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Writing Back
Writing Back is an award-winning pen pal project which pairs students with older residents across Yorkshire to help tackle loneliness and social isolation.
Writing Back – tackling loneliness one email at a time
Loneliness is an issue for many older people, especially those with limited mobility; equally, many university students may experience homesickness or a desire to better connect with others. The project will match you with a pen pal based on your interests and encourages you to exchange emails at least once a fortnight.
Writing Back Leeds is part of the wider Writing Back model founded by Dr Georgina Binnie. Read this blog to find out more: Writing Back Project and Event
How to sign up
Applications for the Writing Back project are now closed and will re-open in October 2024. Register your interest in the programme to be notified when applications open.
If you have any questions, please email: [email protected]
How we manage your data
For the purposes of administering the scheme we have a legitimate interest in processing your data (e.g. name, email, address).
Your data will be stored securely and used by staff to administrate the scheme. Your data is treated confidentially and will not be shared with any third parties without your permission, unless there is a safeguarding risk.
We will delete your details after 6 years, except where we have to keep a record of a safeguarding issue. We will only contact you in relation to your participation in the scheme. If you would like to access, amend or remove your data from our records, please contact the Writing Back Team at [email protected].
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Writing Back, a fulfilling volunteering experience
The more good we do for others, the better we feel. Volunteering provides a sense of accomplishment and is likely to increase our self-confidence. At the same time, it can help us acquire new skills, gain experience and even discover something about ourselves. And giving it a try in another country (we are from Argentina and Malaysia, two places located around 10,000 miles from each other and from Leeds itself) sounded all too exciting!
These are some of the reasons we both found to apply to participate in Writing Back , an award-winning letter writing project which pairs students with older residents across the Yorkshire region in order to help tackle loneliness and social isolation. It may not surprise you that loneliness is an issue for many elderly people, especially those with limited mobility. But it also affects newer generations and, indeed, many young people who attend university do experience homesickness or a desire to better connect with others. With this topic in mind, Writing Back —established by Dr Georgina Binnie in 2014— aims to shed light on this issue and encourage cross-generational friendships by bringing together individuals from these two different demographics. Since 2019 Writing Back has been delivered by the University's Global Community Team. Let us tell you how it went for us:
Ken & Francisco
There was a time before emails and WhatsApp, Facebook or Instagram messaging in which people wrote letters to each other. Although it took a lot longer to reach the other person and some readers might have struggled with appalling calligraphy, there was some true magic to it. And penpalling —something I had never done before— is an attempt to keep alive this tradition of deep and meaningful communication.
Through my letter exchanges with Ken, who has lived in or around Middlesbrough for the past 50 years, I learned about his volunteer work at the local library and his passion for sports, in particular football and cricket. I learned about a time in England in which trams had not yet been replaced by buses. I learned about his fortnightly walks with his wife to the nearby national parks. I learned that they both have five grandchildren and, most importantly, that, together, they live a very happy life.
And I also learned about myself. The experience of telling Ken about my life in Argentina and about my decision to come study at the University of Leeds proved immensely fulfilling and rewarding. It helped me rationalise who I am, how fortunate I have been, and why I am here right now. It’s been an absolute joy.
Lydia & Ngoi
It was a chilly autumn when I first received Lydia’s letter. Holding the small envelope collected from the School of English, I kept wondering about the messages within. My name is written above the printed address. On the upper right corner is a blue stamp, a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. Wearing a crown, she is facing the left of the envelope. Her demeanour of gazing to her front is calm and elegant, as though she is gazing through the ocean of time.
If the ocean of time was what lay between Lydia and me, then the letters we wrote were boats carrying our best wishes to each other. Very much like me, Lydia is a person who loves nature. Having a keen eye for animals, the avian friends are never some anonymous ‘birds’ in her observation. From her letters, I learned a new list of bird names, for instance, goldfinches, greenfinches, coal tits, hedge sparrows, and so on. She is also observant about the unfortunate incidents in nature, for instance, a bird hunted by the sparrow hawk and a badger which died on the road. Her affinity with nature is further manifested when she admits her delay in growing her spring flowering bulbs and tulips. This instance echoes the passion that my mother and I have for gardening. The cultivation of plants is, for us, the cultivation of joy. I believe this is how Lydia feels too, especially when plants and animals merge into harmonious pictures of her life. I could feel her happiness when encountering the migratory redwings in the garden. There must also be a smile on her face when she sees her neighbours’ cats hiding in the undergrowth.
