If we are being completely honest, as students, we tend to write papers for classes with no intention of ever opening the document after we hit the “Submit Assignment” button. We set it aside in our pile of completed tasks and just move on to the next one. For me, there’s the added difficulty that nearly every time I look back on my old writing, I can’t help but think to myself, “I can’t believe I wrote that!”
Tag: writing
The value placed on fiction, and in particular fantasy, can vary in different circles within society: oftentimes Christians–particularly in an academic setting–can see fiction as inconsequential and even, at its worst, escapist. There is sometimes a desire to place fiction and fantasy in a category of frivolousness when it is not being read for class, only to be indulged in when one has the time and needs a break from the heavier, more “important” reading. As college students, we can become so besieged by the constant challenge to perform well, to write the phenomenal paper, to craft the perfect argument, that we forget that we can in fact read and write for our own enjoyment. As I have read through Alan Jacob’s book Reading for Pleasure in an Age of Distraction, I have come to believe that we can read and write for the enjoyment of it, especially when it comes to fiction, and it is intrinsically good for us to do so.
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Expressive Writing as Self-Care
Do you want to grow in self-awareness? Do you want help breaking self-destructive thought patterns? Do you want help facing overwhelming emotions? If you answered “yes” to any of these, expressive writing is a simple yet powerful way for you to move in that direction. As a college student, you may be fully aware of how writing is a way of thinking and reasoning. However, writing can be more than a way of thinking about academics: it can be a way of thinking about life. This article will give you some tips on how to use writing as a tool for self-care.
Many students can feel hesitant entering the Writing Center, but one graduate client, Caitlin McNamara, has just the advice for them.
Caitlin is a graduate student in the M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy program, and she has frequented the Writing Center regularly for two years. We interviewed her to see why she keeps coming back–and why she recommends that others do so too.
As the school year comes to a close, it can sometimes be difficult to envision writing opportunities beyond the classroom. We interviewed a few Wheaton alumni—Carolyn Waldee ’18, Aaron Brown ’13, and Jerome Blanco ’12—to learn where writing has carried them after graduating from Wheaton.
As we grow as writers, our writing process changes, too. After transitioning to college and navigating the constraints of COVID-19, you may find that your tried-and-true strategies no longer work as well as they used to—and that is okay!
Looking back on what life was like a year ago—I believe I recall seven (7) people sitting on one (1) couch at my house—I remember what it felt like to pump out papers before the pandemic.