Long Life Learning Stephanie Dunson on Writing Your Way to Collaborative Discovery
If you’ve ever caught yourself about to correct a spelling mistake on a grocery list, this week's guest has advice for you: Stop! And reflect: Why?
Yale School of Management Lecturer and reflective writing practitioner Stephanie Dunson joins Kavitha in the studio for a discussion about how the power of process writing moves us from inward reflection to outward, purposeful action. Stephanie encourages her students—of all ages—to let go of everything they’ve been taught about “right and wrong” in writing and embrace the metacognitive journey of pursuing uncertainty: What’s missing from their writing? Why did they choose a particular word or structure? How can they move from fixation on the product to a generative emphasis on process?
This mindset shift, Stephanie believes, can help writers break through static individual beliefs and powerfully activate group thinking. Join this week’s conversation to learn why Stephanie sees unfinished writing as the perfect, porous entry point into another’s internal experience, and how to share your writing in a way that prioritizes vulnerability over exposure.
Transcript
Episode 4—Stephanie Dunson Transcript
Links and Resources
Information on ELI and Yale SOM Executive Education:
Resources Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
- Embracing Contraries, Peter Elbow
- How We Think, John Dewey
- Transformative Learning in Practice, Jack Mezirow and Edward Taylor
- The Evolving Self, Robert Kegan
- A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean
- 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write, Sarah Ruhl
More Featuring Stephanie:
- Stephanie’s guest appearance on Dr. Heidi Brooks’ Learning Through Experience podcast
- Stephanie’s podcast, 100 Writing Mistakes Academic Writers Make... And How to Fix Them
About Today’s Guest
Stephanie Dunson, Yale SOM Lecturer in Reflective Writing
Stephanie Dunson is an award-winning scholar and a collaborative process specialist whose experience spans the academic and business worlds. Over her thirty-year career, she’s gained an international reputation as a writing process expert, leading workshops at major universities, speaking at leading colleges, and coaching faculty from top programs. Her development as a team thinking expert is grounded in her work as a consultant for the Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking and continued within academia through her tenure as Director of Writing Programs at Williams College. As a corporate consultant, she leads writing workshops designed to help groups collaborate critically on complex problems, make meaningful use of diverse viewpoints, and build communities of inquiry, support, and respect. At Yale SOM, she's a Lecturer on Reflective Writing and an Executive Education affiliate.