Real World - Columbia
When Writers Start Getting Real
compiled by James Lower / photos by Ian Merritt
You know how it goes at all those rooftop fundraisers you go to over the summer, right? Alright, well neither do I. But if we did, there’d be some highly paid, starched-collar professional, a friend of your parents, who asks, “And what is it that you go to school for?” And you reply, “Actually, I’m a writer.” After the requisite, “Ohhhhh,” and a pregnant silence, the pro scoffs and says, “Well, what exactly do you plan to do with that?” Hypothetically, we’d like to grab this person by their collar and spit, “Lay off! I like telling stories!” But over time we’ve realized that even though these people might not be genuinely curious, it’s still a great question. A degree in writing could just be one of the most versatile degrees around in terms of what you can do with it. Just look at our alumni. This is the true story of five alumni who wound up living in Chicago and reporting back on what happens when writers stop being broke ... and start getting real. From public relations to National Public Radio to the high school English classroom. From the freelance hustle to the towers of the Tribune. With an incredible amount of hard work, luck, and patience, this is where your degree can take you: just about anywhere
Drew Ferguson
Vice President, Corporate/
Financial at Ketchum
MFA in Creative Writing ’98
I’d like to be noble and say that I got into public relations because I thought it was an important field, that the work I did would free the flow of information, that it would allow companies to better communicate with the public, but that’d be a lie. I got into public relations for two reasons: 1) The money (it’s weird how people say “selling out” like it’s a bad thing) and 2) because I can say I lie for a living (or at the very least, I hedge or exaggerate the truth), which for me is about the most productive use of a fiction writing degree outside of writing fiction. I’ve heard other writers discuss how there aren’t factory jobs that pay for writing fiction, but PR is damn close.
In fact, you’d almost swear that the Story Workshop method of teaching writing was designed to produce flacks—and of course, most flacks never took a class in the Fiction Writing Department. The dirty little secret about public relations is that too many people in the field can’t write, they don’t understand their audience, and they’re too busy overanalyzing everything so they never see how simple things really are. PR’s supposed to be about effective communication, and the Story Workshop method of teaching writing demonstrates that the best writing is about having a strong sense of audience, understanding forms, and getting to the heart of the matter—what’s most taking your attention. Need to communicate with employees, vendors, or shareholders? You’ll find yourself smack dab in the letter form and making sure the voice and the content meet the needs of the audience. Need to write a press release or develop a pitch for a reporter? You look at the material you’ve been given and you rely on that old Take-A-Place coaching to go to the moment or thing that’s most taking your attention, and voila, you’ve likely got your news hook. Best of all, you can find yourself in plenty of truth-is-stranger-thanfiction moments—trying to explain a maritime disaster to the New York Times, writing a draft of a speech for the U.S. President, trying to convince CEOs that it’s not really appropriate to bad-mouth nuns or try and take a hit out on them, writing someone’s Congressional testimony, or sitting in a TV studio green room with Chaka Khan. After a while, everything, no matter how strange it is, has a been there, done that vibe to it.
And that’s what makes returning to your own fiction—the stuff you aren’t writing on the job—all the easier. Is it hard to write your own novel when you’ve been writing all day? Sure, but it’s probably no harder than writing after serving cappuccinos, working construction, or whatever else other gainfully employed people do to earn their scratch. Whatever takes us away from our own writing sucks, but the thing is, when you’re writing for other people all day, that just makes your own writing even more important. Bottom line: PR’s a day job that was practically made for fiction writers. It pays, leaves you time to write, and sets you up brilliantly for promoting your own book when it’s published.
Jessica M. Young
Regular Contributor to WBEZ’s
Eight Forty-Eight
MFA in Fiction Writing ’08
Radio is definitely not a medium I thought would suit me as a writer, but looking back, it seems like an obvious choice. I have some performance training, which gives me a strong sense of voice and listening, and as a writer, I have no shortage of emotions and opinions about the world around me. After working with a connected friend who got me plugged into the scene, and receiving some great guidance and encouragement from
producers, I was hooked.
