Teaching Writing

This class is intended to help students learn how to teach (as well as build a teaching resume). This is a chance to teach writing and have a supervision group to whom to come back. The teaching is in a variety of settings— primarily high schools and middle schools—and is often done with a partner. Placements begin in September and continue until winter break. Students will have the option to continue in the placement during spring semester under the Community of Writers program. The supervision group will meet and raise, but not exhaust, the following topics: classroom management, ideas for teaching expository writing, fiction and nonfiction, curriculum construction, materials, ways of grouping assignments, collaborative learning, and our greatest hits—model exercises and readings. This is an opportunity to teach in an atmosphere of supportive discussion by peers and experienced teachers rather than in an education class, which it assuredly is not. For students who are thinking of enrolling in the collaborative program with St John’s for a Masters in Education, credits earned in this course can be transferred to that masters degree.