Pathways Through Writing Blocks In The Academic Environment

Writing blocks are likely to strike any writer, even experienced ones, at sometime or another. Academia has its own challenges which can provoke blocks particular to that environment. Drawing on her knowledge as writer, psychotherapeutic counsellor and university tutor, Kate Evans has put together a book which addresses many of the differing aspects of writing blocks, including looking at their emotional and psychological foundations. With discussion and practical exercises, this volume suggests that an infusion of creative techniques can offer pathways through writing blocks in the academic environment. The case studies provide an in-depth consideration of varying experiences of writing blocks. The book is aimed at students with essays, projects or reports to write, or theses to tackle; as well as academics who are working on articles and books. It will also offer insights for supervisors who wish to support those who are writing and guidance for people running writing groups within academia. Over-all the book encourages a creative, collaborative approach which aims to equip academics for writing within the context of the twenty-first century. “This book offers something for every academic writer, whether budding or experienced. Students struggling with essays and dissertations will find many practical exercises along with invaluable advice. More practised writers will encounter fresh insights.... I am confident that you, the reader, will enjoy this book, which is itself a model of good writing.” Dr Linda Finlay, the Open University, UK.

Do you feel under increasing pressure to produce high quality publications, or struggle to translate your great ideas into inspirational – and engaging – writing? Gillie Bolton introduces her three ‘key phases’ method (Write for Myself, Redraft for my Reader, Edit for Posterity) to make the writing process less daunting, and offers support and advice on how to develop your own writing voice to use this to engage readers in your research. ‘Characters’ at different career stages help you to identify your own writing level, and before and after examples of work from a range of disciplines clearly illustrate the key writing techniques. Drawing on case studies, as well as their own extensive writing experience, the authors suggest strategies for dealing with common difficulties such as: Time and energy management Restoring flagging enthusiasm Maintaining inspiration Dealing with potential burnout and writer’s block. Each chapter concludes with a set of constructive exercises which develop these critical skills and inspire you to improve and enjoy your own academic writing. Ideal for upper level students and early career researchers. Dr Gillie Bolton is an international authority on writing and author of a long publication list including nine books, academic papers, as well as professional articles, poetry, and for a lay readership. Stephen Rowland, Emeritus Professor of University College London, is author of four books on the nature of research and learning in a range of contexts. SAGE Study Skills are essential study guides for students of all levels. From how to write great essays and succeeding at university, to writing your undergraduate dissertation and doing postgraduate research, SAGE Study Skills help you get the best from your time at university. Visit the SAGE Study Skills hub for tips, resources and videos on study success!

Coaching has emerged as one of the most significant aids in developing managers and executives in the professional world. Yet there is a degree of dissatisfaction with performance coaching models and a desire to connect more with creativity and the imagination. In Coaching for Professional Development: Using Literature to Support Success, Christine A. Eastman suggests that literary works have a part to play in bringing about a change in coaching culture. Using a series of examples from key literary texts, she argues that literature can help coaches enhance their skills, find solutions to workplace problems, and better articulate their own ideas through innovation and imagination. Eastman argues for literature as a coaching tool, detailing how using stories of loss, failure, alienation and human suffering in a coaching dialogue bring positive results to organisational coaching. Coaching for Professional Development considers how reading fiction helps us to imagine lives outside our own, and how this sensitivity of language brings out the unconscious within us and others. Eastman discusses how she guided her students to embrace literature as a positive influence on their coaching practice through literary texts. Chapter 1 begins by exploring how reading Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener allowed her students to understand the importance of metaphor in their own coaching, with Chapter 2 illuminating how Cather’s Neighbor Rosicky addresses the role of emotion. After this, Eastman considers how John Cheever’s multi-layered story The Swimmer provides rich stimulus for coaching students in understanding failure, how Miller’s Death of a Salesman shows how our family relationships are reflected in our office dynamics, and how the reactions of her students engaging with Lampedusa’s The Leopard are more effective than the traditional coaching tool, Personalisis, in revealing their personality. She finally looks at Shakespeare’s The Tempest for exploring themes of power and manipulation in a coaching context. By applying coaching models to fictional scenarios, Eastman demonstrates that coaches, HR professionals and students can successfully extend the boundaries of their coaching, strengthen their interventions and enhance their understanding of theory. Coaching for Professional Development: Using Literature to Support Success is a unique approach to coaching with engaging case studies throughout that brings together higher education and industry. It will be key reading for coaches in practice and in training who wish to enhance creativity in their work, advisors and teachers on coaching courses, and HR and L&D professionals working in organizations seeking to implement a coaching culture.

