Running, Thinking, Writing

Jackie Hoermann-Elliott

Description

For the creative fulfillment of writers who identify as runners, walkers, or movers, Running, Thinking, Writing: Embodied Cognition in Composition unveils the varied understandings of the relationship between writing activity and physical activity. Jackie Hoermann-Elliott provides an interdisciplinary overview of relevant research from the fields of composition studies, cognitive science, neuroscience, and sports psychology before proposing a new theoretical framework for explaining what happens to writers when they are moved to develop their writing while their bodies are in motion. She shares illuminating accounts from runner-writers working in the industries of journalism, academia, and youth literature. She also provides pedagogical insights from working with student writers on embodied writing assignments as well as introductory activities for instructors to try in their own classrooms. With a running metaphor guiding the chapters in this book, readers will be challenged to view writing as embodied cognition and to realize the benefits of embodiment for all writers.

Informations

• Publié par: Parlor Press, LLC
• Date de parution: 12 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781643172538
• Langue: English

Extrait

Running, Thinking, Writing
Embodied Cognition in Composition
Jackie Hoermann-Elliott
Parlor Press
Anderson, South Carolina
www.parlorpress.com


Parlor Press LLC, Anderson, South Carolina, USA
© 2021 by Parlor Press.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on File
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978-1-64317-251-4 (paperback)
978-1-64317-252-1 (PDF)
978-1-64317-253-8 (EPUB)
Cover design by David Blakesley.
Cover photo by Cameron Venti on Unsplash.
Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paper and ebook formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at http://www.parlorpress.com or through online and brick-and-mortar bookstores. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina, 29621, or email [e-mail].


Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Warming Up: An Introduction to Embodied Writing in Writing Studies
2 The First Lap: A Trek through Embodied Cognition
3 In the Zone: Research on Walking and Running
4 The Mind Flies: An Embodied Cognition Framework for Analysis
5 Going Pro: Portraits of Successful Embodied Writers
6 Learning Hurdles: Novice Writers Practicing Embodied Writing
7 Finding the Finish: Recommendations for Writing with the Body
Notes
Works Cited
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Index
About the Author


For Buck, Elisabeth, Barrett, and Beau.
Thank you for keeping me on my toes.


Acknowledgments
W hen I first began this project, I remember Dr. Carrie Leverenz, my dissertation director, telling me, “Choose a research topic that you find really, really fascinating because you’re going to be stuck with it for a while.” Six years later, I am still enamored with embodied cognition’s role in the writing process. I recognize that Carrie could have told me, an eager-to-please doctoral candidate at the time, to choose a research topic that would make me more appealing on the academic job market, but instead she nurtured my interest in embodiment. She led me toward my identity as a runner-writer-researcher, not away from it. I feel immense gratitude toward her for this gift of support she gave me (but will probably never take credit for).
Sitting second on my support bench is my partner, Buck. When the COVID-19 pandemic swept across our county and closed down our childcare facility, he did everything he could to give me time to write. Thank you to my children—Elisabeth, Barrett, and Beau—for understanding why mama had to escape to the porch to write in the afternoons.
While preparing this manuscript for publication, I suddenly lost my friend and colleague, Dr. Katie McWain. As I revised parts of this manuscript, I often thought of her encouraging voice or her sidesplitting laughter in response to something I had written. Thank you, Katie, for the million little glimmers of joy and friendship you continue to shine into my life. I wish you knew the influence you continue to have every day on my teaching, writing, and researching.
Special thanks are in order to my home department—the English, Speech, and Foreign Languages Department at Texas Woman’s University—for supporting my book project in so many ways, including providing publication support funds to assist with the development of this manuscript and for assigning PhD candidate Meredith Pasahow to be my research assistant for this project. Meredith’s editorial feedback made me smile from start to finish. Thank you, too, to my department chair Dr. Genevieve West, for her never-ending empathy and mentorship. Genevieve, like Katie and Carrie, will forever be one of my sheroes.
Finally, I am grateful to Dr. David Blakesley for how approachable and friendly he was to work with as a publisher throughout this process as well as one of my outside reviewers, Stacy Cacciatore, who provided additional ideas for the expansion of this manuscript. My project has greatly benefited from the good-natured support and encouragement of the people of Parlor Press.


