Error Gone Right

I made a mistake in my class. It wasn’t a big mistake, but it was a mistake. This semester I’m teaching an experimental writing class. Like all classes I teach, I have a notebook where I write out my lesson plans and notes for the course.  I keep these notebooks so that I can refer to them the next time I teach the course. Now I’m going to be honest. I don’t always write out the most detailed lesson plans, but at the very least I do write down the plan for the day, particularly the order of how things will go and a loose time frame to keep me on track. So for the first day of my experimental class, here is what I wrote down in my book:

Roster–attendance
Introductions (introduce one another, recommend a movie)
Go over syllabus & course
Postcard exercise
Write 20-25 mins. read aloud,
Maybe take break before read aloud?
Label – maybe in pairs? maybe in three?
Pass out poems –begin talking about genre
Explain homework – turn postcard ex into another genre

 
So the first day of the semester I went to class, opened my teaching book and began. I introduced myself, went over the roster, and passed out the syllabus.  I talked about the course, about the writing we would be doing, what the grading policy would be for this pass/fail course. Then we began our first writing exercise.  We all wrote and then we began the process of reading our pieces out loud.
 
I like beginning a writing class like this. I think it sets the tone for the type of writing community I want to foster—a community where we write together and share our work.  I also like to use what I call the postcard exercise—I have a box of postcards that I throw on the table, ask each student to select three postcards and then generate a piece of writing that incorporates all three.  I like to begin with this exercise because it reinforces one of the basic assumptions for any writing class that I teach—there is no right way to do an assignment and part of the assignment is negotiating how to do the exercise. Asking the students to read out loud what they have written also helps to break the ice. All their voices get entered into our classroom space on the very first day.  This also gives me the opportunity to show the students that I mean what I say. As they go around and read their pieces I say something to validate each piece. (Just a note this isn’t hard or by any means a stretch. I have done this exercise many semesters with many different students and every writer does something surprising, interesting, beautiful, and great. I am also constantly amazed at how many different ways students find to create a piece of writing out of three random postcards.)
 
As usual when we begin to read what we had written I reminded the students to say their names so we could begin the process of learning everyone’s names. Everyone did, but as we went around the circle I had the nagging feeling that I had forgotten something. It wasn’t until we took our break and I looked down at my teaching book that I realized that I had forgotten to have the students introduce themselves. I introduced myself to them, but I forgot to have them introduce themselves to one another! What an idiot! I thought to myself.  All this talk about building a writing community and I forgot to do the most basic part—have them introduce themselves! Looking down at my teaching book I had to decide quickly. I could skip the introductions and just continue on with the class. That way I wouldn’t look like the absent-minded professor in front of them. I could do the introductions and pretend that was the plan all along, but they might think it was odd since as upperclassmen they know the routine of these small classes. Or I could just fess up and ask them to introduce themselves.
 
I decided to confess my error. When they came back from the break I said, “I just realized I forgot to have you introduce yourselves to one another.  I was so intent on going over the course that I forget to have you do that. So we’ll do it now.”
 
“Yeah,” one of the students said. “I thought you were going to make us do that, but I’m glad you didn’t. I liked that we wrote first.”
 
“Okay, “I said. “Why don’t we go around and introduce ourselves and tell us about a movie you would recommend us to see.”
 
So as they began to go around the table and tell us the usual things about themselves and the movies they like I began to realize that maybe, just maybe this is an error that had gone right. The students seemed a bit more relaxed while giving their introductions, they seemed to be listening to one another a bit more, they seemed to laugh a bit more, they seemed to be a bit more engaged with one another. Although asking the students to introduce to one another seems like a great way to begin a writing class (and I’m not saying that I would ever give it up) maybe it seems to the students a bit artificial. Maybe saying your name, your major, etc. is just the routine way of interacting in a college community. Granted I have tried to break this up a bit by asking to recommend a movie—giving them something else to say as a way to connect to one another. But maybe having shared their writing with one another first gave them something to connect with, something that gave them the sense that they were already getting to know one another.
 
So maybe the way to build a writing community is to actually have them engage together in the process of writing as soon as possible.  Maybe this is a mistake I will make again.

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