IN-PERSON Prague Research & Teaching Conference

Abstract

Current academic writing support for art and design students in post-92 universities in the UK tends to emphasise a remedial approach where the problem lies with the student (Hardy, Murray Thow and Smith, 2020). Faced with the assumption that they are illiterate, these students resort to unsustainable writing practices such as binge writing and avoidance to cope with writing assessments (Quynn and Steward, 2021). Therefore, it is important to provide these students with social spaces that focus on writing practices. As Clughen and Hardy (2011) suggest, literacy is dependent on communicating and so requires human contact. It is also very much about context – What are we writing about? Why? Who cares? With that in mind, I report on a range of writing spaces, which draw on art and design pedagogies such as the studio model, designed to support students over a five year period at a UK university. As both a teacher and an academic manager, whose background is in design history, material culture and psychology, design thinking provides an innovative approach when it comes to creating sustainable forms of academic writing support. It has enabled me to ‘out’ the writing process (Murray, 2015) in a way that not only supports art and design students but also students and colleagues from across different disciplines at my university. Finally, this report considers how generative AI will impact the ‘outing’ of the writing process in art and design education, given its increasing de-emphasis on context and communication within the classroom.