Author: amy higgins

Tips and examples submitted by TAs, compiled and edited by former TA Coordinators Yilin Wang and Sasha Singer-Wilson.

Ways to save time

Starting to grade:

• Familiarize yourself with the assignment criteria, rubric, and the goal of the assignment before you start.
• It’s helpful to know what the GPA goal is for each assignment before marking and also helpful to find ways to ensure consistency with other TAs.
• Go through a bunch of assignments and read them to see what level the class is at before starting to grade.
• Grade together with other TAs or ask for feedback from the instructor on the grades for a few assignments before you grade all of them.

Writing comments:

• Use a feedback bank.
• Create your own feedback bank for the assignment, allowing you to reuse common comments from the past.
• Write your comments in a separate document and save them before you paste them into Canvas.

Keep track of time:

• Use timers when you grade (one for the total time you are going to spend grading, and one for slightly less than the time you want to spend per assignment, so you can wrap up and move on) (Pomodoro timer: https://tomato-timer.com/ and others online).

General tips: 

• Stay away from distractions.
• Spread it out (try to do 5-10 a day rather than many in a day).
  
  

Feedback tips for all genres 

• Start and end with positive feedback.
• Keep in mind that it might be their first attempt.
• Identify ways in which they can improve their grade for subsequent assignments.
• Be specific with constructive feedback.
• Reference the rubric.
• Recommend resources (e.g. Writing Centre, Purdue Writing Centre: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/, etc.).
  
  Some go-to positives:
• You’ve created a great sense of atmosphere here…
• This story packs great emotional impact…
• I love the sense of place in this piece…
• What an exciting story. I couldn’t predict the twists and turns – not always easy to do!
• The characters in this story feel well-rounded and dynamic.
• I particularly enjoyed the scene in which______
• Beautiful language! (Talk about a great section or phrase.)
• A good place to start for fiction/non-fiction: this is an interesting story about _____, with themes of ______ and _____.
  
  Some go-to constructive criticism:
• Adding more concrete imagery will help anchor the reader in the setting more clearly (applicable to almost any genre!).
• It’s great that your poem/story/song is hitting on some universal themes, and how might you reshape the story so that it feels totally fresh and unlike anything we’ve ever heard?
• Specific character- or setting-related details can really help bring a piece to life. Imagine yourself in the world of your character: what do you see, hear, feel? How is it different from what someone else might see, hear, or feel? Consider what will make your reader say, “Ooh, I’ve never heard that before.”
• The character’s motivations for doing ____ are a little unclear. Could you illuminate their mental landscape in this scene a bit more clearly?

Closing comments/encouraging nuggets:

• Keep going!
• Excellent work!
• Well done!
• Good effort!
• Good improvement.
• Look forward to reading your next assignment.
• Fascinating!
• There’s so much potential here!
• Thank you so much for sharing this!
• Soar ever onward through the skies of literary success!
  
  One more thing to note:
  
  If you come across a submission with very difficult subject matter, immediately stop reading and contact the instructor.

Tips for grading Fiction

Common issues:

1. The story, particularly the theme, is too explicit. New fiction writers tend towards the profound in their character’s internal dialogue, all the while forgetting necessary elements of scene, plot, and dialogue.
When this happens, you may urge them to develop more of a sense of place, using other characters and dialogue to get their point across more implicitly. Really what it boils down to is: show don’t tell. 


2. The story all happens in the last 90% of the submission. Four pages of nothing, and then WHAM, someone dies and the real story kicks in.
In these instances, remind writers of the importance of editing; most writers struggle with ‘writing in’ to a piece, and come to their actual kernel after quite a few pages. There’s nothing wrong with that in the initial writing process. However, that’s the benefit of leaving sufficient time to edit; you have time to both ‘find the story’ and calibrate the rest accordingly. 


3. The story goes off on irrelevant tangents.
When this occurs, quote specific lines or instances in the stories and then ask whether they’re essential or not.
You might also encourage them to see what it is their character wants and consider whether they get it. This sometimes helps eradicate extraneous material. 


Constructive comments:

• “More firm application of the creative writing principle ‘Show, Don’t Tell’ would strengthen this piece.”
• “This character feels well-rounded, and it would be great to see the other characters developed more as well.”
• “I advise you to review your use of point-of-view in this story. Look for places in which you’re slipping out of point-of-view and remember that the voice/language should be appropriate for the viewpoint character.”
• “Please review the difference between scene and summary and consider when it’s better to use one form or the other.”
  