The most important thing I rely on when writing for the radio is an immediate sense of audience. A larger audience is something that, in school, seems a bit more conceptual. It’s easy to say that people outside the semicircle are listening, but sometimes that’s hard to believe. When I’m working on a radio essay, I know it’s going to be reaching people the moment it airs: It’s the soundtrack for a morning commute or errand; it’s the company for a mom who’s just putting her son down for his morning nap; or the window to the city for a retiree who’s interested in what’s going on in his community. I imagine all these people and more, on the other sides of their radios listening to WBEZ, my voice pouring out of their speakers. I know about the listeners who make public radio a part of their day: They’re thoughtful, they’re engaged, they’re curious, and they’re smart, and if I don’t grab them, then they’re lost. My awareness of audience helps me
consider how best to reach them, so that what happens to me, what matters to me, doesn’t just seem like the random isolated thoughts and experiences of one woman, but is identifiable, understandable, and universal.
My training from Columbia College comes into play in a big way here. I regularly rely on my voice. Voice is the thing that can never be duplicated or faked. It’s like the fingerprint on the material; you can always identify a writer by his voice, if you listen for it. Also, the work with forms I did in my classes, including the letter and the how-to, are key at heightening my sense of telling and direct address. When I am telling scenes or models, I must make sure that the writing is sharp and tight enough so that the listener on the other end can see clearly what I see. I don’t have a lot of words like in longer-form fiction, nor do I have the benefit of an in-person telling. I must rely on the writing and make it as clear and concise as possible. I always take my sense of telling to someone with me into the essays I write.
I remember I have something to communicate, and that helps me write.
A short-form essay can be evocative, poignant, funny, and even confrontational. I work thoughtfully and carefully at writing for the radio, which, at its best, can be any and all of these things. I like it when I know the Eight Forty-Eight listeners heard my words, and it made the hair on the backs of their necks stand up, and that whatever their response to my writing was, they never stopped listening.
Columbia has tuned my sense of audience so finely that I make that my goal every time I sit down in front of the microphone.
Brandi Kleinert Larsen
Director, Content for Tribune
Interactive
BA in Fiction
Writing expected ’11
What That Means: I’m in charge of national lifestyle and television content for the Tribune’s network of Web sites.
What I do is tell stories.
One of the greatest advantages of taking classes in the Fiction Writing Department is that it’s helped me hone my perceptions. I ask myself the same questions whether I’m writing a short story or building a photo gallery: What is taking my attention? Is this a full movement? Am I telling this from the best point of view? Is the story that’s on the page the story I want to tell? What surprises me? What’s here that’s unexpected?
The Story Workshop method has also helped me to approach my job differently. The hours I’ve spent around the semicircle doing recall and comment help me analyze feedback from our users. If the team I work with has published a new section and a web producer at one of the TV stations comes to us with criticism, I’m able to look at what took her attention without the baggage of “Someone just said something bad about our work.” The Workshop gave me the freedom to wonder, “Why is this taking her attention?”
It’s also helped me when I have to point out things that could be improved. Instead of telling folks to change an element without giving a justification for it, I can speak to what’s working (the recall)
and then ask questions about what isn’t. By commenting on their work, I’m able to tap into my employees’ creativity, too, and oftentimes they come up with surprises that I hadn’t even considered—making everything we do stronger.
On a good day, I get up early (around 5 a.m.) to write. A few hours later, I head into the office and then, around 5:30 p.m., I race to class and I spend the next four and a half hours dreaming up my own stories. Yeah, it’s tiring, but I believe the creativity that my classes spark carries over to my job. During an oral telling, I’m seeing what’s going on in my story (when things are going well), but when an instructor asks, “What happens next?” I’m problem solving on the fly, because I often don’t know what’s going to happen. I ask the same question of myself the following morning as I write, and I try and come up with good solutions. I look at the story every which way, trying to keep myself in the moment, as I ask myself what the story really needs. A few hours later, when I’m at work, I’m already warmed up, so when a problem comes to me, I’m able to look at it from a few different angles and figure out the best solution. I know I’m running on all cylinders when even that answer comes to me as a surprise. I especially love that writing fiction has given me a sense of play—not only at work, but also in how I look at life.
