Friday, January 10
5:15 PM – 6:30 PM
WSCC—Skagit 1
Anxiety associated with writing is a topic that is likely relevant for many graduate students as we navigate the responsibilities we have as grad students and as people, and as we approach the challenge of putting our ideas out into the world and creating a sense of ethos for ourselves as scholars. This panel will explore what anxiety looks like for graduate students and discuss ways to combat writing anxiety from several different perspectives.
Jen McConnel will explore how developing metaphors for our writing can help us to reframe and work through writing anxiety in encouraging and creative ways. Dr. Kayla Walker Edin will discuss how the spaces in which graduate students write can impact their work. She will also offer some “best-practices” for graduate students to consider in choosing and creating workspaces. Finally, Anna Barritt will examine the impact of writing anxiety on first-generation, working-class graduate students, drawing on her research with these students to offer ways to support them.
It is our hope that this panel will allow us to have a frank and fruitful discussion on the often fraught relationship graduate students have with writing projects and offer practical solutions and strategies for surmounting anxiety throughout the writing process. We will continue our conversations in Saturday’s 5:15 PM panel, “Empowering Graduate Student Writers: Theories and Strategies for Writers and Their Advisers” in Skagit 1, as well.