creating a better learning environment

Life Writing:
Empowerment for the Future

Women who have been victims of violence, whether it is verbal, emotional, psychological or physical, often have been deprived of an education. One technique that can open the learning process to women who have been alienated from educational institutions, or that can reverse the effects of violence, is life writing.

Life Writing
Life writing is the opportunity to write about our lives. In the beginning, we put aside worries about structure, grammar and punctuation. Kristjana Gunnars says that we must simply write and not worry about our work being formally correct. If we are allowed to write freely and let the story come from within, it will appear with more tension and emotion than if we are worried about sentence structure and grammar.

In my first year of University as a mature student, I was given the opportunity in a Sociology class to write a paper that involved life experience. I received an 80 on that paper, but that was the only opportunity I had, in three years, to write about life experience. I found writing for university professors a very difficult process. I was seldom allowed to use the word "I" in formal essays. Nor do most professors consider the problems a mature student might be facing. Hence it can be a very isolating experience.

In my final year, I entered a class called "Feminist Critical Theory and Literature by Women." We used a text called "Women's Voices"; from that text we studied such pieces as "The Poets in the Kitchen" by Paule Marshall and "Birthing" by Kate Simone. This was literature known as life writing. We were then given the opportunity to write our own stories. The assignment was to write about kitchens we had lived in. That was the first time I felt I was in control of my writing. I wrote about the violence that had taken place in my kitchen, and I felt empowered by my writing. Later I published my story about kitchens.

Life writing can also be a painful experience. Memories return that have been suppressed for years. I find doing life writing a long process; while the first draft may come quite quickly, it might be some time before I can attempt to read it or re-work it.

Using Life Writing
Life writing is a process for healing. This past year I used life writing as a tool in pastoral care. I also used it with a women's spirituality group. I had the most success here. Not all of the people had experienced violence in their lives, but most had.