
Someone will need to be responsible for reserving space, scheduling meetings and
feedback, keeping the group on task, welcoming members, coordinating social events,
and negotiating conflicts. This doesn't have to be all on one person, though.
Remember that you can delegate tasks or rotate leadership.
If the goal is just to write, the maximum number matters less.
The max number matters more if you plan on giving and receiving feedback,
planning to foster a space for social support, or if the writing group is virtual.
If you have a combination of those goals, you might take that into consideration
when determining the number of people most feasible for your group. If you plan
to dedicate time for social support and plan to focus on feedback, you'll
want to keep the group small. When too many people are involved in a
supportive and feedback focused writing group, some may be unintentionally left out
or silenced from the group due to how many writers involved.
While extending the time might work for some, you might consider the possibility of
burnout. If writers are burnt out, it makes productivity harder long term.
You'll also want to consider membership composition.
Think about the purpose and objective of the group.
Membership composition might be: discipline-based: for example,
everyone has to be in Sociology;
Topic-based: for example, everyone has to
be working on material related to 19th Century Literature;
Gender-based: for example, all women. You could also combine with others: for
example, women writing theses, women in engineering, and so on. Or you might choose
Genre-based: for example, everyone writing a dissertation.
Or you might have a mixed group, which is completely open.
You can have a combination of various membership composition
or decide that for your purposes, it doesn't matter what people are working
on or what writing communities they are a part of. If the purpose of the writing
group is just for accountability and showing up to write,
you may not need to think about membership composition
in as much detail. If your writing group
plans to offer feedback, you'll want to think about how to give good feedback.
Start by thinking about the type of comments you are giving.
There are four general types as you can see on the slide,
but interactive comments are the most useful. As a reader, you interact with
what the writer says and does in the document, including letting them know
how you as a reader are understanding their document.
You might ask questions, provide commentary about your own thought
processes, or offer some additional material that could be used if the writer wishes.
These comments allow the writer to see into the mind of their audience,
and since scholarly writing is a conversation, this allows the writer to
revise in useful ways. In addition to noting the type of
comments you are giving, you'll need to consider the focus of the comments.
Comments can focus on content, organization, style, or correctness.
For more specific details on type and focus during commenting,
check out the e-pubs document listed on the slide.
There are many common pitfalls that writing groups suffer from,
and we feel that knowing what these are helps better prepare you to avoid them
in your own groups. These common pitfalls include, but are not limited to,
hurt feelings due to feedback, sustainability issues
regarding commitment levels or one person derailing the plan,
leader burnout due to being overworked or other things in their personal life,
failure to stay on task, technology issues when the group is virtual,
as well as the size of the group. Again, we can't stress this enough:
each of these bullets here represents a lack of planning,
failure to check in, and/or a lack of consensus and commitment among group
members. No group is or ever will be perfect, but
we encourage you to plan wisely so that you do not encounter and/or experience any
of these common issues. Now that we've talked about how and why
to set up a writing group, Victoria, Shannon, and Elizabeth are going to share
some details about their personal experiences with writing groups.
I've participated in a number of different writing groups over the last
few years.
Each of these groups have varied in terms of structure, organization,
and whether they're conducted virtually or in person.
The groups that have been most beneficial for me were ones formed
around similar core values and objectives.
In these groups, specific agendas are set at the beginning of each meeting,
and all parties share an understanding that once the clock starts rolling,
we're just going to power through the allotted work time without speaking to
one another. Other benefits include checking in with
each of the members of the group to make sure that we share similar agendas
and values and that the structure of the group is working for everybody
at different intervals throughout the writing process.
For me, having that accountability and specific time set helps me meet deadlines
and work through difficult projects like my dissertation.
With my creative writing background, my groups focused on critiquing short
stories, talking about publishing, or providing support and empathy throughout the
writing process. I've been involved in various forms of
these groups while both in and out of school for many years.
My favorite was a feedback group where we really got to know each other's work
and grow as writers together. One difficulty we had, though, was in
navigating changing membership since the group was open to anyone from the public
joining. But with specific feedback rules already
in place and a strong leader, we had a foundation for adjusting to new members.
I’ve been a part of several writing groups, but the two that stand out to me
the most are a women's writing group where all members were grad students in
Rhetoric and Composition
working on various writing projects. The other one is a writing center
dissertation writing group that i'm currently a part of.
We provide feedback and support for one another while also dedicating
some days to just writing. The most difficult components of these groups
is the time commitment, making sure all of us are there each time for the entire
allotted time, and achieving attainable goals, being
realistic and not too ambitious. These obstacles have
paved way for some of the most important lessons I’ve gained from writing groups.
I've been better with my dedicated writing time
and setting goals that are achievable within a specific time frame,
in a way that doesn't lead to burnout. While the writing groups that
we've been talking about today are ones that you will put together and maintain,
the Purdue Writing Lab does provide support for groups,
as well as for individual writers. As a reminder, this support is only available
to individuals or groups currently affiliated with the West Lafayette
campus. However, if you are affiliated with
another institution, we encourage you to check with your local writing center to
see what support they might provide. At the Purdue Writing Lab, you can
schedule a consultation for getting started with a writing group,
where you supply the group members, and we talk you through how to get started.
An existing writing group can schedule a group tutorial for a writing lesson,
where you come as a group, you supply the particular topic of concern, for instance
transitions, you supply the document with examples of
the topic of concern, and we talk you through the topic: how it
works, what it looks like in real writing, how to put it into practice in your own
writing. Or you can schedule a group tutorial to
practice giving feedback. You come as a group and bring a paper to
practice giving feedback on, and we walk you through the process of
giving feedback. And you can always make appointments as an individual writer to
work on your writing with a consultant. For the fall semester we have a lot of
virtual appointments and a limited number of face-to-face.
The link to Purdue's online schedule system is on the slide, but if you have
any problems with the online system, you can call our front desk for help.
Thank you so much for joining us for our presentation today.
We wish you the best of luck with your writing group!