Guidelines and a Description of a Writing Workshop

     While working on gathering information on Sexual Assault at DePaul, we came to the conclusion that hosting a writing workshop would be really beneficial for the DePaul community.  This workshop would be offered for any and all students interested in participating.  The curriculum we came up with is for the sole purpose of learning about sexual assault in the community and how to be mindful, aware and an activist on campus.  We are hoping to hold this writing workshop during the Winter Quarter of 2013. 

“Our mission is to foster healing and community through creative writing.  Through this event we will try to create a space and a call to action for activism on campus for issues surrounding sexual violence and awareness.”

            A guideline of the agenda is as follows:

Intros: 

            a.  1 Minute Introductions: Telling any story or narrative in a minute.

            b.   Group goals, expectations, worries, and hopes

1.     Opening Poem:  Gives an example of how creative writing works as a process of healing as well as opening up the space for sharing in a group focused on trust and empowerment

2.     Sentence Stem Exercise... 

•       To use an exercise from the book Poetry and Story Therapy, by Geri Biebel Chavis. This is a sentence stem exercise and will be used as a way to start the creative writing process. This activity will be used to get participants into the mind set of what bothers them personally from their community or what they appreciate on campus from their peers, academic supervisors and from the community, in regards to sexual assault and awareness.   Examples are:

1               “I get angry when….

2                 I feel hurt when….

3                 I feel safest when…

4                 I feel loved when…

5                 I feel discounted when…

6                 I get scared when…” (Chavis, 182)

Depending on the people that participate in the group writing workshop these exercises can be changed into “I” statement stems:

1             “When I am happy I….

2               When I am sad, I….

3               When I am worried or feel anxious, I…

4               When I feel hurt, I…

5               When I am angry, I…

6               When I feel respected, I….” (Chavis, 182)

3.     What do you expect…

a.     call and response

b.     focus on the damage that slut shaming

4.     Times when you have victim blamed free write

5.     Letter to a survivor/yourself

Conclusion:  To wrap up the event we will show a brief video and  discuss future writing workshops, a potential speak-out event from the writings done as a group, and we will discuss ways to be engaged in next year’s performance that Sam is working on.   End with a call to action and invitation to take part in activism and advocacy at DePaul.

          We anticipate that this event will take anywhere from one to two hours to get all of the activities on creative writing in.  We are hoping to have students of DePaul come together to write stories of resilience, suffering and healing.  These stories do not have to be based on personal experiences of sexual assault, but can be seen as an outlet of expression of what being an activist against sexual violence means to you.  

            These pieces will be for personal reflection and do not have to be shared. We are looking to create a safe and creative environment to express ourselves and build community by bringing a collective of individual voices to an issue that is often silenced. We hope to encourage activism and positive changes on DePaul's campus around issues of sexual violence and would love the community’s input as  victims/survivors/ thrivers in this community. 

A book called Survivor Therapy by Lenore Walker had sine great suggestions of principles for survivor therapy:

""Safety, empowerment, validation, emphasis on strengths, education,  expanding alternatives, restoring clarity in judgement, understanding oppression, and making their own decisions." (Walker, 303)

        Walker suggests an emphasis on safety and empowerment, "to ensure the woman (or man's) safety and to restore [their] sense of control over [their] life." (Walker, 303) We felt these were great suggestions for the project because they ensure creating a safe space while working on the inner healing process, while spreading awareness of sexual assault in our community of DePaul. 

Chavis, Geri Giebel. Poetry and Story Therapy : The Healing Power of Creative Expression. London; Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley, 2011. Print.                                                                       

Walker, Lenore E.A. Abused women and survivor therapy: a practical guide for the psychotherapist, 1994. Print.

-source work Chavis and Walker, Sam Bentson

"What do you expect..." and "Letter to Survivor" activities adapted from:
Krutcher, Kim, and Ginger Francis. "RVA Voicing Truth: Writing Workshop." Proc. of Voicing Truth, RVA, Chicago. November: 2011

-source work Emily

-Sam Bentson and Emily Edwards