For Lydia, nature is not just ‘the other’ on the periphery of her life. The inspiration from nature, which she integrates so well into her writing, shapes the way she views the world. It is plausible to posit that she, who perceives nature as part of her life, also cares about other humans in her life. The everyday stories she shared paints her as someone who cares a lot about her family. Instead of just narrating stories about herself, she often shares her time with her family. She spends a lot of effort taking care of her mother-in-law and her husband due to certain reasons. Although the caring responsibilities are challenging, her life is still sprinkled with joy from her grandson. She loves sharing the moments spent with her grandson who loves Spiderman. I imagine it to be a loving scene when she describes how her shy grandson would at least thank the Santa for the gift received.
I was surprised to learn that Lydia had a commitment to the University of Leeds in a certain phase of her life in the past. Apart from showing how we are interconnected, the correspondence prompts me to examine the concept of time. Both Lydia and I are nature lovers associated with the University of Leeds, but it took us so many years to get to know each other through Writing Back. I could sense familiarity with the scenes depicted in her letters, as though her stories are, in one way or another, related to my unconscious. I was only aware of the resemblance between her stories and certain pieces of my memories after reading her letters. Perhaps the significance of every choice made will only be revealed to us after some time.
The same conception can be translated into the act of writing letters and waiting for replies too. Because we know that we will have to wait for some time before receiving any replies, we will read the letters carefully and think properly of what we should write. However, how our pen pals interpret the sentences might vary from how we intended them to be. Again, this instance exemplifies how time will only illuminate the significance of the choices made after a period of time.
Indeed, the experiences of both Francisco and Ngoi as delineated are our reflections on Writing Back, which had unfortunately been suspended due to the lockdown. Nevertheless, we believe that we and our pen pals will develop some new understanding when we reread the letters a long time after this. To a certain extent, this process resonates with a kind of discovery, both internally and externally, as determined and constituted by time. The portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the stamps is as composed as ever, which harks back to her reassuring Coronavirus broadcast.
Sadly, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the traditional Writing Back Meet Up Event, where we would have met our pen pals, did not take place. But we are glad to know our English pen pals whom we have met through letters. We sincerely hope that they can stay healthy and live their lives to the fullest.
100% Digital Leeds
Supporting older people’s digital confidence with University of Leeds’s Writing Back project
Writing Back is an intergenerational digital pen pal project which pairs students at the University of Leeds with older residents across Yorkshire to exchange emails. The scheme was established to help tackle loneliness and social isolation but organisations supporting older people have found involvement in the scheme supports members to develop transferable digital skills and confidence. Burmantofts Community Friends have partnered with the Writing Back team to connect six of their members with students for a year. Engaging with the scheme has motivated members to build digital skills and confidence. 100% Digital Leeds is partnering with the Writing Back programme to support them to identify and build relationships with Leeds organisations working with older people interested in taking part in the programme.
“It’s good to be able to connect with someone different and it’s also good for teaching skills.” Kelly, Outreach and Digital Engagement Worker, Burmantofts Community Friends.
Supporting improved digital skills and confidence at Burmantofts Community Friends
Burmantofts Community Friends is a charity supporting people aged over 60 in and around LS9, the neighbourhood with the lowest average household income in Leeds. Recognising that lack of motivation is a significant barrier to their members engaging with digital, Burmantofts Community Friends take a creative approach to supporting digital inclusion. The organisation embeds opportunities for digital engagement across their service offer, highlighting the ways digital tools and services can support members to continue living independently. Their Breakfast and Browsers group supports members to develop transferable digital skills such as using QR codes, making online payments, and scanning and uploading documents through creative projects such as day trips and reminiscence work.
Yesterday some of our members and volunteers from Breakfast and Browser group caught the bus into Leeds to visit Stick or Twist, where they ordered their own breakfasts on the Wetherspoons app! A fun morning and delicious breakfasts were enjoyed by all! #LS9 #leeds9 #burmantofts pic.twitter.com/ck0qNxQ2fS — BSA Leeds (@BSA_Leeds9) September 26, 2023
The opportunity to take part in the Writing Back project came about at the same time that Burmantofts Community Friends received funding to gift tablets with 4G data to their Breakfast and Browsers members unable to afford their own devices. After supporting members to set up email addresses, Burmantofts Community Friends faced the challenge of how to best support members to practise sending and receiving emails, an essential skill needed to keep in touch with friends, family, and services, without one-to-one support from the organisation. Taking part in the Writing Back programme enabled Burmantofts Community Friends to offer an email pen pal for each member interested in hearing about members’ hobbies and interests.