Rob Duffer
Freelancer Extraordinaire
MFA in Fiction Writing ’05
www.robertduffer.com
My first paying writing gig was with The Tap, a short-lived but beloved Chicago bar journal published by Matt Richmond, a retired tap dancer and journalism grad at CCC. I was a bartender and first-year MFA student, so 5 cents a word, a byline, a chance, and a free drink or two was plenty. The Tap folded and I learned my first lesson in freelancing: Nothing stays the same.
In the four months I wrote for Bowen, Guerrero & Howe, Chicago-based parent company of such internationally renowned journals as Canadian Builders Quarterly, there were three different editors. Same thing at Chicago Scene, plus one too many kerfuffles to make it worthwhile. Places like Centerstage are staging grounds for up-and-coming editors. What Newcity lacks in accurate bookkeeping it makes up for in long-term relationships. Chicago Public Radio’s Eight Forty-Eight and TimeOut Chicago have been great regular gigs, but freelancers are always last on the list of creditors. The Trib sent me bankruptcy papers instead of a six-month-old paycheck. The biggest headache of the freelancing hustle—and it is a hustle— is getting paid regularly. The biggest difference between freelancing and fiction writing is freelancers expect to get paid. Submitting your fiction and pitching your freelancing share more similarities than differences.
Starting out, expect to write for free to get clips and the experience of seeing how mangled or polished an idea can go from pitch to print. It’s nice to get something out of it, like free books, in addition to the byline. Before I wrote literary articles for TimeOut, Eight Forty-Eight, Centerstage, Examiner, and others, I was reviewing literary journals and indie books for New Pages. All New Pages wanted was a sample review.
There are two ways to go about freelancing: pitching and Craigslist. Some of those FREELANCE WRITER WANTD[sic] ads on Craigslist are legit, and some are sales jobs. The alternative is to come up with your own idea and find an interested editor. Read the mastheads of the mags you like, check the Web site, send an e-mail to a writer/editor and reference a specific piece or recurring feature you admire. The hardest part is making contact.
Like submitting your fiction, pitch to markets you’re familiar with, especially to someone you know who’s just launched a new endeavor. Work with any editor you can at the start, because the editorial turnover is so high at younger publications—especially online—that you can form a solid relationship as that editor, and your writing, move on to bigger markets. A Newcity assignment led to the Chicago Scene link which led to the Trib work which eventually led to the pinnacle of local freelancing, this fictionary request. The ideal is to get to the point where editors are pitching ideas to you to write, so you have to establish relationships.
Pitch to several places. Customize the pitch for the appropriate person, reference what section you think it’ll fit, then keep the meat of the pitch—what it’s about—the same for the next five editors you send it to. Use the jargon of the trade: profile, service piece, interview, essay, narrative, preview (if you’re not sure, look it up). Follow up at least twice. I’ve had many articles published where the editor remembered the pitch after I followed up. Don’t worry about being annoying, but don’t be sociopathic, either. If you don’t hear back after two follow-ups, move on, she’s not interested. Even if the follow-up is unrequited, at least the editor will recognize your name and associate it with professionalism the next time you pitch.
Getting no response is the norm for freelancers. Again, like your fiction submissions, it’s not personal (unless you write “I’m really desperate”). There are plenty of markets and editors who are looking for fresh ideas. Nice. Now the fun part starts—the researching, interviewing, and writing. Even writing about steel-frame warehouses in Manitoba relied on the same elements of storytelling as fiction: character, narrative, and audience.
There’s no way of knowing where the hustle will take you, only that you’ll be a lot farther along
than if you never played.
