The annual celebration's activities ranged from quick writing prompts to letters designed to help shelter dogs find homes
Tulip has a big voice, blue eyes and enough fluffy fur to warrant an apology.
At Grand Canyon University's National Day on Writing celebration, student Ava Foucher turned those details into a first-person letter for the 2-year-old Siberian husky, part of an effort to help shelter dogs find homes.
“I’m a 2-year-old Siberian Husky with the bluest eyes and the best singing voice you have ever heard,” Foucher wrote. She imagined Tulip singing along with a new family, exploring the outdoors and meeting their friends. The letter closed with a request for “adventure, love and someone who will play with me every day.”
The letter was part of several writing activities for students or anyone passing by the Student Union Promenade on Tuesday, prompted by the question “Why I write.”
Participants could add a sentence to a short story, write a six-word autobiography or leave a message in chalk. The dog-letter project used creative writing to help animals at Maricopa County Animal Care and Control West.
“When you adopt a persona, then you can really creatively project through that,” said Dr. Stacy Graber, associate professor of English. “There's safety. You can express yourself fully, but it's also purely creative. Stepping into a voice like that, I think people find it liberating, and it's fun, and it's sort of a challenge of your imagination.
The exercise grew from Graber’s interest in experimental writing and animal voices, including Franz Kafka’s “Investigations of a Dog.”
Foucher, a freshman from Auburn, Washington, studying mathematics for secondary education, has loved writing since childhood. She grew up surrounded by books as the daughter of an elementary school librarian.
For Tulip’s letter, Foucher imagined the dog’s personality from her profile and wrote directly to a prospective family. Tulip might need space to warm up, she wrote, but a few treats “or maybe a piece of cheese or a carrot” would not hurt.
The activity reaches beyond campus, too. Graber said she has taken it to a GCU partner school, where high school students write and share their work in a gallery walk and read aloud.
“Everyone writes, no matter what, across all the classes and professions,” she said.
The event’s other activities invited students to experiment with writing in different forms. A six-word autobiography challenged them to capture an idea in a handful of words. An ongoing short story explored a dog on Dancing with the Stars overcoming an injury. Chalk prompts asked them to respond to “Why I write,” filling the Promenade with statements such as “To express myself” or to “Share God’s light, praise God.”
Kimbel Westerson, assistant professor of professional writing, said the six-word activity can help students think about being more concise. She planned to discuss the exercise in her journalism class. Her autobiography read, "No groceries. Eggs for dinner again." Others said, "Fun facts. I love fun facts," and "Seek truth always and protect innocence."
“I am very grateful to Professors Westerson and Graber for leading this annual event and for other supporters from the English team. It is crucial that we honor and celebrate writing,” said Dr. Sherman Elliott, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “In an age of artificial intelligence and rapid change, we must preserve writing as a uniquely human expression of our thoughts, emotions and dreams.”
The range of participants reflected the event’s central idea that writing is for more than writing majors.
Foucher said writing preserves people’s experiences and helps them process their thoughts. Eliza Garner, a senior professional writing major, called writing a universal language and said human writing expresses something AI cannot replicate. Hilton Abolinama, a freshman English for secondary education major, described writing as a lifelong communication skill and said he hopes to help students enjoy it. Will Buettell, a freshman English major, emphasized writing’s role in critical thinking and everyday communication. Jessica Kolb, a sophomore business entrepreneurship major, said writing helps people get their message across and will be important in promoting her future business.
“When you write something down, it is part of history forever,” Foucher said. “It's an excellent way to be able to express what's in your own head and how you're feeling. In order to write, you have to sit with your thoughts, and you have to process them.”
Even if you’re writing through the voice of a pup.
GCU News senior writer Jason Gonzalez can be reached at [email protected].
***
Related content: Student doesn't take writing for granted, finds it can be a service