This book offers novel insights into how students can develop a personal growth mindset during their degree programs that allows them to view new challenges as opportunity to grow personally, reflect on the new knowledge and experience, and subsequently improve their skills to critically examine and evaluate information in a journey of personal growth. Based on learning theories drawn from cognitive and social psychology and over 12 years of integrating the ‘personal growth mindset’ into course design, it offers a novel framework that allows higher education teachers to constructively align learning objectives and assessments with crucial transferable skill development, and fostering a mindset for personal growth among students that focuses on continuously improving and reflecting on feedback. The objective is to empower academics to build courses and degree programs that are ‘fit for purpose’ by equipping social science students with the skills and mindsets that will benefit them throughout their careers in ever changing and newly emerging jobs. The book will appeal to those who are interested in how individuals learn in educational settings and in the wider workplace.

This volume offers a novel collection of international works on the use of poetry in inquiry that transcends conventional disciplinary boundaries. The aim is to illustrate an ‘aesthetic move’ in social sciences and in particular in health and in education. The collection builds a bridge between the Arts and Health and Education by offering innovative exemplars of use of poetry in social science research and in the context of the many varied disciplinary contexts. An exploration of poetry within an international interdisciplinary collection in the context of education, research inquiry and health and social care with university-affiliated authors is offered. Writers include literary poets, academics and researchers in the arts, the humanities, and human and social sciences: an unusual interdisciplinary community. Authors contribute work illustrating how they are finding varied approaches to make use of the resonant power of words through poetry in their investigations. Writers’ aims span new ways to help readers resonate and connect with findings; new ways of revealing deep understandings of human experience; new ways of being in dialogue with research findings and new ways of working with people in vulnerable situations to name ‘what it is like’. As such, the collection offers examples of the foremost ways seen in the literature for poetry to appear in education, health and caring sciences, anthropology, sociology, psychology, social work and related fields. Most qualitative research texts focus on one discipline; this text will be relevant for many postsecondary programs and courses including in education, health sciences, arts and humanities and social sciences.

Coaching in Times of Crisis and Transformation takes an in-depth look at crisis and change in the world we live in today and discusses its impact on both individuals and organizations. Covering not just coaching in the current crisis but any time of crisis and change, it offers a complete, practical resource for managers and coaches to tackle the challenges effectively. This book can help turn a crisis, whether personal or systemic into an opportunity for transformation. Coaching in Times of Crisis and Transformation covers definitions of crisis from both the individual and organizational perspective, including insights on: adapting to change and finding opportunities in crisis, what neuroscience tells us about our reactions to change, transformative coaching, change models, supporting organizations in crisis and how coaching and mentoring can act as preventative measures against crises.

Becoming the Writer You Already Are helps scholars uncover their unique writing process and design a writing practice that fits how they work. Author Michelle R. Boyd introduces the Writing Metaphor as a reflective tool that can help you understand and overcome your writing fears: going from "stuck" to "unstuck" by drawing on skills you already have at your fingertips. She also offers an experimental approach to trying out any new writing strategy, so you can easily fill out the parts of your writing process that need developing. The book includes a number of helpful features: Real Scholars’ Stories provide insights into overcoming writing barriers; Wise Words from other scholars capture the trials of writing as well as avenues through those trials; and finally Focus Points highlight important ideas, questions, or techniques to consider. The book is ideal for dissertation writing seminars, graduate students struggling with the transition from coursework to dissertation work, scholars who are supporting or participating in writing groups, and marginalized scholars whose write struggles have prompted them to internalize the bias that others have about their ability to do exemplary research.

Children are intrigued by moving objects, even more so when they can engineer the movement. This volume in the STEM for Our Youngest Learners Series uses ramps and pathways as a context to provide children ages 3–8 opportunities to engage in STEM every day. Ramps and Pathways is a meaningful and fun way for children to develop engineering habits of mind as they explore concepts in force and motion, properties of objects, and how those properties affect their movement. In the process, children develop spatial thinking that is essential for future careers in STEM. The text also offers guidance for arranging the physical, intellectual, social–emotional, and promotional environments of a classroom to embrace the natural integration of literacy learning. Each volume in this series includes guidance for forming partnerships with families and administrators that support STEM learning, vignettes showing educators and children engaging in inquiry learning, tips for selecting materials, modifications and accommodations for diverse learners, ways to establish adult learning communities that support professional development, and more. Book Features: Alignment with both the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework (ELOF) and the NGSS Science and Engineering Practices, with specific descriptions of how those science and engineering practices in Ramps and Pathways look and feel in Pre-K–2 classrooms.Examples of how to integrate literacy learning in a meaningful way.Descriptions of how the open-ended nature of ramps and pathways aligns with the Universal Design for Learning Framework (UDL). Guidance to help teachers anticipate and plan for all children to become purposeful, motivated, resourceful, knowledgeable, strategic, and goal-directed about learning.Examples of how to stage, introduce, and support children’s designs to develop engineering habits of mind (systems thinking, optimism, creativity, communication, collaboration, attention to ethical considerations).A meaningful and healthy context to grow children’s executive function skills (EFs), including inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Contributors: Sherri Peterson, Jill Uhlenberg, Linda Fitzgerald, Allison Barness, Rosemary Geiken, Sarah VanderZanden, Brandy Smith, Kimberly Villotti, Shelly Counsell, Lawrence Escalada