What I am calling freedom writing is an open doorway for people longing for a practice to liberate writing that has often been at the center of sites of punishment, soul crushing and boredom to come through. On the other side of that doorway, I want space to pursue underground railroad writing, outlaw writing, writing that casts spells and reconnects people to their soul and their soul's purpose. How might writing create belonging? What are all the ways we can introduce ourselves? How can we have written records of who we are? What kinds of writing spaces can we foster where we can notice kindness?
I dream of a place where people have all the communicative tools in their grasp to be expressive in their own worlds and words, however tentative or speculative -a place where people feel free to use their own languages in their own ways, and to use writing in fun, interesting, and creative ways. Freedom writing is writing that doesn’t exist in other locations on campus.
In this 90 minute seminar, instructors from any discipline are invited to experiment with exercises that build individual and collective capacity for using the body and rebel creativity as core approaches to learning with writing. Through reading, writing, psychokinetic drawing, and movement practices that center bodily ways of knowing, participants build awareness of when, and skill to apply how such methods of inquiry might be useful to community understanding, wellness, justice, and freedom within themselves and in their classrooms.
Participants are challenged to integrate a vibrant intellectual toolkit with movement modalities, to identify core values, ideas, questions and approaches most helpful to their own personal, intellectual, pedagogical, epistemological, disciplinary and social growth and liberation. With these tools in hand, we invite participants to investigate, experience and create writing for learning that matters and transforms in a world on fire.
Freedom Writing Workshop Syllabus (pdf)
When I applied to the W@UW Fellowship, I was dreaming of creating something I did not have a name for, but thanks to the application I gave it a name - Freedom Writing. What I am calling freedom writing is an open doorway for people longing for a practice to liberate writing that has often been at the center of sites of punishment, soul crushing and boredom to come through. On the other side of that doorway, I want space to pursue underground railroad writing, outlaw writing, writing that casts spells and reconnects people to their soul and their soul's purpose. How might writing create belonging? What are all the ways we can introduce ourselves? How can we have written records of who we are? What kinds of writing spaces can we foster where we can notice kindness?
I have had a glimpse into the liberatory potential for this kind of writing in some of my classes. I came to the fellowship wanting to continue learning how to weave liberatory writing practices into all my courses, how to release creative communication as power and healing. I am coming away with new insights, a new intellectual community to support and be supported by, and a vision for sharing freedom writing with more colleagues who can share it with their students. This is incredible!
My goal for fellowship has been to explore how we might be able to expand this opportunity to more people. I wanted to be in conversation with more people committed to changing writing to learn everything I can; but I also wanted to listen. We are in the middle of a real practical problem - teaching has become more challenging as more and more people in the classroom come to us with trauma. We are all teaching through fire. I hoped that as a group we could listen and learn from each other how we are weathering these challenges with resilience and compassion.
In the fellowship, through readings, skilled guidance, exercises and conversation, I have been able to pursue each of the goals I had coming in. I have developed a project to share embodied writing with more faculty to share with their students. I am inspired by my colleagues to see how they are using writing and to create a community of writing fellows who are committed to changing writing and writing change.
