Students, faculty turn ideas into collaborative short stories during Writing Day event

Pens and pencils went to lined paper April 19 as Northwest Missouri State University’s Department of Language Literature and Writing hosted a “Northwest Day of Writing,” centering on a collaborative writing activity during which participants crafted pieces of a story from a shared context determined by the group. “A lot of times as students, we get stuck in this rut of eat, do schoolwork and sleep with nothing much to get us going in-between,” said Amanda Johanson, sophomore English major from Kansas City who helped lead the collaborative writing exercise. “Through participating in an event like this, we get to bring together like-minded individuals in a fun, creative setting and get to let off steam while connecting with one another.” Johanson and some of her classmates in Luke Rolfes’ Introduction to Creative Writing course introduced the activity by prompting participants to verbalize sights and sounds conjured by two pre-selected places – a laser tag park and a movie theater. While the Writing Day event drew students and faculty working in a variety of writing styles, the activity was born out of a popular class activity in Rolfes’ courses. “We took elements from some workshops we’ve done in our past classes and pieced them together to make a fun activity that created a sense of shared context for people to write from,” said Corrina Dittmer, a junior creative writing major from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who also helped lead the activity. Dittmer, who aspires to work in the publishing industry, added, “In my writing classes I learn that everyone has a different perspective when it comes to interpreting a writing prompt and writing in general. So we wanted the attendees to use their different perspectives and collaborate to create different places where their stories have to take place. By showing people the different ways others write, it pushes them to expand their own writing and ideas.” Northwest students and faculty participated April 19 in a “Day of Writing” and collaborated on short stories based on a series of prompts they established during a brainstorming session. (Photos by Chandu Ravi Krishna/Northwest Missouri […]

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