  Tips for grading Children’s and YA

What to look for:

• Children/YA protagonist should be the active character, fixing their own problems (not relying on adults).
• Picture books:
  – No redundancy in words and images
  – Use of the 32 page/16 spread format and staying under the normal limits of word count: usually 500 to max 1000.
• Middle Grade & YA:
  – Main character should be 2-3 years older than the intended audience.
  – Language should be age appropriate (in complexity and content).
  – Ending should be hopeful and usually have clear closure, but also hint at future growth.
  – Themes should be geared towards the intended audience (being true to oneself, doing what’s right, etc.).

Constructive comments:

• “You have identified this submission as for [whatever age range], but because of [the character’s age/theme/language], this piece feels more like [whatever age range].”
• Consider the voice of your character, and if it matches the audience’s age / the age of the character you are writing for: “The voice is very strong in [refer to certain parts]” “The voice feels realistic for the age range…”
• “Your world is really interesting, and there are some logistical problems that may strain your reader’s suspension of disbelief/I enjoyed the world that you have built, and I have some logistical questions about this.” 

Tips for grading Creative Non-Fiction

Common issues:

1. Understanding of sub-genres of creative non-fiction. For example, what differentiates a personal essay from an essay or from memoir?
   2. Use of past tenses, e.g., transitioning from past tense to past perfect for flashback in a memoir piece narrated in past tense.
   3. Including too much about the process of arranging to meet (or the beginning moments of meeting with) interview subjects in the final piece of writing.
   4. The narrator does not establish a strong enough emotional connection to the reader.

   5. The narrator summarizes events instead of showing us “close-ups” of meaningful moments and conversations.

   6. The piece has a bit of a forced, summative conclusion (the “tied up with a bow” ending). Look out for any conclusions that read more like the conclusion to an academic essay. Remind students that it’s okay to leave some ambiguity, or even to have a “non-ending.”
 
   7. Memoir/essay with a more scattered theme.
   8. Too much of scene or summary.
   9. More contextualizing information is needed to help unfamiliar readers understand/follow the section/piece/theme/subject.

Encouragement:

• “Thank you so much for sharing this with me.”
• “It was very brave to tackle such serious subject matter.”
• “Thank you for your candid and insightful connection.” 

Constructive comments:

• “In memoir and personal essay, you are our main character, and I would like to know more about you as a character and narrator.”
• “Maybe you can consider going deeper here emotionally. Readers would really appreciate emotional honesty and vulnerability.”
• “I enjoy the story that you’re building here and I wonder about the theme of this narrative. [Consider referring to a specific part of the story.] How does it work as part of the larger narrative you are building?”
• “I’d love to see this in scene, instead of summarized./Which moments in this sequence are most important to present to the audience? Consider focusing more on that key moment and cutting other material to strengthen your piece.”
• “What unusual details can you include that will distinguish your story from others? Consider including ‘golden details.'”
• “I would love to see more context or information on this issue.” [Identify the place.]
• “While in academic writing, summarizing your thoughts is very normal, in creative nonfiction, you have more freedom to have an open or ambiguous ending.”

Feedback tips for Poetry

Try to avoid being too prescriptive with feedback for poetry.

Common issues with poetry assignments:

• Need to consider ways that the formal elements of the poem (rhyme, rhythm, enjambment, stanza breaks, etc.) fit with the intention and themes of the poems.
• Need to consider ways to experiment with sound and slant-rhyme rather than being constrained by rhyme.
• Need for specific concrete sensory details and fewer abstractions.
  
  Constructive comments:
  
  1. Language, Details, Metaphor:
• “I like your use of language/the phrase [identify specifics]. Consider your diction here: does it match with the feeling, time and place that you are trying to create inside your poem?”
• “More concrete details would help a reader to feel more involved in the poetic experience. Watch how many abstractions you are using, as they can be distancing/hard to hold on to.”
• “You details here are very specific and could be more sensory. Try to use words and descriptions that your readers can smell/taste/touch/see or hear.”
• “Your metaphor here is very creative! However, I’m not sure it works on [this level]. What other metaphor could you use here to get across exactly what you want to say?”
  
  2. Syntax, rhyme, etc.:
• “I’m noticing there is some rhyming in this poem, but it is not consistently present. I’m wondering if you are trying to create a pattern or not, and would recommend either enhancing or removing this element, as it may distract readers from the meaning of your poem.”
• “Sometimes your lines felt like they were being written in service of the end-rhyme; don’t let one sonic element dominate your poem too much, as it can get in the way of other aspects of writing good poetry (meaning, flow, diction choices).”
• “Check out Rhymezone (https://www.rhymezone.com/), if you feel like you’re struggling with finding good rhymes (but look up the word before you use it to make sure you’re saying what you want to say!)”
• “I am not sure that your line breaks are serving you [sonically/in terms of communicating your meaning]. Have you considered using [longer lines/enjambment/something else]?” 

