Writing Retreat Research Articles

Mentorship Interventions Creating a Mentoring Community through Faculty Writing Retreats at a Teaching Intensive, Minority Serving University: The HUI Scholars Program

The HUI Scholars Program at Hawai‘i Pacific University was established to address challenges in conducting research at teaching-intensive colleges. The HUI Scholars Program complemented the Hawai‘i Pacific University’s Undergraduate Infrastructure Student Research Center (HUI SRC) by encouraging faculty to engage in mentorship training. The program focuses on scientific writing, grantsmanship, and career progression, benefiting faculty and students. Faculty surveys were conducted at three-time points to evaluate one aspect of the program (writing retreats). Evaluation findings showed increased confidence in research skills, improved publication and grant-writing abilities, and reduced writing anxiety among 15 faculty participants. This article underscores the importance of mentorship training that is aligned with faculty research

A Writing Retreat for Extension Professional Development Capacity Building: A Case Study of Arizona Cooperative Extension’s 4-H Youth Development Program

A Writing Retreat for Extension Professional Development Capacity Building: A Case Study of Arizona Cooperative Extension’s 4-H Youth Development Program

OoNomfundo: a teacher raised by teachers

Background: The inspiration for this reflection piece originates from dialoguesn shared with colleagues over mealtimes at the 2022 Learning and Teaching Arts Faculty Writing Retreat for early career researchers and academics. As an early career academic, researcher and relatively newly appointed member of the Linguistics Department at the University of the Western Cape at the time of the retreat, it was these moments that allowed me to find my feet in what was initially a daunting experience. Through the conversations, laughter and sometimes tears, we began to share pieces of ourselves - from the commonality of our present daily personal lives right to our lived experiences and histories.

Striving to Be Pono (Balanced, Equitable, and Hopeful): Conceptualizing an Indigenous Writing Process from a Native Hawaiian Cultural Perspective

Community-based and culturally grounded research, led by Indigenous scholars, is critical for the prevention and intervention of health risks such as substance use and misuse in Indigenous communities. However, Indigenous scholars encounter numerous adversities to success in academia. This manuscript describes an Indigenous Writing Retreat (IWR) guided by Native Hawaiian worldview and ontology held in Hawaiʻi in Spring 2022 to empower eleven Indigenous scholars and four mentors through cultivating their Form (intellectual knowledge) and Essence (expression of true intention and authentic feeling). Intentions of this gathering were as follows: (1) Hoʻoulu a Hoʻomōhalahala ʻIke: inspire growth/develop knowledge and insight; (2) Hōʻola i ka Nohona Kanaka: give life to cultural identity and native intelligence; (3) Hoʻopono: cleanse and let go; and (4) Hoʻohana Pilina: relationship building with each other, land, and spirit. Intentions were achieved through six methods: (1) academic writing; (2) Indigenous Cultural Orientation and Protocol; (3) honor and pay respect for people and land; (4) cultural tools and ceremony; (5) create a “Safe Space”; and (6) community building. This story conveys the IWR impact on scholars, mentors, and community hosts, including kūpuna (Elders)/leaders/cultural practitioners via a survey, email exchanges, and “talk story” sessions with them. Four relational actions (recommendations) for future IWRs are presented using the acronym PONO: Preparation, Observation, Navigation, and Oneness. This IWR is offered as a gift to all Indigenous nations to inspire and guide relational exchanges and cultivate Indigenous leadership in substance use research, collective well-being, and resilience by centering Indigenous worldviews and methodologies.

Effects of a Participation in a Structured Writing Retreat on Doctoral Mental Health: An Experimental and Comprehensive Study.

Challenges faced by doctoral researchers led to a concerning "doctoral mental health crisis" within academia. Recognizing the pressing need to address mental health concerns, notably among doctoral students, the Quebec Ministry of Higher Education introduced the Higher Education Student Mental Health Action Plan 2021-2026. One potentially relevant intervention approach is the implementation of tailored structured writing retreats for graduate students. Aiming to measure and explain the effects of participating to a three-day writing retreat on doctoral mental health, this study followed an explanatory sequential mixed method, including an experimental design. One hundred doctoral researchers were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (n = 50) or the waitlist control trial group (n = 50). Both groups answered a questionnaire comprising validated scales and open-ended questions at different timepoints, separated by a two-week gap. Results reveal that writing retreats reduced doctoral researchers' psychological distress and improved their psychological, emotional, and social wellbeing. Among the multiple writing retreat aspects evaluated, only productivity experienced, as well as socialization/networking opportunities, acted as predictors for all doctoral mental health measures. Qualitative findings further supported the importance of perceived productivity and socialization/networking in promoting doctoral mental health. Recommendations are provided for fostering a supportive research work environment for doctoral researchers.

