How We Began

I have always put a lot of thought into how I begin each semester – especially in the fall when I am likely teaching two to five sections of first year college students. The majority of the undergraduate writing students I teach are not in my classroom by choice, but I also know how important writing is to their future as students, professionals, and people (not in order of importance). I want my students to opt into our community and work even if they had no choice about the class. In the before times this meant that I abandoned the tradition of focusing on the syllabus for the first class to instead begin as I mean to go by setting the tone and establishing the priorities from the first class. I would focus those first crucial classes building community, centering thinking and writing, and establishing the class ecosystem. However the pandemic made all those interactions risky and now I am trying to support the same goals while simultaneously maintaining a flexible course plan that maximizes learning and minimizes risk from a deadly airborne virus. Here is my solution to this challenge.

Writing Marathon

As I have noted many times before on this blog, my goal is to make writers. I have 14 weeks to overcome the scar tissue and baggage loaded on by 13 years of product-focused (mostly) ill-informed writing instruction some of which was more destructive than instructive. I have 14 weeks to complete the fool’s errand of teaching every genre and grammar rule that writers might need for future classes, professional documents, and other writing challenges that life might send their way. Both issues can be addressed by simply focusing on the writer. My goal is to prove to students that they are writers by writing with them and celebrating their voices. The writing marathon is the perfect tool for making writers and, it turns out, is pandemically appropriate. In addition, making the writing marathon the primary focus of every class meeting centers writing, thinking, and community. I just love it when a plan comes together and delivers on so many levels.

Before the semester began I wrote about my decision to make all my in-person classes jam sessions and I am also offering a virtual jam session for my online section (and shared the invitation with my in-person students who might choose not to attend an in-person session due to health concerns). I noted that my focus for the jam sessions was “to connect as a community, support the writing projects underway in class, and bolster our humanity.” I am already hearing from students, after only two weeks, that they have found our writing time to be healing – especially with our simple opening writing invitation: I am a writer from… which offers writers the choice to write about a physical, emotional, or aspirational place. Some of my students are experiencing for the first time in their lives the power of writing to exorcise and heal. That simple opening prompt also helps me understand my students’ current state of being. This is useful information in any semester but especially true now as we all struggle through our second fall of pandemic teaching and learning and living.

Our jam session invitations are also carefully crafted to invoke thinking and writing about the theme of our class (American Creed) in order to slowly build toward a This I Believe essay. While our first week’s invitation was focused on our personal journeys as writers and humans, the second week explored how our communities inform our values and creeds. This week (week three) we will focus even more by exploring how we can shape our nation with our personal values. Many students have noted how the prompts have directed them to write about their own experiences and ideas and that writing has been easier and more productive than they thought possible based on their previous experience.

Each jam session follows the same simple structure. We open with a 5-minute write using the “I am a writer from…” invitation and then two 10-minute writing sessions using the thematic invitation of the week. I do require that each student share after each writing session but I give them three choices: share a selected line or two; share what inspired your writing; or share what you wrote about in general terms. During our final round of sharing students are invited to share a longer selection of writing if they choose. We follow New Orleans writing marathon rules and simply say “thank you” after a writer shares.

After three rounds of writing and sharing, I briefly explain the work of the week (which takes place asynchronously online) and how the writing they completed that week fits into that work and/or the deliverable for the unit currently in progress then allow room for questions. I expect this week and next week this time may also include students asking questions about their drafts-in-progress. What matters to me is that my students are writing and thinking about their writing as well as the writing of others. All this writing and sharing is building a community of writers and that is entirely the point.

Orientation

But I can never forget that this is not a writing retreat attended only by choice. Our community of writers has been brought together by an institution for a specific purpose. Also, much of our work together takes place outside the writing marathon, or jam session, space and I need to introduce all of this while not diluting our writing time. For several years my solution to balancing that introduction to the details of our work with the actual work involved a quick drive through the syllabus hitting the key points and policies, but in recent years I abandoned that process for a combination orientation slideshow and quiz for students to complete outside of class. Then last fall when our pandemic exhaustion was high I knew that I could no longer continue that ridiculous practice (what was I thinking?).

My simple solution was inspired by my work with HyperDocs and my introduction (via #NWP and Remi Kalir) to #Annotation and #MarginalSyllabus. I crafted a Google form that begins with sending students to my syllabus to annotate the Google doc with their peers. For many years, I treated my syllabus as an institutional document that contained nothing about my teaching priorities or style. Now I use this document to communicate to my students about my priorities and methods and the annotation process underscores the collaborative nature of the class. The syllabus includes sections such as Blackboard Communication Channels to explain how and where students can find information, help from the community, and communicate with me. I introduce the Jam Sessions on the syllabus as well as the HyperDocs we will use to support our asynchronous work. Of course, my syllabus includes other details you might expect to see such as a list of texts we will use, but in my general education writing classes that is a list of links to open access texts such as OWL @ Purdue MLA Guide, Writing Commons, American Creed, and This I Believe. The policy section of my syllabus includes all the usual boilerplate text required by my institution but my attendance policy flexes to allow for a mix of synchronous and asynchronous work to count as attendance and a generous two-week no-questions-asked and no-documentation-required window to complete that work of each week with the option to work out an alternative program with me if necessary. I included both physical and mental health in this policy and added a long list of health and other support resources in hopes that students will find them helpful. The syllabus wraps up with the traditional list of assessments and course calendar, but more important introduces students to my #ungrading plan.

After annotating the syllabus, my Google form guides students through a quick review of the highlights. It is presented as a quiz but the answers are mostly ridiculously silly and so lower the stakes for students:

The “review” questions also feature a lot of memes, mom jokes, and really dated references to things like batphones and old westerns and classic music (yes, I actually embed these videos but students don’t need to watch them). I hope this process helps students understand my priorities as well as my personality and it also gives me a hint of their sense of humor – also frankly I giggle my way through the quiz and sometimes I just need that.

I am still working to streamline this introduction, but this process is a definite improvement over the past and getting better with every iteration. I am extremely pleased with my jam sessions and how they have helped us connect as people and develop our writing muscles. How do you begin your work with your students? Does your class introduction serve multiple purposes?

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

Author: Deanna Mascle
#TeachingWriting and leading #NWP site @ Morehead State (KY): Passionate about #AuthenticWriting, #DeeperLearning, #PBL, #Ungrading, and #HyperDocs.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.