Learning in a Writing Laboratory

“Running counter to the current culture of instrumentalism and individualism in higher education, this a passionate, theoretically grounded text championing the potential of reciprocal care in the creative act. Chemi and Firing urge us to look to others to live, love, learn as we lean into freedom through collaborative, reflexive, generative writing.”

- Allan Owens, Professor Emeritus RECAP University of Chester, UK, National Teaching Fellow, Visiting Professor, LUT University Finland.

“In a fast-changing world with many crises occurring, this book gives me hope! Chemi and Firing have created a brilliant book: critical, eye-opening, intriguing and very well written.” 

- Ottar Ness, Professor, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

“This gem of a book opens up new grounds and possibilities for transforming the process and practice of writing.  Using multi-sensory arts-based tools, along with theatrical and inspiring performative metaphors, this is a treasure trove that playfully unlocks the writer in all of us. Whether it is the synergies of scholarly and educational thinking, or the choreographic release of the hopeful possibility that another possible is possible after all, we are invited into a writerly journey that unleashes the writer in all of us.”

- Pamela Burnard, Professor of Arts, Creativities and Education, University of Cambridge, UK

This book is an exploration of a collective writing laboratory designed to stimulate creativity and critical reflection for education professionals. The authors uncover how a writing lab can help educators develop their teaching practices and identities by means of critical-creative, collaborative, relational and arts-based methodologies. A theoretical insight into pedagogies of love and freedom illustrating how laboratory practices in education can become acts of daily care, the book will appeal to students and scholars of education, arts-based methods and creativity.

Tatiana Chemi is Associate Professor in the Department of Culture and Learning at Aalborg University, Denmark.

Kristian Firing is Associate Professor in the Department of Education and Lifelong Learning at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.