42. The opportunity of constraint: How beating one’s head against the wall can open a door
Joshua Thorpe
©2025 Joshua Thorpe, CC BY-NC 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0462.42
Abstract
This case study explores how rules and constraints in writing can serve as empowering tools for creativity and growth. Focusing on a postgraduate student with dyslexia, the study examines the impact of two constraint-based writing workshops in helping him overcome his fears, rewire his writing processes, and accomplish goals he previously thought unattainable. The findings suggest that such approaches could offer innovative methods for teaching writing while challenging conventional notions of autonomy and agency in academic practice. The study highlights three key insights: language as a material force, the overrated nature of freedom, and the social dimensions of writing. These perspectives have the potential to reshape the way writing and academic literacies are approached in Higher Education.
Keywords: constraints; games; writing; Oulipo; dyslexia; autonomy; voice
Experiments in writing and the case of Tom
In 2018, a friend and mentor of mine, Lynne Crawford, came from Detroit to Glasgow to work with some colleagues in the arts. Crawford is a brilliant writer and writing teacher (see Crawford, 2016), and she offered to run a workshop on how to use rules and constraints in creative writing. We convened two intensive afternoon sessions at Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) called the “Circle for the Potential of Literature”. The workshops, taught by Crawford and facilitated by me, were based on experiments and games invented by the writing group known as the Oulipo.
The Oulipo, or Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, is a Paris-based group of (mostly male) writers and mathematicians that has operated since the mid-twentieth century (Mathews & Brotchie, 1998). Famous members have included Raymond Queneau, Italo Calvino, and Georges Perec, the latter having penned an entire novel, La Disparition (1969), without the use of the letter E. (At this point you might wish to try this kind of writing. I’m doing it right now, and it is difficult…so I’ll stop.)
This type of text is called a lipogram, one that omits a certain letter. There are other games and processes too, such as exhaustive description, which attempts to describe something in an absurd amount of detail, or N+7, which arbitrarily substitutes all nouns in a text for other nouns according to a simple rule (Mathews & Brotchie 1998). The effects can be surreal.
The Oulipo’s approach treats language not only as a medium, but as a material, like clay or paint. The aim is simply to see what happens. Like scientists or engineers, Oulipians subject the material of language to many tests. The writer becomes something like an experimental researcher who observes the outcomes of various operations. This is quite different from most received notions of the author, whose role is usually to persuade the audience, communicate truth, or express something “beautifully”.
At our Circle workshops, we played games like those described above, and many others. We wrote sonnets and sestinas and did stints of “automatic” writing too. We used time constraints and observed a collective silence during writing periods. So, there were many rules, but lots of fun as well. We read our work aloud, laughing at the difficulty of the constraints and delighting in the absurdity of the results. We bonded over our struggles and enjoyed the benefits of “parallel play” (where people enjoy the feeling of working independently in one another’s company). Everyone seemed very pleased.
One participant, whom I’ll call Tom, left the sessions noticeably inspired. Having described himself as “extremely dyslexic”, he had come to the Circle to challenge his own writing habits and find ways of working that might get him past his anxiety and procrastination. Some months later, I interviewed Tom to ask if the workshops had paid off. The answer was a resounding Yes.
Tom found real enjoyment in the materials and processes themselves, quite separate from either a) his own identity as a communicator or b) the end product (both of which had previously caused him anxiety). The workshops also gave Tom permission to fail, as well as practical experience in risk-free failing (since success, in the traditional sense anyway, was no longer the point). Finally, the workshops demonstrated to Tom, through first-hand experience, that he could write, in fact that he could write quite a lot. The evidence was right there in his exercise book, in the form of several poems, stories, and mini essays.
After the workshops, Tom went on to write a new long-form work of poetic nonfiction as part of his assessed postgraduate creative work. He had not considered producing anything text-based before, and it wouldn’t have come about if not for the Circle workshops. As regards the more formal academic thesis paper required for his qualification, this too, he felt, had been made easier and more effective by his experiences with experimental writing. In short, Tom had become a writer, all because he had spent two afternoons doing things like writing without the letter E.
Discussion: Three insights for learning and teaching
Obviously, the above case study represents a sample size of one. Even so, I feel it is worth considering and learning from. And I have seen similar effects with other students in the past. My experiences point to three worthwhile possibilities for how we teach and think of writing (and other academic literacies) in Higher Education.
Language is material
We can treat language as we would stones in a drystone wall or paint on a canvas. For some students, this approach can make a massive difference. When I worked at an art and design university in Toronto (OCAD U), I found that artists and designers responded well to this approach. These were students who often didn’t think of themselves as “word people”. Many had specific learning differences (SpLDs), and almost all considered themselves to be visually or materially oriented. Working with language in a more material manner helped many of these students pull up their sleeves and get to work. Instead of self-identifying as a bad communicator or thinking “I don’t have anything to say”, a student could take action, for example, cut up an article to make a collage, or build word lists, do visualisations in tandem with words… or spatialise their brainstorming activities with different coloured paper and ink on a wall.
To use a more pedestrian example, I’ve seen how something simple like a literature matrix (a way of taking focused notes on readings) can help student writers change their mentality from “writing” to building an essay. Writers discover their argument in readings instead of expecting it to leap magically from the void. And not only art and design students can benefit; I’ve found that students in STEM, humanities, business, and other fields can find these approaches really helpful too.
It occurs to me here that there is, from this angle, an optimistic perspective on artificial intelligence (AI) tools. AI tools materialise the production of texts to an extreme degree, so much so that they challenge the notion of authorship itself. This challenge will create some chaos in the immediate future (Thorpe, 2023), but there may be a bright side. Perhaps a new creative process of writing awaits us wherein the writer becomes more like a builder or curator of language. Barriers could be removed and the burden of being a “good communicator” might disappear. The question Did you write this? will cease to be coherent. We will replace it with, Did you put this together? In this way a writer will become a reader first. Critical reading, then, will become the essential skill practised by both “writers” and readers.