Introduction
I n the second half of the twentieth century—just after the advent of jogging caught on in North America—a plenitude of studies followed confirming the impressive health benefits of regular running activity. From alleviating mental health burdens related to stress and depression to drastically improving blood pressure and cholesterol levels, moderate running has been shown to help the mind and the body flourish. Walking, another well-studied form of exercise involving a lower risk of injury, has also been shown to safeguard against a smattering of health conditions in addition to protecting against cognitive decline. These findings lead most scientists and scholars to believe that much of the cardiovascular exercises deemed good for the body are equally good for the health of the mind.
Yet with our attention turned to the physical and psychological effects of running and walking for so long, it seems as though we have jettisoned interest in the creative health benefits of these forms of exercise. For many writers, this interest is not one that is unknown or unfamiliar. In fact, writers as far back as antiquity reportedly used wrestling and other forms of physical exercise to hone their writing acumen (Hawhee 39). However, a recent surge of interest in the neurophysiological activity of the brain has uncovered that multiple brain structures assisting the mind in the act of writing may also be responsible for or enhanced by regular aerobic exercise (Hallett and Grafman, Erickson et al.). With these discoveries by neuroscientists and other discoveries made by cognitive scientists regarding the role of embodied cognition in the creative process, we stand to learn a great deal about how our brains thrive on exercise and how our writing processes might benefit as a welcome result of all our time spent in motion (McClelland, Osgood-Campbell).
For me, writing and running have never kept a respectable distance from each other. These two activities existed symbiotically, never moving along parallel lines in my life but instead intersecting and looping through each other repeatedly. I identify as a runner-writer, someone who uses their running time to benefit their writing time. While running, I craft ideas for my writing in tiny scraps and fragments, jotting these traces of insight down in scribbly, semi-cursive shorthand on a notepad at my desk so that when I am ready to return to my writing later—usually after a hot shower and a cold breakfast of overnight oats—they come to life once again. I have engaged in this habit since I began graduate school in 2011, when I remember several professors using running metaphors to explain long-term writing success habits to me. The oft-spoken “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” adage was frequently plated and served, but for me running presented more than a metaphor for my writing. Something indescribable happened in my brain when I ran that improved my writing—even if I could not yet articulate what I experienced.
When Atlantic writer Nick Ripatrazone asked, “Why do writers so often love to run?” in 2015, I identified immediately. In the deck to a culture editorial he wrote titled “Why Writers Run,” someone—most likely an editor or a copyeditor—tried to summarize Ripatrazone’s findings as follows: “Racking up mile after mile is difficult, mind-expanding, and hypnotic—just like putting words down on a page.” 1 In his article, Ripatrazone spills plenty of digital ink pondering why famous writers, such as Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Swift, and Louisa May Alcott, were cited as prodigal with pen in hand in part because they laced up their shoes for the sake of their writing practice.
Prior to the publication of Ripatrazone’s think piece, the occasional rumbling would be raised about the relationship between running and writing activity, but the treatment of the topic would be superficial or fleeting at best. The possibility of running activity supporting one’s writing activity had not been developed or challenged to the fullest extent possible. This book seeks to deepen our understanding of the relationship between writing and running, two similarly complex activities that necessitate intense focus, at times, and a strong sense of motivation. For the betterment of writers who identify as runners and walkers, or any person using their physical body to engage in other means of motion, this book uncovers the varied understandings of the relationship between writing activity and physical activity. For what purpose? We all share one common goal: building up our writing mileage. We all seek to move forward with our work as writers. When stagnancy strikes or when a writing task feels daunting, we physically move to keep our writing minds moving forward, too.
As a writing researcher, I have always been interested in the body at work. Perhaps this is because I am a fidgeter—not the leg quaking kind that hardly notices when their shaking is bothering others, but a head-scratching, slow toe-tapping, brow-furrowing writer who has to move to think. I have always noticed these movements in myself and others and wondered what these physical manifestations of my mind might mean for my work and the work of others. Countless times I have been in writing retreats or workshops working alongside other writers, and I have watched how they position their bodies as they work. The body, when it is at work writing, moves int