Panel #7 Session 3
Thursday 30 November - 13:30
Building 25, Main Room
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Chair: Ian McHugh
What if teaching was deliberately fun? Combating burnout through creative play
- Emma Darragh & Christine Howe
University of Wollongong
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This collaborative paper addresses a pressing institutional problem: how to respond to burnout as teachers of creative writing? While many academic staff – both sessional and ongoing – have limited control over institutional constraints that contribute to burnout, we do have a measure of autonomy in the classroom itself. We propose that envisioning the creative writing classroom as a playground, in which the tutor and lecturer model and participate in creative play, is not only a valuable pedagogical approach for the students, but can also mitigate some of the effects of staff exhaustion. Drawing on our combined teaching experience of 23 years, we share a philosophy of teaching that centres play, curiosity and experimentation in a respectful, safe environment. We approach the writing and delivery of this paper in the spirit of such play, drawing on the work of Berg and Seeber who advocate a ‘pedagogy of pleasure’ with the belief that such an approach can ‘combat stress and cynicism’ (2016, 32). As such, we have devised three playful metaphors that correspond to practical pedagogical tools enabling the creative writing tutor to participate in the fun of the classroom: establishing the ‘rules’ of the playground (setting the tone and clarifying expectations during the first tutorial); clipping on the zipline (partaking in classroom writing exercises); and embarking on a treasure hunt (collaborative writing).
Dr Emma Darragh lives and works on Dharawal Country. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wollongong and her writing has appeared in numerous Australian publications, including Cordite, Westerly, Meniscus, TEXT, and The Big Issue Fiction Edition. In addition to being a writer, Emma works as a mentor with the South Coast Writers Centre and is a sessional academic in The School of Arts, English, and Media at the University of Wollongong. She recently received a Vice Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Commitment to Teaching and Learning.
Her website is https://emmadarragh.com
Dr Christine Howe is a writer and academic who lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Wollongong. Christine works across various genres – fiction, poetry and essays – and increasingly works and writes collaboratively. Her first novel, Song in the Dark, was published by Penguin, and her short works have appeared in the Griffith Review, Island, Cordite, TEXT, and Law, Text, Culture, as well as anthologies published by Spineless Wonders Press and Recent Work Press.
Meditation and the writing self, a pedagogical approach, or, not-talking to make space for talking and writing
- Shady Cosgrove
University of Wollongong
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In Australia many tertiary students struggled during Covid and have continued to struggle even after lockdowns lifted and face-to-face teaching resumed. According to Youth Insight, increased stress continues to impact students with 72% reporting they are stressed by their studies on a weekly or more frequent basis. This anxiety can impact on student capacity to sit at their computers and focus for the requisite time needed for creative writing assessments. In this paper, I will explore a strategic pedagogical approach that may assist in both handling anxiety and promoting creative writing: the use of meditation. Horan argues, ‘the practice of meditation, as an attentional mechanism, supports creativity’ (1). Using this idea as a starting point, this paper will explore literature about meditation and creativity and consciousness studies, as well as meditation exercises that target creativity and focus. It posits that meditation and mindfulness can be used to assist students and writers in managing the writing self to sit still and face the blank screen, as well as engage more deeply in classroom activities.
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References
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Youth Insight, https://youthinsight.com.au/education/university-students-experiences-of-stress-priorities/#:~:text=by%20studying%3F**-,Causes%20of%20stress,%2C%20social%20and%20extracurricular%20commitments
Horan, Roy. 2009. ‘The Neuropsychological Connection Between Creativity and Meditation’. Creativity Research Journal. 21:2-3, 199-222.
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Associate Professor Shady Cosgrove teaches creative writing at the University of Wollongong, with pedagogical interests in prose fiction and editing – her books include What the Ground Can't Hold (Picador) and She Played Elvis (Allen and Unwin), and her short works have appeared in Best Australian Stories, Cordite, Overland, Antipodes, Southerly, Island, takahe, Eunoia Review and various Spineless Wonders collections.
Talking To Ourselves in an Empty Room: Finding the Pleasure of Playful Writing Through the Performance Craft of Philippe Gaulier
- Stewart Ennis
Aberdeen University & Curtin University
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Might the collaborative tools and training of a devised theatre practice prove useful in the solitary business of novel writing? Drawing on my experience of moving from ensemble and solo theatre making to long-form fiction, I will consider the influence on my current writing practice of my early training with inspirational and iconoclastic French theatre pedagogue, Philippe Gaulier. Gaulier’s via negativa teaching method can be unsettlingly provocative (and hilarious) , but its purpose is deeply humane and can be encapsulated in the oft quoted line from Beckett’s Worstward Ho, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
At the heart of Gaulier’s signature teaching styles - mask, bouffon, chorus, clown, and melodrama - is Le Jeu / The Game, that elusive élan, complicité and pleasure of – often Rabelaisian- play which exists within and between performers on stage, as well as between performers and audience, which cannot always be detected, but which, sadly, is always noticeable in its absence. Might Le Jeu be found in our fiction writing? Might The Game be played with ourselves as writers, and between us and the reader?
In his introduction to A Swim In The Pond In The Rain, George Saunders speaks of creating for his students an “iconic space – the place from which they will write the stories only they could write […] to become defiantly and joyfully themselves.” The playful improvisatory spaces that Gaulier creates in his workshops serve a similar purpose. Can that be translated into the practice of creative writing ?
This presentation will include a reading from my practice-led PhD novel, ilk.
Stewart Ennis is from Bridge of Weir, Scotland. Since the 1980s he’s worked in Scottish theatre as writer, deviser, performer and occasional photographer. He was co-founder of award-winning international touring ensemble Benchtours (1990-2006), creative writing tutor in Scottish prisons and editor of Causeway/Cabhsair, magazine of new Irish & Scottish writing (Aberdeen University Press). His plays, poems, stories and photographs have appeared on a number of stages, pages and platforms. A debut novel Blessed Assurance was published in 2020. Recent work includes writing the film animation Yoyo & The Little Auk for The Royal Scottish National Orchestra. He’s currently at Curtin University for the second year of an Aberdeen-Curtin Alliance scholarship PhD in creative writing.