A Better Way to Workshop

By Jenell Krishnan

“In the process of telling the truth about what you feel or what you see, each of us has to get in touch with himself or herself in a really deep, serious way.” -June Jordan, 1998

The Antiracist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom is one part memoir, one part guidebook. Author Felicia Rose Chavez invites all writing instructors to revise the writing workshop in favor of humanizing writing community practices for the 21st century. Chavez’s call to action is inspired by June Jordan 's Poetry for the People, a program dedicated to the reading, writing, and teaching of poetry at university and in communities. Most importantly, Chavez demonstrates strategies for safe workshop spaces that empower writers of color through open discussions of their own work, inviting critique that they see most helpful for their own vision of the text. In her book, Chavez dismantles the silencing judgements of traditional workshop methods. She offers actionable strategies for what workshoppers should do instead. Here, I outline select strategies from the book for facilitators looking to cultivate a better way to workshop.

Defining “safe” for writers

Representation matters. Period. Chavez begins by juxtaposing this truth with the realities of many university facilities, classrooms, student cohorts, and syllabi. She asks writing instructors to audit the marketing materials that invite writers into “safe,” supportive workshop spaces. Chavez shares,

“I define ‘safe’ as a student’s right to retain their own authority, integrity, and personal artistic preferences throughout the creative writing process without fear of free-reining bigotry” (p. 23).

Prioritizing safety in recruitment materials by offering this definition is the first step to creating a safe, humanizing workshop space for writers of color.

Beyond course enrollment
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While marketing materials may call in writers of color to enroll in writing workshop courses, ensuring our writers of color remain enrolled can be promoted by fostering student engagement. Chavez offers guidelines for freewrites that intend to dismantle myriad barriers to writers—the psychological, emotional, and cultural hurdles that are often put in place by past experiences. A collective sense of power through “fear naming” and “caring for the writerly self” are both highlighted strategies.

Reading and Writing Rituals

Chavez describes that during workshop creative writing is “an instrument of authorial choice” (p. 12) rather than a vessel for pointed judgements. She invites workshop facilitators to begin with a reading ritual that is grounded by the writer’s own words (in whatever format they might be in). This is antithetical to beginning a workshop with a study of canonical texts. Prioritizing student writing is to celebrate “students’ own words, spoken aloud in their unique and powerful voices” (p. 13).

Completing the Canon
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During workshop, Chavez draws on a “living archive” of contemporary writers. These writers, scholars, and artists serve as a mirror for workshop participants, representing the intersectionality of a more complete canon. By prioritizing today’s writers, workshop participants can engage in scholarly conversations with authors, making meaning of the text by understanding the life and experiences of the author. By accessing authors through structured exchanges, workshop participants, Chavez says, can embrace an authorial identity.

Workshop—a verb not a noun

Unlike the traditional sit-and-grit workshop model, wrought with silencing of writerly identities, Chavez approaches workshop differently. Yes, writers read their drafts aloud. But rather than a head-down/note-taking approach to feedback reception, writers moderate their own feedback sessions, inviting only the critiques that will forward their personal writing agenda. This artist-centered model is inspired by the Critical Response Process, a four-step procedure for giving and getting feedback on artist works-in-progress. The Critical Response Process can help develop a workshop culture dedicated to each writer’s goals for their own work.

Conferencing = Self-Critique
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Conferencing with writers is a particularly valuable way of working with writers both before and after the writing workshop. Chavez recommends that writers, however, hold the power of putting “marks on their own work” (p. 13). The author suggests that this strategy helps facilitators dialogue with writers (rather than evoke power over them) during pre-workshop and post-workshop conferences.

​The Collective Power

The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom concludes with a focus on camaraderie and collective power. To do so, Chavez deconstructs the good writing/bad writing hierarchies that may crop up in traditional workshop environments by centering individual, process-based assessments that invite participants to “go inward with perspective and intention to gauge their personal progress” (p. 14).

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This liberatory, empowering, call to action represents “the way it should be,” a far cry from “the way it’s always been.” If you are interested in learning more strategies for developing anti-racist writing workshop practices, join us on 7/28/2021 at 10am (PST) when author Felicia Rose Chavez will be leading a webinar titled “Educate to Liberate: Tools for Teaching Writing in the Anti-Racist Classroom.” Register here.

Felicia Rose Chavez is an award-winning educator with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Iowa. She is author of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom and co-editor of The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNEXT with Willie Perdomo and Jose Olivarez. 

Felicia’s teaching career began in Chicago, where she served as Program Director to Young Chicago Authors and founded GirlSpeak, a feminist webzine for high school students. She went on to teach writing at the University of New Mexico, where she was distinguished as the Most Innovative Instructor of the Year, the University of Iowa, where she was distinguished as the Outstanding Instructor of the Year, and Colorado College, where she received the Theodore Roosevelt Collins Outstanding Faculty Award. Her creative scholarship earned her a Ronald E. McNair Fellowship, a University of Iowa Graduate Dean’s Fellowship, a Riley Scholar Fellowship, and a Hadley Creatives Fellowship. Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, she currently serves as the Creativity and Innovation Scholar-in-Residence at Colorado College.

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