Welcome to the Writing PAD (Writing Purposefully in Art & Design) East Midlands blog. This will be the focus for events, research and a community of practice based on inclusive, creative and reflective approaches to student writing.
The East Midlands Centre was established in 2014, and is co-ordinated by Julia Reeve jreeve@dmu.ac.uk. Kaye Towlson kbt@dmu.ac.uk works closely with Julia on the work of the Centre.
Julia and Kaye first got together as DMU Teacher Fellows facing a shared pedagogic and learning barrier particular (but not exclusive to) Art and Design students. This barrier was that of getting students to engage with a primarily textual medium, in other words engaging in critical reading, writing and research. Another obstacle to textual engagement for these students was seeing the relevance of this research and written work to the development of their subject practice.
Our research embodies the tension between the studio and the library or other academic space as a place to work, research, create and develop. By using various visual and kinaesthetic techniques we have tried to bring a piece of the studio into the library or classroom and to welcome creativity and visual learning as an exploratory and bridging tool between these two worlds. By working together we have also brought together two individual but much related worlds of literature research (information literacy) and critical writing (contextual studies). We aim to offer Art and Design students a more authentic, subject-related experience in their theory work by using visual and kinaesthetic approaches.
Our work embodies a multi-sensory approach to writing and research teaching and learning; a meaningful connection between studio and theory. This approach has been taken out of its usual sphere of influence to incorporate application to other disciplines, extending beyond Art & Design.
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