After initial reluctance, feedback from Breakfast and Browsers members has been positive. Participants were excited about receiving a reply, which motivated them to keep the conversation going and to further practise their email skills, including developing new skills such as how to send emails with attachments. One member’s first pen pal email was five words long, and by the end of the six month programme she was sending full paragraphs.
“I had members saying ‘I’ll never be able to do it’ and by the end they were doing it on their own, sending emails backwards and forwards to their pen pals. People were excited to look at their emails, not stressed. People like sharing their stories.” Kelly, Outreach and Digital Engagement Worker, Burmantofts Community Friends.
The Writing Back programme
Established in 2014, the award winning Writing Back programme is based in the International Student Office and Global Community Team at The University of Leeds. In addition to providing support around health and wellbeing the team signpost students to volunteering opportunities. Writing Back started life as an intergenerational letter writing programme to tackle loneliness and social isolation for both international students and older people across Yorkshire. During the pandemic the programme moved to using email, which resulted in an added dimension of improving digital literacy skills and digital communication.
I can honestly say it has been an incredibly enjoyable experience so far. The premise of the project revolves around connecting with people from diverse backgrounds, exchanging thoughts, stories, and ideas through the written word. It’s a fantastic opportunity to explore different perspectives and cultures, creating a true global conversation. Feedback from International student, University of Leeds
Student participants attend training to prepare them for the role. Going forwards, 100% Digital Leeds will deliver additional digital inclusion awareness training for students involved in the programme, helping them to understand how they fit into the larger digital inclusion network of support being delivered across Leeds.
Taking part in Writing Back
The University of Leeds is interested in partnering with organisations supporting older people in Leeds. For more information, or to register your interest in taking part, contact us .
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Writing back.
Bringing together first University of Leeds students with older residents who are well-established in the local community.
This project tackles loneliness and isolation using a pen pal exchange between university students in Leeds and older residents in Yorkshire. The scheme is now in its fourth year, and part of its success has been its ability to re-evaluate and adapt as it grows.
Writing Back brings together students in their first year at the University of Leeds with older residents who are well-established in the local community.
A common factor between the two demographics is the issue of loneliness. Students often feel the most lonely and vulnerable in their first year away from home, when they are unfamiliar with their new surroundings. While older people, many of whom may be living alone, can also fall victim to social isolation.
By brokering a penpal relationship between the two groups, Writing Back is able to foster unique friendships, while increasing the emotional well-being of the participant groups.
The project has grown each year, starting with 28 in its pilot year, rising to more than 200 in the third year.
In order to kick-start the written exchanges, participants were encouraged to share their interests, and were also provided with archive photographs by partner agencies. These pictures provide a source of inspiration for writing, with older residents able to explain to the new student arrivals how the area has changed.
One of the challenges faced by the research team has been how to accurately evaluate the effect of the project on loneliness. A questionnaire was devised using existing tools devised by the Campaign to End Loneliness. The results suggested that contrary to what the researchers predicted might be the case, it was in fact the younger people who appeared to be suffering most from the feeling of loneliness.
Project partners
Writing Back benefited from a strong lead role played by the main project officer, together with a solid base of support from both community groups and the University of Leeds itself
- The project is led by Dr Georgina Binnie, Project Officer from Writing Back at the University of Leeds. The students she recruited to take part in the project were undergraduates from her department. The older participants were recruited through third sector organisations across Yorkshire.
- The Leeds ‘Libraries at Home’ Service referred older participants to the scheme, as did the Leeds Neighbourhood Networks and charities from across Yorkshire.
- Archive partners included the Brotherton Library, Leeds Central Library, the West Yorkshire Archive Service, ULITA – an Archive of International Textiles, and the M&S Company Archive (based on campus).
The aim of the project was to increase the emotional wellbeing of participants.
The purpose of the engagement was to encourage participants to hear what each did, to learn from each other and to change attitudes and behaviour.
It has created unique friendships, and from the students’ perspective it has allowed them to challenge their views on older people, and indeed the role of the university in the community it serves.
A key aim was to attempt to measure the success of the act of letter-writing in helping alleviate feelings of loneliness and isolation.
