Experience & Reflection: Writing to Improve Teaching
Part-time Faculty, Marriott School of Management
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking,
what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.” 1-Joan Didion
It’s just part of a teacher’s job—encouraging, usually requiring, students to write. With increasing frequency, secondary and college-level instructors augment more traditional student composition assignments with reflective writing: “a tool for connecting thought, feeling, and action—a synthesizing tool that works from the inside out and outside in. The act of writing in and of itself leads to a level of understanding that would often not otherwise occur. That is, the writing itself is generative; something happens while you are writing.” 2
Here’s a twist on that old theme: I suggest teachers take the same advice and do more writing of their own. Not just more of the academic variety that harnesses the latest research for publication, or the scribbled feedback that elicits dread or elation in students. No, I think teachers need to write to capture and examine events that occur in the process of teaching. Simply jotting down the details of what happens in class can be instructive; keeping a log in virtually any undertaking has intrinsic value. But add to that the “so what?” element, and the piece begins to take form and spirit. Writing about teaching and how one feels about his or her experiences behind the lectern&mdahs;and, more significantly, about perceptions of student growth and learning that result&mdahs;can help a teacher in at least three critical ways.
First, describing and pondering events in the classroom preserve a momentarily memorable episode that otherwise slips predictably into the hazy blur of things forgotten. Take, for instance, the following account of a riveting episode I experienced some years ago in a corporate classroom in Asia. The experience was worth remembering for its own sake, but the take-aways I absorbed on later reflection were even more valuable. Incidentally, I employed the letter-as-journal technique to record this particular event and addressed it to my niece Angela who listens, wide-eyed, to nearly all of Aunt Suzy’s stories. Her enthusiastic reception brings out the best in my expression, so when I want to tell it best to my teaching or personal journal, I often address the entry to Angie. She may not read my writing for years (she may never read it, for that matter), but the image of her rapt attention, complete with furrowed brow, giggles, and exclamations, makes my record-keeping effort a pleasant sharing activity.
Dear Angela,
What would you have done? I just stood there by the window of my teaching booth, frozen by the kaleidoscopic explosion of gunfire from the building next door. The guns (I could see them; they were poised on a deck of the building at about the same height as my seventeenth-story classroom) fired round after round at their target, a jet now struggling lamely across the darkening skyline of Seoul, South Korea. [Turns out this is not an entirely atypical scenario even in peacetime; aircraft are not allowed to fly over the city, so the “shoot first, ask questions later” policy applies.]
So there I was, Angie, a brand-new college graduate, bravely attempting my first “real” job: English instructor to about fifty young men&mdahs;fast-track engineers, architects, and businessmen employed by Hyundai, one of South Korea’s major construction firms. Only minutes earlier I had been sitting at my switchboard, plugging in to each student’s headset to help him pronounce new vocabulary and taking in the magic of the city at twilight, amazed anew that opportunity and preparation had brought me nine thousand miles from home to new adventure.
The glamour was fading fast, however, and turning into genuine terror; startled students began to rip off their headsets and bolt from their carrels. A couple ventured toward the window where I stood, urging me to follow them out the door at the opposite end of the room. But I could only stand there, feet planted like redwoods, fascinated by the horror of watching a real plane being shot at by real guns…3
Whenever I reread my account of that evening in Seoul, I’m almost there again: my heart beats a little faster and I vividly sense anew how immobilizing fear can be.
Upon years of reflection, another important lesson repeatedly comes to the fore—teachers often do well to follow the lead of their students. I would have been wiser on that occasion to exit the classroom posthaste with the wide-eyed others than to succumb to the temptation of terrified curiosity.
I’ve never encountered that brand of danger in a classroom since, but I’m reminded that not all dangers are physical. One of the greatest threats to learning is the mentor who refuses to take counsel from the protégé. More could be written on that subject—a journal entry for another day.
Next, the teacher who writes about teaching will likely observe instructive patterns—repeating events or cycles which, when noted, may prompt welcome course corrections. Here’s an illustration: I finally took time a few years ago to jot a note to myself about the high number of poorly constructed “bad-news” letters submitted every semester. The point of the bad-news letter-writing assignment is for students to learn how to write an effective “no” response—“I can’t accept your application, refund your money, hire you in spite of your stellar qualifications”—in a clear yet respectful way, offering the recipient whatever alternative accommodations may be possible. Successfully writing such a letter is harder than it may seem; it requires students to develop or refine skills related to empathy, timing, and careful verbal construction void of ambiguity.
After a few seconds of unstructured penciled musings about the perpetual problem with the quality of bad-news letters I was receiving, I had an epiphany, one of those “discoveries” so obvious given a little thought. Turns out my in-class discussion of this assignment mirrored my inadequate written description in the course syllabus: both simply missed the mark in terms of sufficient detail. Which is why, on one occasion, a student actually turned in a sloppily composed family/neighborhood update (he thought I wanted to see a “bad newsletter”).
