Evaluating the Impact of ‘Write Now’ Sessions: Adapting Approaches from Academic Writing Retreats to Create a Learning Community of Student Writers (Phase 2)

• Project Team: Debbie Parker-Kinch Anactoria ClarkeJasmine Hunter EvansHannah Lavery
• Subject Discipline: Arts and Humanities
• Theme: Assessment
• Project Aim: Enables more students to achieve their study goalsImproves and enhance the learning experience of students
• Status: Live

Phase 1 of this scholarship project piloted and evaluated ‘Write Now’ sessions on the Open University undergraduate English Literature module A233 ‘Telling Stories: the novel and beyond’, during the 2022-23 academic year. These were live online sessions aimed at helping students get writing their assignments alongside other students as part of a writing community. The decision to trial these sessions arose from positive student feedback on an earlier initiative of ‘assignment catch up sessions’, trialled on A233 and then rolled out to other Arts and Humanities modules. These sessions offer targeted support to groups of students who have fallen behind with their studies and provide supported space/time where students can get started on their assignment planning and writing.

The ‘Write Now’ sessions provide a similar form of support and time/space to students in advance of assignment deadlines, to proactively support students with their written work before they might fall behind. The design of these sessions draws upon theories and practices of academic writing retreats and community writing groups, to provide a supportive online space where students can make progress with their forthcoming assignment, writing their own independent work. These sessions are distinct from (but complementary to) tuition which is already part of the module’s tuition strategy, providing a space to work/write rather than learning activities related to module content.

For Phase 2 of the project, we are delivering ‘Write Now’ sessions on the A233 module during the 2023-24 academic year, refining their design in the light of findings from phase 1. We are also supporting the rolling out of ‘Write Now’ sessions to a range of other Arts and Humanities undergraduate modules, sharing the resources and knowledge we have developed to date and gathering feedback on their impact to this wider body of students working at different study levels and in different academic disciplines. Part of this process will be overseeing the delivery of ‘Write Now’ sessions as an integrated form of study support alongside ‘assignment catch up’ sessions already in place on these modules.

The questions that we seek to answer during this phase of the project are:

1. What strategies and activities are effective in enabling students to gain a sense of community from writing in the company of other students, in a virtual online setting?
2. How does the experience of being part of this online community impact on students’ experience of studying on their module?

       2a. What is the experience of students with mental health needs in relation to this?

       3.What adaptations are needed to the resources developed during phase 1 of the project for use on other modules, to address different kinds of assessment tasks and criteria?

       4.What is the impact of running ‘write now’ and ‘assignment catch up’ sessions as an integrated set of events on a module, for the student experience and students’ achievement of their study goals?