Anne Smit
High School English Teacher
B.A. in Fiction Writing ‘06
I work in hallways filled with teenagers shouting out the latest drama and gossip, where sweaty boys and overly made-up girls hang all over one another between classes, holding onto that last embrace before the bell rings. And that’s just it, their passion and enthusiasm is unrivaled, and that is why I love teaching high school English. The difference between teaching high school and teaching college is that most high school students don’t want to be here; they are not interested in school, and they are most certainly not interested in reading and writing. This presents a challenge, but it’s one that I’ve accepted. I’m passionate about reading and writing, and it is my hope that my students will see my passion and begin to develop their own.
For me as a writer, the only other way to hone my craft—outside of writing—is to teach. I chose Columbia because I wanted to learn the craft and art of writing. I wanted to understand voice and style and structure and story first, then I went back to school to learn the fundamentals of teaching. The skills I acquired at Columbia shaped me as a teacher. The semicircle ingrained these skills in me, and I still coach my students to “See it,” “Listen to your voice,” and “Get your voice up.”
In my classroom, we also sit in semicircles. I use it to create a comfortable learning environment, to encourage participation and keep students engaged. Teaching high school doesn’t have to mean rows and rows of desks and staring at the back of someone else’s head. Students don’t learn this way. My goal is to create a place where students can collaborate and work together, listening and sharing responses in a place where they feel safe and accepted.
Earlier in the year, my juniors were working on their own short stories. I received one very racy, sexually charged piece. The two characters went from kissing, to removing clothes, to…“pump after pump after pump he slows down because her knees start to shake.” Now this is never appropriate in high school, and as a teacher, it was my job to convey this. But to come at the student with rules and chains and negativity would only extinguish his creativity. As a teacher, I need to recognize each student’s strengths and encourage them. The most important thing to remember is that the student was writing, and he was very aware of sensory details and movement and voice—maybe he needed to focus more on audience and grammar—but as his teacher, I need to acknowledge his strengths first. Sadly, many teachers take away a student’s voice when they spend so much time cleaning up content and grammar. Well, I will never be one of those teachers.
compiled by James Lower / photos by Ian Merritt
You know how it goes at all those rooftop fundraisers you go to over the summer, right? Alright, well neither do I. But if we did, there’d be some highly paid, starched-collar professional, a friend of your parents, who asks, “And what is it that you go to school for?” And you reply, “Actually, I’m a writer.” After the requisite, “Ohhhhh,” and a pregnant silence, the pro scoffs and says, “Well, what exactly do you plan to do with that?” Hypothetically, we’d like to grab this person by their collar and spit, “Lay off! I like telling stories!” But over time we’ve realized that even though these people might not be genuinely curious, it’s still a great question. A degree in writing could just be one of the most versatile degrees around in terms of what you can do with it. Just look at our alumni. This is the true story of five alumni who wound up living in Chicago and reporting back on what happens when writers stop being broke ... and start getting real. From public relations to National Public Radio to the high school English classroom. From the freelance hustle to the towers of the Tribune. With an incredible amount of hard work, luck, and patience, this is where your degree can take you: just about anywhere
Drew FergusonVice President, Corporate/
Financial at Ketchum
MFA in Creative Writing ’98
I’d like to be noble and say that I got into public relations because I thought it was an important field, that the work I did would free the flow of information, that it would allow companies to better communicate with the public, but that’d be a lie. I got into public relations for two reasons: 1) The money (it’s weird how people say “selling out” like it’s a bad thing) and 2) because I can say I lie for a living (or at the very least, I hedge or exaggerate the truth), which for me is about the most productive use of a fiction writing degree outside of writing fiction. I’ve heard other writers discuss how there aren’t factory jobs that pay for writing fiction, but PR is damn close.
