It's in every first-year graduate teaching assistant's syllabus. It's undoubtedly a chapter title or at least a witty subtitle in most composition textbooks released within the past decade. This emphasis on process over product is more than justified; dedicating time to an invention phase (brainstorming, freewriting, listing, etc...), preparing multiple drafts, partaking in multiple peer review sessions, and allowing time to revise are all important skills college composition instructors should work to instill in their students. Investing fully in each of these steps of the writing process enables students to produce quality academic writing and ensures that they are expressing their ideas in effective, organized, and understandable ways.
We spend so much time on practicing various invention and revision strategies that the process of writing tends to look something like a lengthy cycle of brainstorming, drafting, revising, more brainstorming, more revising, more drafting, more revising, and finally... a finished product.
The problem is...sometimes our students aren't even prepared to engage in the invention phrase. Some build up a lot of anxiety and choose to procrastinate on their assignments, especially major papers or assignments in unfamiliar genres of writing. They often feel like they're wasting time by brainstorming ideas and organizing possible sub-topics because they view writing as a finished product rather than a series of steps that culminate in a finished product. Many of my students have admitted that they did not have time to read back through their final drafts and look for grammatical, mechanical, or syntactical mistakes. But all of this can be avoided by recognizing the legitimate first step in the recursive process of writing: the literal set-up for success. Students must take time to experiment with different locations, times, and rituals (their set-up) in terms of writing so that they can consciously foster ideal writing habits. If these habits are maintained, students increase their likelihood of reaching what Csíkszentmihályi refers to as flow--essentially, full immersion in the activity of writing during which they can have an autotelic experience, or an experience in which the student is writing because the act of writing is intrinsically rewarding rather than to achieve an external, point-driven goal.
During the first week of class, I invite my students to discuss their writing habits in terms of location, time, and rituals. I ask them not only to share their optimal writing times and descriptions of their preferred writing locations/settings, but also to explain why they think these particular settings and times work for them so well. At this point, I introduce the idea of being "in the zone" and ask them to discuss what they think that phrase means or provide examples of times they were "in the zone." Then, I have them specify any pre-writing rituals they perform, like sharpening pencils or cleaning the space they're about to settle into and write. I typically assign a short reading about writing habits and then assign a blog post with a prompt, something along the lines of: What are your preferred locations/settings, times, and rituals for successful (uninterrupted "in the zone" writing? Have you tried altering any of these? Do you make a schedule for major writing assignments? If you have procrastination issues, what causes you to procrastinate? If you do not have procrastination issues, what inspires you to get started early on assignments? (blog posts with loads of questions yield thorough answers). In class the following day, we discuss our writing habits as a group. I typically show slightly amusing pictures of my personal writing set-up (a table stacked high with books, a hookah, a cat, a dog, several mugs of Earl Grey tea, and loads of scratch paper and pens) and explain how they put me into a state of flow.
In a 1996 interview with John Geirland of Wired magazine, Csíkszentmihályi explains that flow is
being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.This is exactly the state of mind/being that freshman composition students need to achieve in order to foster ideal writing habits, apply critical thinking skills throughout their writing process, and produce work that truly and accurately represents their own ideas. Csíkszentmihályi explains in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience that the state of flow culminates in intrinsic motivation, or self-desire to learn about and analyze new things. This is a period of knowledge absorption, deep and uninterrupted engagement with an activity or topic, a unique sense of fulfillment, curiosity, persistence, and conscious/unconscious development of a given skill(s). This state of mind/being would likely inspire freshman writers to write meaningful papers rather than worry solely about grades and points earned. It would also combat the pesky problem of writer's block-- continuous, uninterrupted writing allows students to skip over the problematic sections and keep thinking through the next section of their paper.
