Change Writing By Changing Atmosphere

As an English major, paper assignments are the norm. Whenever I am assigned a paper, I strangely get the slightest twinge of excitement because it is one more space for me to release my own thoughts on the directed topic. Although sometimes I am not interested in the topic whatsoever, I often find a way to relate it to what I do enjoy.

For so many years, students and professionals alike have remained in the same habitat while writing: an office or a library. This is common because they are places that are established for doing work. Some people find that this is the only way that they are able to focus, because there is no noise to disrupt the content they are reading on their computer screen, or the passages that they are flipping through a book for. But has anyone ever considered what that outside noise, or interaction, may inspire? Truth be told, writing a paper or whatever it may be can actually be made easier, sometimes, if done in a new place, with new sources of inspiration and research.

Olin Bjork, a professor at Santa Clara University and  John Pedro Schwartz, a professor at the American University of Beirut, composed an article that suggests the concept of changing one’s atmosphere in order to change their writing. Writing in the Wild: A Paradigm for Mobile Composition, is an article in which the writers argue due to all of the progress our society has made in technology, like smartphones and iPads, students and writers in all should take their assignments elsewhere and let their compositions become inspired by new sources; they also suggest finding research in a new way– through experience and setting.

I can actually relate to this concept directly. Over Thanksgiving break I traveled toKentucky to visit my sister. On the flight there, I had every intention of taking myself to their library while my sister was in class and finishing some assignments for when I returned. Obviously, I got to Kentucky and did absolutely nothing. On the flight home, I continuously debated trying to do my work on the plane; the lady next to me kept making conversation, and I had no idea how I would get any comprehensible thought written down.

Despite the odds, I decided to attempt my writing assignments amidst the chaos on the plan. And, to my surprise, my thoughts came to me so much easier and more fluent– nothing I was writing was forced, and I felt good about it. While writing, I kept my conversation going with the lady seated next to me, and I found myself actually including bits of what she was saying into my work.

Whether it was the influence of the lady sitting next to me, or the fact that I was not in a traditional work environment, the change in atmosphere facilitated my efforts. Geoffry Circ suggests that bringing “new atmospheric objects” into the classroom, like candles, and introducing “new objects of study,” professors may be able to “foster new habits of thought and enliven student writing” (Sirc 2002).