There is some evidence that writing had a particularly positive effect on the young students’ mental wellbeing.
The project came about as a result of project leader Dr Georgina Binnie’s previous earlier experience with letter writing and its potential to ease loneliness.
As a student, Dr Binnie had exchanged letters with her grandmother throughout her time at university, and she became aware of the power of the letter as a tool to facilitate dialogue, and to foster emotional well-being. Dr Binnie recognised that students at Leeds might also benefit from exchanging letters with older and established members of the community.
It is not always the case that it is the older generation which suffers more from feelings of loneliness and despair.
A study in 2010 by the Mental Health Foundation showed that 18-34 year olds were more likely to feel lonely more often than their older counterparts.
At the same time, the British Red Cross say more than 3.7m people over the age of 65 are thought to live alone, and a third of British citizens over the age of 65 say they have nobody to turn to.
The project began with the Leeds 'Libraries at Home' Service referring older participants to the scheme, as did the Leeds Neighbourhood Networks and charities from across Yorkshire.
Their letters are matched with students who similarly express an interest in taking part. The matching is also based on common identified interests.
Letters are exchanged via a pigeonhole at the School of English Student Office at Leeds University and are photocopied to be included in a project archive.
The participants exchanged letters approximately once every two weeks. They write about a huge range of things – from hobbies, travel, poetry and music. In the initial pilot, the letters were themed, the topic being the First World War. This enabled some students to share their love of war poetry, for example.
In the early stages, the pen pals are encouraged to share historic photographs of Yorkshire which were provided for the project by the archive partners.
In the first year of the project, Special Collections at the Brotherton Library and the Leodis photographic archive provided copies of historic photographs of Yorkshire to be used with the students' letters. Meanwhile the west Yorkshire Archive Service also provided images, and also referred a group of older ex-miners to take part in the project itself.
These photographs prompted topics of conversation within the letters, enabling the older people to outline how their communities have changed over time, and for the younger students to gain a better understanding of life in their newly adopted area…and hence, a greater sense of belonging there.
For evaluation purposes, the letters then became a source of data in themselves. A questionnaire was devised to track any impact the act of letter-writing had on feelings of loneliness.
At the end of the project a closing event was held where those participants who are able to travel to the University are able to meet their pen pal in person. For housebound participants, the student will often visit their pen pal directly or phone them as a means of facilitating a virtual meeting.
The project is now in its fourth year and has seen the number of participants grow each year. In the pilot year 28 participants took part, which included the letter writing and an optional meeting at the end. In the second year, 112 people took part, rising to 202 participants in the third year.
There are two ongoing strands of research.
The first focus is investigating loneliness and social isolation in the student and older demographics. By using the loneliness measurement tools devised by the national Campaign to End Loneliness the project is able to evaluate how letter writing functions as a tool to aid emotional wellbeing.
Second, the project examines how to encourage engagement with Yorkshire archives. Students are given copies of historic photographs of Yorkshire by the Brotherton Library, Leeds Central Library and the WY Archive Service, the M&S company library and ULITA, which they share in their letters to their pen pal.
The letters are copied as part of the scheme and became a form of data in themselves, as did the number of participants that take part in the project and attend the events.
Loneliness is notoriously difficult to evaluate. However, using loneliness measurement tools developed by the Campaign to End Loneliness a questionnaire was devised to use with participants. These voluntary questionnaires were given out at lunch events - which were held in order for the pen pals to meet up - or they were sent to housebound participants in the post.
Of the participants who opted to return the first questionnaires, 25% of the older pen pals sometimes or often felt lonely and 62% of the students sometimes or often felt lonely. However, given that not all participants returned the survey this is not representative of the whole cohort of pen pals (something which the project hopes to address in the following year).
At the end of last year, 94% of students indicated that writing to their older pen pal had a positive effect on their mental wellbeing and 6% gave a neutral response. 95% of older participants advised that writing to their student pen pal positively impacted their mental wellbeing and 5% did not respond to this question.
The questionnaires offer a positive indication as to the impact of letter writing on the emotional welfare of the participants. The project will now compare data between the different years.
Lessons learned
- There was a presumption that it would be the older participants who would be keener to take part than the students. The opposite proved to be the case. Recruitment became easier when the project focused on selling the mutual benefits of taking part. In order to engage more, older pen pals, an emphasis was placed on how they might help the students familiarise themselves with their new environment. The elder participants saw this offered genuine benefits to the students and were more willing to take part.