Csíkszentmihályi makes an important point in his 1997 text entitled Finding Flow. He delineates a necessary balance between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. In terms of composition, this refers to the challenge of the writing prompt and the various composition skills of the student. The prompt must not be too simple; likewise, it must not be too complex or hard. The skill level and challenge level must correlate and push the limits of the student abilities without becoming frustrating. In order to cultivate flow among our students, our assignments must promote equilibrium between difficulty and the evolving writing skills of our students.
The following section simply serves as a collected list of different methods of setting up a work station to instill within a writer the ability to reach a state of flow:
- Set up a timeline for any major writing projects. Begin by writing down the date the paper was assigned and the date the final copy of the paper is due. Identify the time frame in which you are expected to complete this assignment. Then, determine what steps you need to take in order to successfully complete the assignment (brainstorming, picking a topic, researching, drafting, proofreading, etc..). Finally, propose a realistic schedule that keeps due dates for other classes and activities in mind. Remember that adjusting a writing schedule is normal. Keep track of the dates you actually achieve each of these goals.
- Pick a location that is conducive to writing uninterrupted for long periods of time. I recommend somewhere quiet and devoid of friends or distractions. Pick a location that is well-lit and comfortable--somewhere you can sit for several hours at a time.
- Try to pick locations and times that are conducive to establishing a habitual approach to writing. In other words, pick locations and times that allow you write in a regular fashion.
- Consider writing at a desk rather than on a couch or in bed. Sitting up straight and having a flat surface to work on keeps you awake, focused, and organized.
- Turn off your cell phone and disable chat functions on your laptop or tablet.
- Set realistic goals for each writing session. In other words, don't sit down and plan to finish an entire paper at once. Allow separate time to engage in the invention phase(s), try several organizational methods, and execute numerous drafting and revising stages. Allow time for numerous short writing sessions rather than one or two long sessions.
- Allow yourself to take reasonable breaks when you achieve your goals. Also, if you notice yourself experiencing writer's block, consider taking a short break (or moving on to a different section of your paper). Charlotte Frost suggests using the pomodoro technique which involves using a timer to dedicate twenty minutes to diligent work and five minutes to miniature breaks.
- Identify any rituals you go through to set-up for a successful "in the zone" writing session and perform them consciously (give them power!): sharpening pencils, writing only on a certain kind of paper or with a certain kind of pen, drinking a favorite non-alcoholic beverage, smoking hookah while writing, devising a color-coding technique for annotation, etc...
- Establish a routine and stick with it. If you notice problems getting "in the zone" during your writing routine, critically analyze what you think is the cause of this issue and change one component of your routine at a time until you are satisfied with your routine again.
- Keep a bottle of water and a light snack nearby. Bananas are a great snack, especially when you're anxious or feeling deprived of energy.
- Do your best to make writing a daily occurrence. As the old adage goes, "nulla dies sine linea." Consider taking fifteen minutes to write a journal entry, even if you are simply recounting what you did that day and nothing else. Writing every day aids writing anxiety and curbs writer's block by making writing an activity rather than an artifact or product.
- Likewise, do your best to make reading a daily occurrence. Whether it's a brief article in the Collegiate Times, an AmA on Reddit, or a chapter of War and Peace, just sit down and read.
- Limit the time you spend sitting down at a computer on the days that you plan to get "in the zone" and write. Charlotte Frost argues that good writers should make an effort to "use another tool or location for online life (a tablet, a smartphone) and keep [their] desk[s] as ‘pure’ as possible."
- Consider choosing a writing partner from class to meet with regularly. You can read sentences out loud to each other, see if chosen methods of organization makes sense, help and encourage each other if either of you gets stuck, and suggest alternate ways of exploring a given topic.
TED Talk-- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow, the Secret to Happiness [18:55]
Pamela Fagan Hutchin's "15 Habits of Good Writers"
Charlotte Frost's "Forming Good Writing Habits"
Dunn, Dana S. "Writing About Psychology." Readings for Writing at Virginia Tech. Boston: Pearson,
2014. 18-20. Print.
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