Here's information on a new graduate course on mindful writing that I'll be teaching at Salem State University. If you live in the Boston area and are interested in a course on mindful writing theory (or know someone who might be) both for practicing writers and English teachers, please see below. The first offering of this course will occur during the spring semester 2020.
ENG 835: Mindful
Writing: Theory and Practice
Course
Description:
This
course explores mindfulness as writing theory and practice and examines the
impact of present awareness on the writing process and rhetorical situation. It
studies rhetorical factors of impermanence, audience, internal rhetoric, verbal
emptiness, mindful invention, and the embodied and material conditions of
writing. Present-moment awareness is applied to writing to reduce obstacles
that come from mindlessness or future- or past-oriented approaches. Students practice
mindful writing techniques for use in the classroom and their writing. 3
credits.
Topics Agenda:
Week
1: Mindful Learning. Mindlessness versus Mindfulness
Week
2: Theories of Writing Block. Writing Block as Form of Mindlessness
Week
3: Present Temporality and Writing. Overview of Present Rhetorical Factors.
Week
4: Intrapersonal Rhetoric
Week
5: Intrapersonal Rhetoric
Week
6: Incorporating Intrapersonal Rhetoric into Writing Instruction
Week
7: Impermanence and Groundlessness
Week
8: Impermanence: Revision and Feedback for Personal Writing and for the
Classroom
Week
9: Audience Theory
Week
10: Audience Theory
Week
11: Preverbal Emptiness: Prewriting and Non-Writing
Week
12: Preverbal Emptiness: Prewriting and Non-Writing for Personal Writing and
for the Classroom
Week
13: Embodied Writing for Personal Writing and for the Classroom
Week
14: Affective Responses to Writing Occasions, Preconceptions, Mind Waves and
Mind Weeds
Week
15: Affective Responses to Writing Occasions, Preconceptions, Mind waves and Mind
Weeds for Personal Writing and for the Classroom
Global Goals and
Instructional Objectives:
Goal
1.
Students
develop focus on the immediate, real-time rhetorical situation of writing,
including rhetorical context, intrapersonal rhetoric, and embodiment, observing
the fluctuations of the writing moment with detachment.
Objective: Students complete exercises
focused on these rhetorical factors, including exercises in disposable and
private writing, as well as meditation and writing logs.
Goal
2. Students
identify the ways in which they depart from present awareness while writing and
learn to notice their past- and future-oriented mental formations.
Objective: Students explore mindful
awareness and mindlessness through in-class activities, freewriting, and
writing exercises.
Goal
3. Students
gain insight into how mindlessness causes writing apprehension and writing
blocks and learn methods to prevent these problems in their writing or that of
their students in order to develop metacognition and a calm outlook for
writing.
Objective: Students analyze literature and
research on apprehension and writing blocks and develop annotated
bibliographies and analysis papers.
Goal
4. Students
notice the physical and emotional aspects of writing to develop awareness of
the rhetorical moment for the purposes of metacognition and invention.
Objective:
Students engage in activities and exercises during and outside of class that provide
them with experiences in the physical and emotional aspects of writing,
including private and freewriting exercises, mindful eating, mindful walking, yoga
for hands, and felt sense.
Goal
5.
Students
put present-based approaches to writing in the context of established
pedagogies and theories in the discipline of rhetoric and composition as well
as in the context of mindful learning theory in higher education.
Objective 1:
Students compose annotated bibliographies, essays, and research projects that
critically respond to assigned scholarly articles and books on composition pedagogy
and theory and mindful learning theory.
Objective 2:
Students develop exercises, activities, and lessons for implementing mindful
writing theory in the classroom.