- The project demonstrated the impact students can have on the local community via their engagement in volunteering. Georgina Binnie believes that it has provided real evidence of the need to engage the local, older populations surrounding the University in our research, with their participation in the project having made a vast impact on the wellbeing of our students.
- A future ambition is to enhance the digital profile of the project so that a digital online repository of letters could be created.
- It is clear from the results of the questionnaires that the project is not necessarily recruiting the most lonely participants to take part. Older people who attend the Leeds Neighbourhood Network groups are already creating social links in their local area. Going forward the project aims to work with more housebound participants via a collaboration with Leeds Social Services.
- The participants indicated that they would like a better understanding as to the relevance of the use of archives. In response to this, participants can bring in images of Yorkshire to be digitised and recorded along with their own stories regarding these images.
In the summer of 2017, letters from the project were dramatized and turned into a new production which was performed at the Headingley Arts Centre in Leeds.
The project has attracted some positive coverage in the media, with a large feature, for example, in the Yorkshire Evening Post, which was also in the process of running a loneliness campaign and made a virtue of linking the two initiatives.
A wealth of friendships now exist that would not have been possible without Writing Back. The project leader believes that impact on the emotional wellbeing of participants has been profound. One older participant said: ‘Writing to my student friend change[s] my day-to-day way of living’. Pen pals regularly meet up with one another outside of the project.
The cultural contribution offered by the archive of letters provides a permanent reminder of the legacy of the student contribution and their ability to make a difference.
The experiences of current participants suggest that there is a significant scope for cross-generational communication to be used to target homesickness, to encourage mutual learning and to aid the development and formation of friendships.
The letters exchanged during Writing Back indicate that the letter has a universal and nostalgic function that cannot be readily replicated in an alternative technological form. As universities increasingly look to enhance their impact profile, the student and older participants provide a successful example as to the emotional and physical benefits of facilitating engagement via the act of local, letter writing.
For further information, please see the Writing Back website or listen to our interview with Dr Georgina Binnie .
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Engage Fellowships
Writing Back: Spreading Kindness One Letter At A Time
Impact and research fellow and founder of Writing Back at the University of Leeds
A 2016 report by the British Heart Foundation and Co-Op found that 9 million people in the United Kingdom often or always felt lonely. Loneliness doesn’t just affect older people. In a 2010 survey by The Mental Health Foundation , 36% of 18–34 year-olds worried about feeling lonely. Letter writing is routinely decried as a ‘dying’ art but, at the University of Leeds, students and older members of the community are helping to tackle loneliness and improve wellbeing by exchanging letters with another. In 2014, I founded Writing Back , an intergenerational letter writing project that matches University of Leeds students as pen pals with older Yorkshire residents. Having arrived at the University of Sheffield for my undergraduate studies in 2007, I found comfort in regularly exchanging letters with my grandma. Four years later, after teaching School of English students at the University of Leeds, and volunteering at a local care home, I decided that I wanted others to be able to experience the same solace that I had found in intergenerational letter writing. Just as the care home residents that I spent time with expressed a desire for greater communication and companionship, so too did my student cohort. In matching these two groups as part of the Writing Back programme, I have now facilitated letter writing between over two hundred people and have witnessed first-hand the generosity of spirit in their letters.
In Jo Cox’s maiden speech , she advocated for a kinder society, arguing that ‘We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us’. Writing Back adheres to this ethos of common human values. Despite the students and the older participants’ differing ages and backgrounds, their letter writing frequently leads to the formation of long-lasting friendships. Reflecting on this relationship, student Olivia noted, ‘I’ve become good friends with Val, my pen pal, and it’s been a great chance to chat with someone very different that myself’. She further described the project as being ‘a lovely way to get involved with the community in Leeds’, writing, ‘I really like the fact it makes a difference in elderly people’s lives. It’s opened my eyes to the experiences of people very different from myself’. At university, students can find themselves moving between their accommodation, the campus and the city centre, without always venturing further afield. Many of Writing Back’s older pen pals have lived in Leeds and Yorkshire for the entirety of their lives, and they are able to share their wealth of knowledge with their younger partners. The students are also provided with historic photographs of Yorkshire and are encouraged to send these images with their letters. This exchange of words and images led one student, Ian, to comment, ’I have grown in confidence and learnt more about the surrounding area and how it’s changed over the years, as well as being able to make use of some of the unique documents the Brotherton Library houses’. Ian further acknowledged of the project, ‘Not only have I made some great friends across various different levels of English, but [I] have made a long-lasting friendship with my pen pal, Joyce, who I recently described as my ‘Northern grandmother’!’
