The Pleasure of Guiding New Writers

Writers will happen in the best of families.
Rita Mae Brown


I’m teaching a course that I’ve grown to love. This year, Balboa Academy, under the auspices of the Continuing Education Program of the University of San Diego, is offering “Introduction to College Writing.”

In the class there are twenty students—eighteen seniors and two juniors. I’ve taught this college course many times before, particularly while at Florida State University-Panama, but in reality I lacked the full experience to do so effectively because I was unaccustomed to writing short pieces, having devoted most of my efforts to producing book-length works.

Fortunately, however, since I last taught this course I embarked on the adventure of this weblog. The practice of writing for this medium has made me realize how little I knew about the skills writers need to produce brief, readable personal essays. What’s more, over the past two and a half years that I’ve been experimenting with short pieces, I’ve developed a deep affection for this genre. And thanks to my newfound love, it has become easier for me to pass on my enthusiasm to the students.

I’ve enjoyed watching these bright young people grow, and rather quickly, as writers; and I’ve taking great pleasure in seeing them start to think like experienced wordsmiths. What I’ve particularly liked are our critique sessions, performed in a workshop format; the class discussions stand as evidence of how much the students’ views on the act of writing—as well as on what constitutes a good essay—have matured.

And in order to teach students the importance of audience, I’ve made it a requirement that every person in the class create a weblog. Over the past four and a half months each student has stockpiled a nice collection of essays, and most of these writings will come to full light beginning in late January and throughout the month of February.

I invite anyone interested in the initial results of the students’ hard work to visit their weblogs and, if so moved, to comment on their efforts. Click here and scroll down to the Student Blogs button to read their postings.

The most exciting part of this journey, however, is that the students have become so enthusiastic about the writing process, and so proud of their work, that they’ve decided to publish a book that will contain the class' best pieces. They’ve elected an editorial board and have settled on a name that, in addition to reflecting their school spirit, also indicates the importance they place on the basic tools of the craft: Words of a Dragon. The anthology will be in print in early May.

A teacher of writing couldn’t wish for more.