A Writing Retreat at the Intersection of WAC and Civic Engagement

Partnerships between writing across the curriculum (WAC) and civic engagement (CE) programs are not given much attention but these partnerships improve each program significantly. CE programs can borrow models from WAC for professional development and obtain support for specific kinds of writing assignments; WAC programs can find among CE instructors a willing audience for critiquing the structural oppression inherent in literacy and for valuing dialectical, linguistic, and genre diversity. This snapshot focuses on a faculty writing retreat that emerged out of a WAC/ CE partnership and demonstrates how such partnerships can open the door for critical WAC pedagogy.

A Case Study of Mentoring Deaf Academics: The PAH!* (Success) Academic Writing Retreat

While the goal of increasing numbers of underrepresented faculty members, especially Deaf professionals, has been accomplished to some extent, many are stymied in publishing their dissertation findings in peer-reviewed journals, and therefore have difficulty earning tenure. To address this need, a case study approach was utilized to investigate the development of Deaf professionals’ academic writing during a five-day writing retreat. This paper discusses specific academic writing challenges including organizing ideas, finding an appropriate journal, editing, submitting, as well as handling peer reviews, rejections, and revisions. Information is provided on the final writing products, types of support, guidance, and mentorship that were employed. Findings showed that 75% of papers worked on during the retreat were successfully published in peer-reviewed journals. The importance of published work by Deaf scholars and plans for future retreats are described.

Structured academic writing retreats in healthcare professional practice

The critical importance of writing skills in communicating issues, such as the evidence needed for resources and change as well as the implementation of new practices and processes based on evidence-based outcomes, are now core skills for every healthcare professional including nurses in clinical practice. Within a very busy and challenging work environment, while maintaining a work-life balance, writing to fulfil these professional requirements can become challenging and even impossible. This article describes an educational intervention which adopted the Structured Writing Retreat (SWR) model developed by Murray and Newton in 2009 into a healthcare practice setting. The aim of this intervention was to promote self-efficacy in academic writing in a supportive environment. Three tools are described which outline how to set this intervention up within a healthcare setting. The outcomes and participants' evaluations clearly affirmed the benefits of this model to enable healthcare professionals working in any clinical environment to support their professional development and career advancement.

Twelve Tips for Creating an All-Day Writing Retreat for Health Profession Educators: An Immersive, Product-Oriented Learning Experience.

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Health profession educators are keenly aware of the challenges associated with meeting institutional expectations to disseminate their scholarship in forms of publications. In the past, we addressed some of these challenges and described an interactive workshop that we developed from didactic presentations, using educational, psychological, and rhetorical theories. Because we received very positive reviews from workshop participants, we decided to take the next step and develop an all-day writing retreat. In developing this retreat, we spent considerable time preparing in advance; implemented various theories for engaging students and other audiences; and learned lessons along the way. We now offer our insights as tips to help other educators develop a writing retreat.

Why do women attend writing retreats?

ABSTRACT Inequality in academic careers is structural and systemic. However, the growing writing retreat movement offers alternative structures for academic work, and in many countries retreats are mostly attended by women. We asked women about their experiences of retreats and did a systems and transactional analysis of their appraisals of writing and perceptions of relationships with systems at work. This article provides some answers to the question of why writing retreats are attractive to and seem to benefit women. A Structured Writing Retreat is one place where women can develop process, performance, prospect and profit beliefs in relation to their writing by creating a microsystem that sustains those beliefs. However, ambivalence in responses – in relation to research assessment, management and teaching overload – is a reminder of the overarching systems in which they work. This research shows that some women can counter some discriminatory practices, some of the time, at writing retreats.

Trick or retreat: the value of Creative Writing retreats in H.E.

