Hey Lions! As we move into assignment season, it is time to upgrade your writing skills! Whether you are looking for new ways to think about those academic essays, brainstorming ideas for multimodal assignments or just looking to learn about writing in a digital world, the Writing Centre has you covered! This time around, we’re not talking about the regular workshops that the Writing Centre hosts every term (which are awesome). In this post, we will introduce you to the new GET WRIT YouTube Livestream series that is here to help you navigate your writing challenges!
The GET WRIT weekly series will be livestreaming on the YU WRIT Live YouTube channel every Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EST. If you can’t make it at that time, you can always tune into it later! If you are interested in helping out with content creation, show off your skills or get real-time feedback on your drafts on the show, reach out to Dr. Shivener at richshiv@yorku.ca.
To give you a lowdown on what GET WRIT is all about, we caught up with Dr. Rich Shivener who will be hosting the series. Dr. Shivener is an Assistant Professor in the Writing Department and teaches classes in digital and professional writing. He studied English and Creative Writing in his undergrad and master’s programs and then switched to English with an emphasis in rhetoric and composition for his Ph.D.
YU Blog (YB): What is GET WRIT, what was your motivation behind it, and why is it a YouTube Livestream?
Dr. Rich Shivener (RS): When I first started at York University in 2019, I was doing digital writing workshops for the Writing Centre. I just didn’t know if there was an audience much for digital writing, except for those who are taking such classes. More people showed up than I expected! So, I started thinking about doing my own live streams. At the same time, a group of students in WRIT 4001- Digital Authoring Practicum began the YU WRIT Live Livestream series on gaming, writing and so forth. They did season one and wanted to make it more sustainable, more interesting for students and people. And I wanted to get more students involved and make it a regular feature that students could come back to whenever they wanted.
Success Tip: The great thing about YouTube Livestream is that it is free, you can watch it from anywhere using your phone, laptop or tablet, re-watch it at any time after the stream is over, comment on the content, and engage with Dr. Shivener!
YB: What can students expect from season two of GET WRIT? What are some of the topics that you will be covering?
RS: I’m going to try to mix topics on both print-centric writing and digital writing. Although digital writing’s my specialty, I’m trying to think about the tools and resources that you could still use if you were working on, let’s say, an essay for class. I’m thinking of seasonal prompts, some that are more experimental, playful, but others that are very practical. I’ll also be looking at programs like Scrivener, which is a writing service that’s a little more robust than Word and Google docs.
A lot of times, it also helps people if you show them your own process of writing. So, I’ll be sharing my own writing and encouraging people to write along.
YB: Do students need any background in writing or can anybody with any level of experience join these sessions?
RS: It’s for anybody. I’m focusing on a range of writing practices, whether it’s more traditional writing or using a program like Written Kitten, which involves writing in a little box so that you can make kittens on the screen. If you’re interested in these conversations and learning to write for various audiences, you are welcome to join! Feel free to just lurk if you want!
YB: Who can benefit from these workshops and how do you think these would be beneficial for students?
RS: At York, students are doing writing exercises across all programs and picking up certain tools or resources could be useful and beneficial to a wide range of majors. Especially if your assignments have a multimodal or digital component to them. This is a good space to learn about what tools are out there, especially tools that are open access.
Obviously, we couldn’t leave Dr. Shivener without asking for one piece of advice on writing that can benefit us all!
Be comfortable with small, short-term failures (I don’t mean failing your grade or exams). It’s better to go in and fail and then figure out what you’re doing wrong rather than to not try it at all. It’s a very challenging thing to do, but I think that if you embrace the small failures, it can be pretty enlightening. Failures also help you seek out people who can help you. I think failure and collaboration are just two fundamental things to think about, especially in writing in the digital age.
Sounds exciting? Remember that the GET WRIT weekly series will be livestreaming on the YU WRIT Live YouTube channel every Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EST. If you can’t make it at that time, you can always tune into it later! If you are interested in helping with content creation, show off your skills or get real-time feedback on your drafts on the show, don’t forget to reach out to Dr. Shivener at richshiv@yorku.ca.
Dr. Shivener is also conducting research on how feelings enhance or limit what we do with digital writing and media. He does a lot of qualitative research, interviews with different creators and is currently working on his book tentatively called Feeling Digital Media—a web-only book infused with audio narration. It attempts to tell the stories of creators using multimedia to represent how they really feel when they’re working through things like feedback and invention. If you’re interested in learning more about Dr. Shivener’s work, check out his website richshivener.com/.
Let us know in the comments below what are some of the challenges you face while writing.
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Deea Deb
Deea Deb is a third-year English and Professional Writing major at York University. She loves reading, travelling, being organized, and writing. She hopes to help York students succeed at university.