More often, students submitted either abrupt letters, so crisp and pointed as to be downright rude—“No, you don’t get your money back, have a nice day”—or carefully cushioned epistles, tedious and overly polite and completely enshrouding the unfortunate message that prompted the letter in the first place! (In the latter case, I often thought of the fairytale “The Princess and the Pea.” The bad-news “pea” was buried under so many conciliatory and patronizing verbal “mattresses” as to remain undetected by average, nonroyal folk.)
With the clarity that often rewards even circular thought and composition, I quickly restructured both written and oral specs of the bad-news letter-writing assignment. It was a simple intervention. And my students, for the most part, now submit carefully crafted bad-news letters that elevate the professional sandwich treatment practically to an art form.
Finally, writing observations and feelings about individual students can help a teacher remember, temporarily at least, how it feels to be on the receiving end. Greater understanding and patience often result from this exercise. I confess I don’t write about my students all that often. Occasionally I’ll comment in my journal about an exceptionally fine student effort or possibly a searing disappointment.
Now and then I’ll write about a particularly challenging individual. One such person—I’ll call him Jake—enrolled in my evening management communication course a while back, complete with a late add form and a chip on his shoulder. For the first ten weeks of the course, Jake sat on the back row and alternately glared and scowled. Meanwhile, he had turned into something of an enigma; his written assignments were unusually well done, yet his attitude toward classmates and me was less than positive. He was fast becoming a regular in my reflections journal.
One night Jake arrived half an hour late and in his typical foul mood. He slid backward in his seat, crossed his arms, and refused to participate other than to mumble periodic expletives to no one in particular. My frustration finally peaked; for the first time in my teaching career, I seriously contemplated putting class on hold, marching up to Jake, and motioning him out to the hall with me where I planned to send him on his way with the most severe warning I could muster.
And then it happened: Into my mind came the essence of earlier written contemplations on the Jake Syndrome. In less inflammatory moments, I had pondered on my keyboard why Jake might be acting in such egregious ways. I concluded, finally, that even if I didn’t know the reason, there definitely was a reason; after all, no sane person purposefully sets out to alienate peers and teachers with such breathtaking efficiency.
That recollection was followed by an idea that startled me in its paradox and simplicity. What this guy needs, my inner voice whispered, is love and acceptance. Give it, give all you’ve got, and give it now.
Ignoring my natural inclination to evict Jake on the spot, I listened to that holier impulse and then said something like, “I’m going to divide the class in half for a few minutes, and I need someone to help me teach subjunctive mood to the group on the left. Jake, you’re it. Come down and work with these folks here.”
Clearly surprised, Jake murmured something unintelligible but then strode briskly to the front of the room, where he proceeded to engage his half of the classroom in one of the finest grammatical processing sessions I’d ever seen, albeit from the corner of my eye. He spoke boldly and definitively, involving virtually every student in his half of the room (and some from my side, as well). Afterward he returned to his seat at the back and grinned for the remaining few moments of class. When I dismissed the students for another week, Jake caught my eye and winked!
But that isn’t the end of the story. When I got home later that evening, I found this e-mail message from none other than my once nemesis, Jake himself:
I would like to apologize for my behavior in class tonight…. I just found out that I am getting an automatic “F” in my science class because I didn’t sign the roll for the first two weeks of class and my teacher won’t budge on the issue. I also have several people angry at me for things I did not do, and I was not feeling like doing anything. As a matter of fact, I missed my first two classes today but for some reason attended yours. I did not want to participate in teamwork, I did not want to be cordial, and I did not want to take the quiz. Although what I wrote instead of the quiz might express some of my sentiments, I am not at all opposed to learning the right way to do things….In any case, I do have a passion for grammar, and in the end, the class brought me out of my slump. Imagine that—learning grammar put me in a good mood. I am glad you did not get frustrated with me….I am grateful for my involvement in your class.
Have a wonderful night,
Jake
I confess that experience was one of a kind, at least so far. Rarely does student rehab occur in such textbook fashion—but the dream lived on throughout that semester and beyond. Jake has since sent me a wedding announcement and a request for a letter of recommendation for law school, along with the occasional e-mail update on life.
Can it really be that simple? A few thoughtful notations in my journal that prompted a counterintuitive response at a pivotal moment, changing a relationship and possibly even a life forever? Yes, I think so; the practice of writing—even pedestrian, unremarkable writing—often unleashes a power unimagined in common hours (to broadly paraphrase a related sentiment by Thoreau).
Documenting events and their lessons; exploring and correcting what isn’t working so well; and trading virtual places with students via empathic journaling—these are only three routes to writing one’s way to better teaching. And why not invent a few more while we’re at it? After all, declares noted educator William Zinsser, “Writing and thinking and learning [are] the same process.” 4
This essay first appeared in The National Teaching & Learning Forum, Vol. 16, No. 2, February 2007. Reprinted with permission.
Notes
- Joan Didion, The New York Times Magazine, December 5, 1976.
- Jack Mezirow and Associates, Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990).
- Susan Eliason, “Dear Angela: Corresponding with my Journal,” Ensign (January 1991): 72.
- William Zinsser, Writing to Learn (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), ix.