41. “It’s a bit like academic me-time”: Can virtual mini writing retreats contribute to a more joyful, creative, and humane Higher Education?

Introduction

Benefits of face-to-face writing retreats

Establishing a writing habit with regular writing retreats

Interestingly, Kristina Quynn and Cyndi Stewart (2021) mentioned that graduate students found it difficult to maintain a writing habit outside of the retreat. Similarly, Murray and Newton (2009) noted that writing retreats do not tend to be experienced as a mainstream activity. This is an important point and brings into question the efficacy of one-off, long sessions of intensive writing in helping students establish a writing habit.

One way to integrate writing retreats into academic life could be to organise regular sessions. A recent study showed that weekly half or full-day face-to-face writing retreats had multiple personal and professional benefits for third year undergraduate students (Cunningham, 2022). More specifically, the results showed that these regular writing retreats helped bring about a shift from an individual responsibility for goal setting to a group commitment, which made it easier to complete writing goals. Participants also noted that the support and pressure to write was very useful for the development of their writing. There was also a sense of a power shift, as students and academics worked together on their writing, which made students feel their writing was important. The students also noted that the writing retreat provided regularity and rhythm for their writing and an opportunity for socialising. Finally, there were some indications that the writing retreat made students realise the importance of goal setting, which they used beyond the retreat. Interestingly, the students also organised writing retreats without the facilitator, which were almost as effective, and increased student independence.

Online sessions

Context

The module where the activity took place was a full-time dissertation module for the MSc Psychology Conversion course at Manchester Metropolitan University. Students are asked to work largely independently for this module, and they often delay working on the project to work on other modules, as other deadlines are usually more pressing; this suggests that students need additional incentives and support in order to prioritise the dissertation. Author AEP hoped to increase the motivation of students to prioritise the project by creating an optional writing retreat.

Two out of sixteen students joined the writing retreat (authors Alison Williams (henceforth, AW) and Arriarne Pugh (henceforth, AP)), as well as a member of staff (author Rossella Sorte (henceforth, RS)). Author AEP was project supervisor for AW and AP, but also the module leader for the dissertation module, and RS was a supervisor of other students in the module.

Author AEP created a Microsoft Teams group for sixteen dissertation students she supervised, and within that, advertised the writing retreat, and posted the Microsoft Teams link for it. It was made clear to the students that the activity was entirely optional, and that it would run once a week. Typically, each writing retreat session had two to four participants. The retreat typically lasted just over an hour. More details about how the sessions are usually organised have been described elsewhere (Paltoglou, 2022; Paltoglou et al., 2023). In brief, the sessions consisted of 5–10 minutes of discussion goal setting and/or evaluation, followed by 25 minutes of writing in silence. Typically, there were two writing slots and three discussion slots. Author AEP noted down the gist of what was said in nine different sessions, as well as some personal thoughts about it, which were shared with the sixteen project students.

Discussion

This section summarises some of the most important points that came up in our discussions (as captured in the notes of author AEP) during the sessions and relates them to relevant literature.

Personal benefits

Professional benefits

Typically, students struggle to find large chunks of time to work on their assignments, perhaps the same way that academic staff struggle to find time to work on their research when they have to complete their teaching and administrative duties. Interestingly, we were all surprised as to how much we could achieve in an hour. We also highlighted that the retreat helped us focus on our writing; we felt that we would not have been able to do that outside of the writing retreat. This highlights the notion that we do not necessarily need long writing retreats away from our everyday environments; simple, inexpensive, brief, online writing retreats that fit within the students’ and staff’s busy lives could potentially be equally beneficial. However, systematic research is needed to explore this further.

We often shared writing tips during the writing retreat sessions. For example, we talked about how helpful it could be to initially write down ideas with pen and paper, away from the computer. We also discussed the difficulty of deleting one’s writing, and that sometimes it helps to save different versions of the paper, so that the writer can go back and find some of the deleted sentences if they change their mind. That gives the writer the courage to delete their writing when that is needed, and thus develop it further. We also talked about the benefits of starting a piece of academic writing by making a plan first, rather than just brainstorming. Furthermore, we discussed the pros and cons of focusing on one writing project versus focusing on several projects and alternating between them. We noted that different ways could work for different writers, including neurodivergent writers.

Limitations

Very few students took part in the writing retreats. We acknowledge that students have many demands on their time, and mature students who also work or have families may find taking part in writing retreats challenging. It is also conceivable that the sessions could sometimes have a detrimental effect on lecturers’ time. Cunningham (2022) suggested that the sessions could be organised solely by the students, but that might not always be possible. Further exploration of this issue is needed. This links to the importance of organisational investment for writing retreats to be effective (Kornhaber et al., 2016). As we have noted elsewhere, virtual mini writing retreats can be used in a variety of contexts, including within a personal tutoring group (Paltoglou, 2022; Paltoglou, 2023).

Conclusion

Steps toward hope

References