Freedom is overrated
I’m sure you’ve heard of “analysis paralysis”, the phenomenon that says, when faced with too many options, humans tend to freeze (Kumari et al., 2021). Students today have far too many options: emails by the dozen, announcements and advertisements on multiple different apps, opportunities to take part in any number of activities, online courses and portals that are an absolute labyrinth… and all of this before a student even looks at their readings or makes a decision about which topic to write on. The cognitive load is brutal, just for showing up. This places unnecessary obstacles before all students, and especially those with SpLDs, anyone struggling with digital literacies, students with English as a second or other language (ESoL), and anyone coming from a prior education system that functions very differently.
This information overload problem is symptomatic of what I see as an overly neo-liberal manifestation of “active learning” or “autonomy”: we have too many students to properly support, so we throw lots of videos and links at them and hope for the best. Don’t get me wrong, the emancipatory origins of the idea of autonomous learners is wonderful, but in practice it often means we effectively toss students in at the deep end to sink or swim. We present students with the “what” but not the “how”. Students are left with some notion of what we want from them, but very little practical guidance on the steps to getting there.
There are many possible solutions to this. One is to give students back some productive constraints, (not necessarily the type described in the case study above). At least in formative work, we can introduce rules, processes, procedures, structures etc., that help remove the unnecessary cognitive load and let students get to work. This can help them focus on what’s germane to their learning (not what to click on next or when to schedule X). It can also help students get things done, and thereby demonstrate to them that they are capable of getting things done. Constraints may even provide a kind of safe space to encounter difficulty, and thereby lead to a kind of “growth mindset” (Dweck, 2006) that rewards effort and teaches resilience through experience.
Just an extra note here: connected to the overuse of the idea of autonomy is the emphasis on student “voice” and “perspective”. Again, the intention is usually positive. But there are accessibility and diversity issues to consider here. If someone, for example, has come up in an educational system that discourages individual voices and perspectives, we may unwittingly continue to disempower this person when we appeal to them casually to “voice themselves”. Appealing to the materiality of language and introducing constraints may level the playing field in some ways that are very helpful.
I should note here that my above comments correspond harmoniously with the “academic literacies” approach to supporting students, first described by Mary Lea and Brian Street (1998). In this model, the behaviours and so-called skills associated with academic achievement are problematised as bound up in power relations, identity, etc. In the context of voice, for example, the academic literacies approach provokes the question Do all students have equal and easy access to this resource called “voice”?
Writing (and other academic work) can be more social
This connects to work by Etienne Wenger (2009) and Rowena Murray (2014), who argue for the benefits of designing learning as a social activity. Part of what made the Circle workshops work was that they were fun. The fun comes not just from the playing of games and their inherent challenges, but from the shared space, the comradery, the very subtle sense of competition, and the atmosphere of “parallel play” (as described above). Treating academic work as a social activity can reduce loneliness, give students a sense of shared purpose and community, and normalise the effort of process. Students can begin to find value in the doing of the work, not just the results.
Conclusion
These three insights—language is material, freedom is overrated, and writing can be social—have proven very helpful to me over the years I’ve spent in academic support. They have expanded my toolbox across a range of situations and diverse groups and levels. For example, I run writing retreats for undergraduate dissertation students that make simple use of all of these principles. In these retreats, we begin with “automatic” writing (writing as quickly as possible for short sprints), do independent work within various time constraints, all of course in a social space promoting “parallel play” and discussion. Students report that these conditions are more enjoyable than working alone at home, but also more productive. Some have even said they’ve become better at managing their time in the weeks following the retreats.
I hope that these reflections on the case study of Tom have interested you, and that my interpretation of its success rings true. I look forward to testing some of these ideas more formally with larger groups. Of course, there are many other ways to experiment with how we teach and support writing and academic literacies in Higher Education, and I would love to hear what sorts of interesting work you are doing. Finally, I would like to invite readers to get in touch who would like further information on the types of games and procedures one can employ when focusing on the material and processes of language, rather than always focusing entirely on its instrumental function.
Steps toward hope
- Use rules and constraints in writing workshops to empower students, especially those with writing challenges, to overcome fears and unlock creative potential.
- Rethink traditional ideas of autonomy and freedom by recognising that constraints can foster creativity, focus, and personal growth in writing.
- Reconsider approaches to writing and consider alternative—more creative, collaborative, community-driven—approaches to writing to enhance academic literacies and student engagement.
References
Crawford, L. (2016). Shankus & kitto. Black Square Editions.
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.
Lea, M. R., & Street, B. V. (1998). Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23(2), 157–172. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079812331380364
Kumari, S. S., Raja, B. W. D., & Sundaravalli, S. R. (2021). Analysis paralysis – the product of information explosion. Annals of the Romanian Society for Cell Biology, 4456–4458.
Mathews, H., & Brotchie, A. (1998). Oulipo compendium. Atlas.
Murray, R. (2014). Writing in social spaces: A social processes approach to academic writing. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315755427
Perec, G. (1969). La disparition. Lettres Nouvelles.
Thorpe, J. (2023). The real risk of generative AI is a crisis of knowledge. WonkHe. https://wonkhe.com/blogs/the-real-risk-of-generative-ai-is-a-crisis-of-knowledge/
Wenger, E. (2009). A social theory of learning. In K. Illeris (Ed.), Contemporary theories of learning: Learning theorists … in their own words (pp. 209–218). Routledge.