For the older participants, the benefits of the project can be profound. One of the older letter writers described how ‘The Writing Back project has allowed me to write to someone whom I would otherwise never have come across. It is interesting to exchange letters with a much younger person, to hear her views, discover her interests and share topics of “written conversation” without necessarily having met one another’. There is something inherently personal about receiving a handwritten letter in the post, particularly when considerable care has gone into this correspondence. Reflecting on the benefits for the student participants, an older pen pal, Margaret, wrote, ‘I think it helps them get over the early term homesickness knowing that a letter on the mat one morning for them shows some cares, someone is quietly supporting’. For Margaret, the scheme ‘is breaking down barriers - there is no them and us’.
In putting pen to paper, what might initially seem like a small act of kindness has the potential to transform lives and communities. Many of the students who join Writing Back will have never had a pen pal, and some will have never written or received a handwritten letter. Writing Back challenges its participants to look beyond their initial differences and champions intergenerational correspondence as a tool for fostering a more tolerant and understanding society.
E ve ryone hates January. The post-Christmas comedown hits us hard, especially with 2017 being such a tough year. Kindness 31 is our antidote to that. Every day we’ll share a good news story about someone (or a group of people) and their act of kindness or how they helped others. If you want to get involved, email [email protected]. Alternatively if you’d like to nominate someone to be featured, fill in this form.
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Writing Back dataset
Binnie, Georgina (2019) Writing Back dataset. University of Leeds. [Dataset] https://doi.org/10.5518/613
Dataset description
This dataset contains letters exchanged between University of Leeds students and older, Yorkshire residents in 2017-18, written as part of the University's Writing Back Project. This includes letters written by School of English students and University-wide international postgraduate students. The international and undergraduate strands of the scheme relate to different participants and different data.
| Additional information: | This dataset is not publicly available. Click the link under ‘Related resources’ to request access via the RADAR Restricted Access Data Repository. You will be asked to complete a request form explaining why you need access to the data. You will receive an initial response to your request within 5 working days. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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IMAGES
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COMMENTS
Writing Back. Writing Back is an award-winning letter writing project which pairs students with older residents across the Yorkshire region in order to help tackle loneliness and social isolation. Loneliness is an issue for many elderly people, especially those with limited mobility; equally, many young people who attend university may ...
Writing Back Leeds is part of the wider Writing Back model founded by Dr Georgina Binnie. Read this blog to find out more: Writing Back Project and Event. How to sign up. Applications for the Writing Back project are now closed and will re-open in October 2024. Register your interest in the programme to be notified when applications open.
Since 2019 Writing Back has been delivered by the University's Global Community Team. ... I was surprised to learn that Lydia had a commitment to the University of Leeds in a certain phase of her life in the past. Apart from showing how we are interconnected, the correspondence prompts me to examine the concept of time. ...
Whilst academic writing requires a formal tone and style, it does not require the use of complex, long sentences and complicated vocabulary. It should present an argument in a logical manner and should be easy to follow using clear and concise language. Each subject discipline has certain writing conventions, vocabulary and types of discourse ...
Writing Back is an intergenerational digital pen pal project which pairs students at the University of Leeds with older residents across Yorkshire to exchange emails. The scheme was established to help tackle loneliness and social isolation but organisations supporting older people have found involvement in the scheme supports members to develop transferable digital skills and confidence.
Writing Back. 9 minutes. Shortlisted for the NCCPE Engage Awards 2016 in the Individual-Led Projects category. This project tackles loneliness and isolation using a pen pal exchange between university students in Leeds and older residents in Yorkshire. The scheme is now in its fourth year, and part of its success has been its ability to re ...
The video features pen pals from the project meeting up at two celebratory lunch events in Easter 2018. These took place at the University of Leeds, and were attended by over ninety participants. These meet-ups offer School of English undergraduate students and University-wide international postgraduate students the chance to meet the older ...
In 2014, I founded Writing Back, an intergenerational letter writing project that matches University of Leeds students as pen pals with older Yorkshire residents. Having arrived at the University ...