In fact, you’d almost swear that the Story Workshop method of teaching writing was designed to produce flacks—and of course, most flacks never took a class in the Fiction Writing Department. The dirty little secret about public relations is that too many people in the field can’t write, they don’t understand their audience, and they’re too busy overanalyzing everything so they never see how simple things really are. PR’s supposed to be about effective communication, and the Story Workshop method of teaching writing demonstrates that the best writing is about having a strong sense of audience, understanding forms, and getting to the heart of the matter—what’s most taking your attention. Need to communicate with employees, vendors, or shareholders? You’ll find yourself smack dab in the letter form and making sure the voice and the content meet the needs of the audience. Need to write a press release or develop a pitch for a reporter? You look at the material you’ve been given and you rely on that old Take-A-Place coaching to go to the moment or thing that’s most taking your attention, and voila, you’ve likely got your news hook. Best of all, you can find yourself in plenty of truth-is-stranger-thanfiction moments—trying to explain a maritime disaster to the New York Times, writing a draft of a speech for the U.S. President, trying to convince CEOs that it’s not really appropriate to bad-mouth nuns or try and take a hit out on them, writing someone’s Congressional testimony, or sitting in a TV studio green room with Chaka Khan. After a while, everything, no matter how strange it is, has a been there, done that vibe to it.
And that’s what makes returning to your own fiction—the stuff you aren’t writing on the job—all the easier. Is it hard to write your own novel when you’ve been writing all day? Sure, but it’s probably no harder than writing after serving cappuccinos, working construction, or whatever else other gainfully employed people do to earn their scratch. Whatever takes us away from our own writing sucks, but the thing is, when you’re writing for other people all day, that just makes your own writing even more important. Bottom line: PR’s a day job that was practically made for fiction writers. It pays, leaves you time to write, and sets you up brilliantly for promoting your own book when it’s published.
Jessica M. YoungRegular Contributor to WBEZ’s
Eight Forty-Eight
MFA in Fiction Writing ’08
Radio is definitely not a medium I thought would suit me as a writer, but looking back, it seems like an obvious choice. I have some performance training, which gives me a strong sense of voice and listening, and as a writer, I have no shortage of emotions and opinions about the world around me. After working with a connected friend who got me plugged into the scene, and receiving some great guidance and encouragement from
producers, I was hooked.
The most important thing I rely on when writing for the radio is an immediate sense of audience. A larger audience is something that, in school, seems a bit more conceptual. It’s easy to say that people outside the semicircle are listening, but sometimes that’s hard to believe. When I’m working on a radio essay, I know it’s going to be reaching people the moment it airs: It’s the soundtrack for a morning commute or errand; it’s the company for a mom who’s just putting her son down for his morning nap; or the window to the city for a retiree who’s interested in what’s going on in his community. I imagine all these people and more, on the other sides of their radios listening to WBEZ, my voice pouring out of their speakers. I know about the listeners who make public radio a part of their day: They’re thoughtful, they’re engaged, they’re curious, and they’re smart, and if I don’t grab them, then they’re lost. My awareness of audience helps me
consider how best to reach them, so that what happens to me, what matters to me, doesn’t just seem like the random isolated thoughts and experiences of one woman, but is identifiable, understandable, and universal.
My training from Columbia College comes into play in a big way here. I regularly rely on my voice. Voice is the thing that can never be duplicated or faked. It’s like the fingerprint on the material; you can always identify a writer by his voice, if you listen for it. Also, the work with forms I did in my classes, including the letter and the how-to, are key at heightening my sense of telling and direct address. When I am telling scenes or models, I must make sure that the writing is sharp and tight enough so that the listener on the other end can see clearly what I see. I don’t have a lot of words like in longer-form fiction, nor do I have the benefit of an in-person telling. I must rely on the writing and make it as clear and concise as possible. I always take my sense of telling to someone with me into the essays I write.
I remember I have something to communicate, and that helps me write.
A short-form essay can be evocative, poignant, funny, and even confrontational. I work thoughtfully and carefully at writing for the radio, which, at its best, can be any and all of these things. I like it when I know the Eight Forty-Eight listeners heard my words, and it made the hair on the backs of their necks stand up, and that whatever their response to my writing was, they never stopped listening.