ABSTRACTThis paper looks at the writing retreat as a model for Creative Writing H.E. teaching. Initially, the retreat seems to offer a way of encouraging the deep-level learning helpful to students in the development of a writing life. If Creative Writing students benefit from the kind of heutagogical capability development associated with constructivist teaching, then the writing retreat, with its opportunities for independent work and thinking and for quiet time away from the constraints of the usual timetable and the pressures of everyday life, seems to have much to offer. However, considerations of assessment soon call the model to account. How should the writing produced on retreats be assessed? Can assessment requirements ever be managed in a way that doesn’t counteract the freedom of the retreat? This paper draws on staff and student research gained from a Student Academic Partnership project and a level 5 Creative Writing retreat module in an attempt to answer these questions.

String Theory with Heartache

String Theory with Heartache Susan Rich (bio) The long lines of this sentence look to resolve in a pointof punctuation; when in fact, there are still more sentences and conditional clauses, and exclamations to go. But what if the point is not the point? Under the world's microscope we see that no picture frame, no old love, no sigh—actually stays still. Maybe we are all made of strings! A gull draws a winter branch across the horizon, then returns to add a delicate curve to its nest— Today, the news reports a second earth orbiting a neighbor star.In pampas grass and dried pods of vanilla, in suspension bridges and candy floss, what heat works to vibrate twigs to filament to universe? Perhaps this is why violins and guitars, cellos and dulcimers, are so delicious in our inner ears—a seduction by strings—building blocks of our own bosons, of cells, of clear waters. If we move like jerboas or paddle boarders, which circulate air over their own limbs, then we know our disguises are working.The desert trek on camelback, the Tuareg sash on even longer hand-embroidered robes. If we are simply balls of twine wound around a breath of air, then how to pluck and pick our lives—to repair the filament in our ledgers—the elegant rumors of belief. [End Page 80] Susan Rich Susan Rich's most recent book, Cloud Pharmacy (2014), was shortlisted for the Julie Suk Prize. Other books include The Alchemist's Kitchen (2010), Cures Include Travel (2006), and The Cartographer's Tongue (2000), all from White Pine Press. She is co-editor of The Strangest of Theatres: Poets Crossing Borders, published by the Poetry Foundation. Her awards include a PEN USA Award, a Fulbright Foundation Fellowship, and a TLS Award. Rich's work has appeared in O Magazine, Pleiades, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. She is co-founder of Poets on the Coast: A Writing Retreat for Women and teaches at Highline College, outside Seattle. Copyright © 2018 Middlebury College Publications

That Ass!

That Ass! Stephanie Jean (bio) i ceci n'est pas une pipe. ii who's in the jungleinterpellating excess as primitive? iii i wrote this poem about serena williams's ass. it wasn't me.not all me. mostly, it was a curtsey to a rage that was not mine.nothing to do with them boys who are her and me. iv serena fights for herself. to be.her ass, her braids, her muscles, her power, her class, either of which isalso black, her sister, her will, her growl, her love of tennis, her badass,her body as mother, her age, her grace, her spine. i too am fighting. to is.a slant in a commercial rune, a seraph to orgasm on cue, a historic-ity in a history of nègres aimés, an unseen except up far, a contre diction, a toward the self, a heart that strains to love grand, a sense sofamished it creates form. [End Page 94] Click for larger view View full resolution June 27, 2006. Ronaldo de Assis Moreira ("Ronaldinho") and John Paintsil in action during the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany Brazil v Ghana at Signal Iduna Park. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock. [End Page 95] Stephanie Jean STEPHANIE JEAN is the winner of the BOMB Poetry Contest 2020, judged by Simone White. Her poem, "Colors," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Gulf Coast. She has been awarded fellowships by the Tupelo Press Poetry Manuscript Conference, Chautauqua Writers' Festival, Rutgers' Poets and Scholars Summer Writing Retreat, Cave Canem, and NYFA's Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program. Her poems have appeared in the Journal of Poetics Research, [PANK], Hobart, The Southampton Review, FailBetter, Strange Horizons, ANMLY, and more. Copyright © 2022 Johns Hopkins University Press