J onathan Turner reflects on his time taking part in the Writing Back scheme. "I started at the University of Leeds as a full-time Undergraduate in September 2016. I could have gone to University in 1986 when I was 18 but for reasons that made sense at the time I declined the opportunity.
Writing Back has two student interns who help to run the project. They work with Dr Georgina Binnie to coordinate events and help ensure the smooth running of the letter exchanges. Writing Back intern blog | Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures | University of Leeds
This dataset contains letters exchanged between University of Leeds students and older, Yorkshire residents in 2017-18, written as part of the University's Writing Back Project. This includes letters written by School of English students and University-wide international postgraduate students. The international and undergraduate strands of the scheme relate to different participants and ...
T he Writing Space is back and better than ever. Drop by weekday afternoons to level up your writing skills with peer support. Our brilliant student-led Writing Space has returned with a new name and a new timetable but the same outstanding peer-to-peer support you'll need to launch your writing into the stratosphere!
The Writing Space is on the ground floor of the Laidlaw Library. Open every weekday afternoon, 1-4pm during teaching weeks. The service is now closed for the 2023/24 academic year and will re-open 30 September 2024. All taught students are welcome, there is no need to book, just come along and get writing!
Our Writing Back project aims to tackle loneliness by providing elderly people in the community of Leeds and West Yorkshire with a student penpal. This news item focused on School of Media and Communication student Jingji Chen who has been writing to 90 year old Jo Milton for the past year and has benefited from having a pen-pal from an older ...
students attend university in a new city, complete their three or four years there, graduate and then move home. Writing Back allows students to form connections with not only the people, but the place as well. These students will always have an important and valuable tie to Leeds.
Course details. The MA in Creative Writing covers a range of literary forms, including poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction genres. The course develops your skills as a creative practitioner. It also explores the history, generic conventions and experimental possibilities of creative literary forms. Through the Creative Writing core module ...
Your last pay day will depend on when your last day of employment is and also what category of staff you are. Payroll will automatically be informed of your leave date and will generate a P45 for you, which they'll send out to the home address we have on file for you. We'd also like you to fill in an exit questionnaire to help us understand ...
The proofread is your final check before you submit your work. It is an opportunity to verify that your work is accurate, clear and follows the appropriate styles and conventions. While revising and editing, you may have cut content out or moved content around. Proofreading is a good chance to check again that your writing still makes sense.
Writing Back is an award-winning University of Leeds letter writing project matching School of English undergraduate students as pen pals with older Yorkshire residents. Now in its third year, the project has seen 140 people write to one another so far.
Year 1 compulsory modules. Writing Creatively (20 credits) - In this module you will develop your creative writing skills by focusing on a range of elements of the writer's craft. You will learn to read texts like a writer and, through examining a range of exemplary published texts, you will study elements of the writer's craft which may ...
The University uses Leeds Harvard, a variation of the Harvard referencing style. Find out the basics of Leeds Harvard, and how to avoid common issues. ... this will help enhance the flow and style of your academic writing. You may sometimes use the author's name in the text, or just refer to the author in brackets, and citations might appear at ...
Writing Rebooted provides the time, space and community support to help you to get on with your writing. It is really easy to fall out of the habit, to let other jobs take over, meaning the thought of writing can also become just stressful. It can also be really challenging to get back into writing when you've had a period away.
Developing your Academic Writing. In partnership with the Language Centre, we currently offer 3 workshops to help PGRs with their academic writing. Each workshop is suitable for a different stage of your PhD. The workshops aim to facilitate the development of PGRs as academic/thesis writers, using the idea of the academic/thesis writer as an ...
Objectives. On completion of this module students will: 1. be able to identify a range of age-specific genres designated under 'writing for children', primarily picture book (3-6), middle grade (7-11), tween (12-14) and young adult (14 +) fiction. 2. have an awareness of the importance of representation of diverse child characters to child ...
Ed Green, a visual, multimedia artist in the final year of a BA Fine Art degree, was nominated to represent the University of Leeds.. Dr Julia McKinlay, Lecturer in Fine Art in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, said: "Ed has been nominated for the Freelands Painting Prize 2024 because, over the course of his degree, he has developed a site responsive and highly ...
The Leeds 10K was back on Sunday (June 23), ... Runners take off from University of Leeds. | Steve Riding/YEP. Photo Sales. 2. Leeds 10K 2024
There is an element of waiting for things to fall into place this summer for Leeds United.. Discussions are happening with returning loan players. This has seen Brenden Aaronson come back into the ...