Columbia has tuned my sense of audience so finely that I make that my goal every time I sit down in front of the microphone.
Brandi Kleinert LarsenDirector, Content for Tribune
Interactive
BA in Fiction
Writing expected ’11
What That Means: I’m in charge of national lifestyle and television content for the Tribune’s network of Web sites.
What I do is tell stories.
One of the greatest advantages of taking classes in the Fiction Writing Department is that it’s helped me hone my perceptions. I ask myself the same questions whether I’m writing a short story or building a photo gallery: What is taking my attention? Is this a full movement? Am I telling this from the best point of view? Is the story that’s on the page the story I want to tell? What surprises me? What’s here that’s unexpected?
The Story Workshop method has also helped me to approach my job differently. The hours I’ve spent around the semicircle doing recall and comment help me analyze feedback from our users. If the team I work with has published a new section and a web producer at one of the TV stations comes to us with criticism, I’m able to look at what took her attention without the baggage of “Someone just said something bad about our work.” The Workshop gave me the freedom to wonder, “Why is this taking her attention?”
It’s also helped me when I have to point out things that could be improved. Instead of telling folks to change an element without giving a justification for it, I can speak to what’s working (the recall)
and then ask questions about what isn’t. By commenting on their work, I’m able to tap into my employees’ creativity, too, and oftentimes they come up with surprises that I hadn’t even considered—making everything we do stronger.
On a good day, I get up early (around 5 a.m.) to write. A few hours later, I head into the office and then, around 5:30 p.m., I race to class and I spend the next four and a half hours dreaming up my own stories. Yeah, it’s tiring, but I believe the creativity that my classes spark carries over to my job. During an oral telling, I’m seeing what’s going on in my story (when things are going well), but when an instructor asks, “What happens next?” I’m problem solving on the fly, because I often don’t know what’s going to happen. I ask the same question of myself the following morning as I write, and I try and come up with good solutions. I look at the story every which way, trying to keep myself in the moment, as I ask myself what the story really needs. A few hours later, when I’m at work, I’m already warmed up, so when a problem comes to me, I’m able to look at it from a few different angles and figure out the best solution. I know I’m running on all cylinders when even that answer comes to me as a surprise. I especially love that writing fiction has given me a sense of play—not only at work, but also in how I look at life.
Rob DufferFreelancer Extraordinaire
MFA in Fiction Writing ’05
www.robertduffer.com
My first paying writing gig was with The Tap, a short-lived but beloved Chicago bar journal published by Matt Richmond, a retired tap dancer and journalism grad at CCC. I was a bartender and first-year MFA student, so 5 cents a word, a byline, a chance, and a free drink or two was plenty. The Tap folded and I learned my first lesson in freelancing: Nothing stays the same.
In the four months I wrote for Bowen, Guerrero & Howe, Chicago-based parent company of such internationally renowned journals as Canadian Builders Quarterly, there were three different editors. Same thing at Chicago Scene, plus one too many kerfuffles to make it worthwhile. Places like Centerstage are staging grounds for up-and-coming editors. What Newcity lacks in accurate bookkeeping it makes up for in long-term relationships. Chicago Public Radio’s Eight Forty-Eight and TimeOut Chicago have been great regular gigs, but freelancers are always last on the list of creditors. The Trib sent me bankruptcy papers instead of a six-month-old paycheck. The biggest headache of the freelancing hustle—and it is a hustle— is getting paid regularly. The biggest difference between freelancing and fiction writing is freelancers expect to get paid. Submitting your fiction and pitching your freelancing share more similarities than differences.
Starting out, expect to write for free to get clips and the experience of seeing how mangled or polished an idea can go from pitch to print. It’s nice to get something out of it, like free books, in addition to the byline. Before I wrote literary articles for TimeOut, Eight Forty-Eight, Centerstage, Examiner, and others, I was reviewing literary journals and indie books for New Pages. All New Pages wanted was a sample review.