Writing retreats as writing pedagogy

Writing retreats are an invaluable way of providing research students and early career researchers with opportunities for extended periods of time for their writing (MacLeod et al., 2012; Murray, 2013, 2014, 2015; Murray and Newtown, 2009; Murray et al., 2012; Petrova and Coughlin, 2012). This is important both for students who are under pressure for timely completion of their degrees and academic staff in the early stages of their careers who, once they have obtained an academic appointment, need to establish themselves in their fields as well as meet tenure track requirements that have been set by their employing institutions. This is as true for native speaking writers as it is for non-native speaking writers (Habibie, 2015), all of whom have to be able to write academically in English, the international language of research, and often face challenges in doing this. This paper discusses both the nature and benefits of writing retreats. It then provides an example of a writing retreat that focuses on writing for publication that has been on offer for the past four years at the University of Sydney, Australia. It describes how the retreat has evolved, how it is organized in its present form, and how participants have responded to the retreat. The paper concludes by arguing that writing retreats are a valuable opportunity for writing pedagogy, showing how both pedagogy and opportunities for extended writing can be brought together within the context of these retreats.

A Writing Retreat at the Intersection of WAC and Civic Engagement

Partnerships between writing across the curriculum (WAC) and civic engagement (CE) programs are not given much attention but these partnerships improve each program significantly. CE programs can borrow models from WAC for professional development and obtain support for specific kinds of writing assignments; WAC programs can find among CE instructors a willing audience for critiquing the structural oppression inherent in literacy and for valuing dialectical, linguistic, and genre diversity. This snapshot focuses on a faculty writing retreat that emerged out of a WAC/CE partnership and demonstrates how such partnerships can open the door for critical WAC pedagogy.

Long-Term Impact of an Intensive Writing Retreat Experience on Participantsʼ Ongoing Writing Behaviors

Long-Term Impact of an Intensive Writing Retreat Experience on Participantsʼ Ongoing Writing Behaviors

Long-Term Impact of an Intensive Writing Retreat Experience on Participants' Ongoing Writing Behaviors

Long-Term Impact of an Intensive Writing Retreat Experience on Participants' Ongoing Writing Behaviors

Using a Professional Writing Retreat to Enhance Professional Publications, Presentations, and Research Development With Staff Nurses

This article presents the outcomes of a structured writing retreat used with a group of professional nurses from a Magnet-designated hospital. The purpose of the retreat was to enhance nurses' ability to prepare poster presentations, develop manuscripts for peer-reviewed journal submissions, and design new research studies. This staff development retreat can serve as an exemplar for other hospitals desiring to increase dissemination of best practice.

The value of ethnographic writing; Writing retreat (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Anthropology TodayVolume 26, Issue 6 p. 28-28 The value of ethnographic writing; Writing retreat (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate) Keith Egan, Keith Egan University of Maynooth, keith.m.egan@nuim.ie, fionaeileenmurphy@gmail.comSearch for more papers by this authorFiona Murphy, Fiona Murphy University of Maynooth, keith.m.egan@nuim.ie, fionaeileenmurphy@gmail.comSearch for more papers by this author Keith Egan, Keith Egan University of Maynooth, keith.m.egan@nuim.ie, fionaeileenmurphy@gmail.comSearch for more papers by this authorFiona Murphy, Fiona Murphy University of Maynooth, keith.m.egan@nuim.ie, fionaeileenmurphy@gmail.comSearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 December 2010 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8322.2010.00775.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume26, Issue6December 2010Pages 28-28 RelatedInformation

Increasing Research and Evaluation Productivity: Tips for Successful Writing Retreats

Part of the responsibilities of researchers, evaluators, and program planners is ensuring that the results of their studies are disseminated promptly and efficiently. Yet, many, if not most, projects, particularly those involving senior staff, suffer from time constraints and competing demands placed on investigators. In this article, writing retreats are discussed as an innovative strategy for prioritizing research and evaluation, planning publications, and ensuring prompt analysis of data and efficient writing of results. Ten tips are offered for a successful and productive writing retreat: (a) get the buy-in of all investigators, (b) be goal oriented, (c) set tasks to be completed before the retreat, (d) select an environment conducive to writing, (e) prioritize writing, (f) create opportunities for midcourse correction and the mentoring of junior researchers and evaluators, (g) protect the principal investigator’s time for writing, (h) ensure adequate and compatible technology, (i) ensure the writers’ comfort, and (j) focus on success.