This is the first August since 2009 that I am not heading back to school and I have to admit it feels odd. I have been involved with education for most of my adult life and much of that in the classroom. I want to share the fruits of my long experience in the classroom as a person who has spent the majority of her life as either a student or teacher (or sometimes both at once). While I have identified eight key tips below, they all support one essential strategy for teachers: build community. Community supports teaching and learning. Community supports writers. Community supports humans.
Every educator has been forced to learn about icebreakers and bell ringers, often at some well-intentioned but problematic mandatory professional development session, but too often those exercises are ineffective time wasters that squander your first opportunity to connect with your students, demonstrate your expertise, and show the value of what you teach. Worst of all, they do nothing to support your actual community. Back in 2019 I fervently argued for handcrafted icebreakers to set the tone for your class community and jumpstart the work. In 2015 and 2016, I combined my icebreaker exercise with an introduction to argument (see 2016 revision). I have also argued that bell ringers will improve your class. I have repeatedly pitched the power starting write and starting the year off write as well as how focusing on writing to build community brings the power to your classroom. Over the years I have experimented with many different ways to introduce myself as well as jumpstart our community building with a wide range of methods to share students’ individual introductions (see also Exploring Identity and Vulnerability). However, in the aftermath of the pandemic and all the damage done to students, educators, and the system, I found it necessary to simplify and focus on the bare necessity of Creating a Joyfully Authentic Community through community rituals, fun, and authentic writing/learning. This choice enhanced my teaching experience and my students highlighted this focus in their reflections. There is one simple community ritual that proved the most effective of all and replaced all previous icebreaker exercises: Writing Into Community. This ritual rippled throughout our learning and community building in so many delightful ways.
Focusing on the humanity of my community of writers has also helped me become a better teacher and build a stronger community which benefited both teacher and students. Understanding your audience is essential to both rhetoric and writing and when I shifted my praxis to emphasize authentic texts and authentic writing as well as centering our personal growth as humans in addition to writing I saw a dramatic improvement in student writing and attitude toward their writing. I used one simple bell ringer as a community-building ritual to transform my classroom.
Supporting a newly formed community of learners requires deliberate attention. Some of my favorite tools that support my writing communities include creating a writing workshop and sharing our writing journeys. I began my teaching career using writing portfolios and the logbook offers the advantages of the writing portfolio, but also helps students see the connection between their low-stakes writing and final deliverable. Writing workshop has always been central to my praxis as a writing teacher because it is also central to my experience as a writer and National Writing Project teacher/writer. That workshop approach has always included multiple drafts and feedback, but in the final years of teaching I regularly scheduled workshop days where I could offer the just-in-time instruction/feedback my students needed. The truth is that a writing workshop and feedback loops are powerful tools for writing, but only work if you have taken the time to build community. In the early part of my teaching career it was common to schedule individual writing conferences with students, but I landed on workshop days as a much more effective strategy because you can rely on the power of the community. In particular, reflective feedback loops help struggling writers ask better questions and seek their own solutions to challenges as well as empower their community to problem solve without need of instructor intervention.
I have long been a supporter of online and hybrid education – both in general and for writing in specific. In fact, it is my extensive experience teaching in both formats that taught me the importance of community. I wish that American education would offer more flexible learning formats. There was a moment when I thought we were heading in that direction and then the pandemic soured everyone on online and hybrid learning. Early in my career I created and piloted my institution’s first online composition classes and continued to teach online writing until my retirement. I have loved teaching writing in all three formats: in person, hybrid, and online and know my students have grown and connected in all three formats. There are personal and life challenges that make each of these formats better for the individual instructor and student, but in my experience none of these formats is better or worse than the other – if you focus on building community and good pedagogy. In my final years of teaching I was often teaching both in-person and online writing and through my use of logbooks and hyperdocs as well as reflective feedback loops my online students felt as connected and supported as those in the classroom. The simple truth is that good community practices support learning and solve classroom problems whether you are teaching in person, online, or hybrid.
One of the most common mistakes when it comes to supporting a community of learners is to fail to stick the landing. I know I have made this mistake often and when I began deliberating on how to land softly the end-of-semester experience got immeasurably better for me and my students. In my final years of teaching I spent a lot of time crafting the best way to wrap up the semester through writing. We enjoyed word play, we celebrated ourselves and our community, and we reflected on our journey. I cannot endorse enough the decision to land softly by wrapping write. Lowering the stakes for yourself and your students is always a gift worth giving.
I believe in the power of community to support teaching and learning, in all content areas, but especially when it comes to writing. Check out these eight strategies for creating and supporting a community of writers including ways to softly land your work:
- In my final years of teaching I leaned into the simplicity of opening each class – including our first meeting – with the writing invitation: My name is ___ and I am a writer from… and the powerful repetition of this bell ringer created a community of writers every single time.
- The best choice I ever made as a teacher was to focus on creating a joyfully authentic community and that choice was repeatedly endorsed by my students.
- My bottom line as a writing instructor was to help the writers in my care develop the rhetorical skills to continue their journey after they leave my classroom. Our logbooks served as a record of our navigation of that journey recording important events along the way.
- I truly love a writing workshop class session where students can choose their own adventure and the level of support they need. One of the best things about a M-W-F class schedule was when it gave me the opportunity to designate every Friday a workshop day.
- Students have changed since the pandemic was the straw that broke education’s back, but one of the most effective ways I found to combat issues with attendance and work ethic was to lean into our humanity.
- I will forever and always shout from the rooftops that all readers have something to teach writers and restricting feedback to the instructor is malpractice at best and the road to destruction at worst. Reflective feedback loops are one of my secret weapons for teaching writing because students learn how to ask for the help they need (rather than simply whining that they are stuck) as well as learning to help themselves thanks to their experience helping others work through writing challenges.
- Simple low-stakes literacy activities can provide both respite and a capstone for learning. Focusing on celebration, play, and reflection at the end of a semester or year can be just what everyone needs.
- Landing softly is about preparing for that landing before the semester begins and working toward that soft landing all semester.