There are two ways to go about freelancing: pitching and Craigslist. Some of those FREELANCE WRITER WANTD[sic] ads on Craigslist are legit, and some are sales jobs. The alternative is to come up with your own idea and find an interested editor. Read the mastheads of the mags you like, check the Web site, send an e-mail to a writer/editor and reference a specific piece or recurring feature you admire. The hardest part is making contact.
Like submitting your fiction, pitch to markets you’re familiar with, especially to someone you know who’s just launched a new endeavor. Work with any editor you can at the start, because the editorial turnover is so high at younger publications—especially online—that you can form a solid relationship as that editor, and your writing, move on to bigger markets. A Newcity assignment led to the Chicago Scene link which led to the Trib work which eventually led to the pinnacle of local freelancing, this fictionary request. The ideal is to get to the point where editors are pitching ideas to you to write, so you have to establish relationships.
Pitch to several places. Customize the pitch for the appropriate person, reference what section you think it’ll fit, then keep the meat of the pitch—what it’s about—the same for the next five editors you send it to. Use the jargon of the trade: profile, service piece, interview, essay, narrative, preview (if you’re not sure, look it up). Follow up at least twice. I’ve had many articles published where the editor remembered the pitch after I followed up. Don’t worry about being annoying, but don’t be sociopathic, either. If you don’t hear back after two follow-ups, move on, she’s not interested. Even if the follow-up is unrequited, at least the editor will recognize your name and associate it with professionalism the next time you pitch.
Getting no response is the norm for freelancers. Again, like your fiction submissions, it’s not personal (unless you write “I’m really desperate”). There are plenty of markets and editors who are looking for fresh ideas. Nice. Now the fun part starts—the researching, interviewing, and writing. Even writing about steel-frame warehouses in Manitoba relied on the same elements of storytelling as fiction: character, narrative, and audience.
There’s no way of knowing where the hustle will take you, only that you’ll be a lot farther along
than if you never played.
Anne SmitHigh School English Teacher
B.A. in Fiction Writing ‘06
I work in hallways filled with teenagers shouting out the latest drama and gossip, where sweaty boys and overly made-up girls hang all over one another between classes, holding onto that last embrace before the bell rings. And that’s just it, their passion and enthusiasm is unrivaled, and that is why I love teaching high school English. The difference between teaching high school and teaching college is that most high school students don’t want to be here; they are not interested in school, and they are most certainly not interested in reading and writing. This presents a challenge, but it’s one that I’ve accepted. I’m passionate about reading and writing, and it is my hope that my students will see my passion and begin to develop their own.
For me as a writer, the only other way to hone my craft—outside of writing—is to teach. I chose Columbia because I wanted to learn the craft and art of writing. I wanted to understand voice and style and structure and story first, then I went back to school to learn the fundamentals of teaching. The skills I acquired at Columbia shaped me as a teacher. The semicircle ingrained these skills in me, and I still coach my students to “See it,” “Listen to your voice,” and “Get your voice up.”
In my classroom, we also sit in semicircles. I use it to create a comfortable learning environment, to encourage participation and keep students engaged. Teaching high school doesn’t have to mean rows and rows of desks and staring at the back of someone else’s head. Students don’t learn this way. My goal is to create a place where students can collaborate and work together, listening and sharing responses in a place where they feel safe and accepted.
Earlier in the year, my juniors were working on their own short stories. I received one very racy, sexually charged piece. The two characters went from kissing, to removing clothes, to…“pump after pump after pump he slows down because her knees start to shake.” Now this is never appropriate in high school, and as a teacher, it was my job to convey this. But to come at the student with rules and chains and negativity would only extinguish his creativity. As a teacher, I need to recognize each student’s strengths and encourage them. The most important thing to remember is that the student was writing, and he was very aware of sensory details and movement and voice—maybe he needed to focus more on audience and grammar—but as his teacher, I need to acknowledge his strengths first. Sadly, many teachers take away a student’s voice when they spend so much time cleaning up content and grammar. Well, I will never be one of those teachers.