3. Clarity: “I had trouble following [this section]. Consider ways that you could improve clarity here.”

Feedback tips for Graphic Forms

Constructive Criticism:

1. Be careful with letting the words do most of the work. Try and find space for the images to breathe and also contribute to the overall sense of the panel. 


2. Remember that your reader will be reading from left to right, top to bottom, so you have to honour that instinct for the sake of comprehension.


3. Try and think of ways that the images can not only work as themselves, but also as metaphors. For example, if your comic is exploring friendship, there could be two trees in the distance topping a lone hill. That’s basic, but hopefully you understand the point. 


4. Leave more space for the “gutters” between panels. If there are too many panels bunching up against each other it becomes harder to read. 


5. Choose a consistent font. Changes in font size can make it harder for the reader to follow along.




6. Always seek to achieve a balance in each panel, with the right amount of space given to words and the right amount of space given to pictures. This is always changing, but usually because of context. A big, open panel with few to no words will give a sense of pause and contemplation, causing the reader to linger (usually for a reason), just as small, quick panels featuring a lot of dialogue and only talking heads will hurry a conversation along. 


7. Images (particularly characters) with a sense of movement are always more fun to look at than static panels/characters. They also allow the eye to flow through the panel easily, and will make for better reading all around!


8. Avoid any redundancies! If the caption says “He is sad” and the image is just of a guy crying and saying “I am sad” there will be a huge disconnect between the work and the reader.


Praise:

1. Great use of space and balance. Allowing the images to work alongside the pictures gives your comic a real sense of togetherness and completeness. Well done.




2. Great use of panels, for the purposes of pacing and for deliberately manipulating the reader’s eye. There were some great moments when the eye could just linger for a while and soak in the panel, and other moments when there was barely a pause for breathe. Wonderful pacing all around.




3. I love how you’re allowing for some images to become metaphorical, and you’re avoiding redundancies. Each element is working separately and achieving a cohesive whole, and that’s wonderful. Some images are transcendent and powerful. 




4. Excellent way of avoiding redundancies. The images and words are working together, but separately. 


Feedback tips for Screen

1. Formatting is much more important in screenwriting than arguably any other genre. Thus, assignments are almost always partially graded on correct formatting. The problem is that screenwriting formatting can be flexible at times, and not at others. An example: every time a script has a new scene, it gets a Scene Heading/Slugline (example: INT. CLASSROOM – DAY). A slugline can be in caps, it can be in caps and bold, and it can be in caps, bold, and underlined. But it has to be consistent throughout. There are numerous other grey areas like this. The important thing is to make sure you or your instructor communicates to the students what is accepted beforehand.


2. While part of marking screenplays can be black and white like formatting, it can often be more difficult to grade a story (like most any other genre). One way to assess student scripts is based on the simple screenwriting principles that are taught in almost every undergrad screenwriting class. Things like CHARACTER and MOTIVATION (who’s the main character, what is their goal, what are the obstacles in the way of that goal), etc., and DIALOGUE (do characters sound different, is it intriguing or overly expositional, is there too much or too little dialogue). While it can be tough to grade creative work, going back to the basics often helps for screen.


3. It’s important to make sure you’re on the same page as the other TAs when it comes to technical stuff like format marking. If you’re deducting points for each italicized slugline, but the other TAs aren’t, this can come back to bite you if a student figures this out. So get together and have a chat about how the assignments will be marked beforehand. (OR grade a handful of assignments together as a group before setting off on your own!)


Feedback tips for Stage

Common challenges for students who are new to Playwriting:

1. Specificity of voice and characterization: Encourage students to read the work aloud with a friend after a first draft – do the characters all speak the same? Do they always understand what one another are saying?

2. Storytelling through dialogue: Encourage students to think about how story and character are revealed through what people say, how they say it, and what they don’t say. 

3. Ask students to consider whether there is conflict. Do the characters have clear objectives? Are there things/people getting in the way of their objectives? Do they achieve their objectives? 


Sample Comments:

1. Think about which stage directions are important. Consider editing them down for more clarity and simplicity. What does the audience see?


2. The characters have opposing objectives which brings great stakes. 




3. The elements of your play are working well together, including setting, character and time. Staging has been carefully considered. 


If you have any further questions, feel free to talk to the course instructor, a TA mentor, a more senior TA on your team, or the TA coordinator.

If you have any tips or examples that you’d like to submit, please leave a comment or send them to crwr.taadmin@ubc.ca.

Thank you!

Early in my teaching career, I thought it was my students’ job to trust that I knew what I was doing. I had thoughtfully designed the course, the assignments, the writing exercises. I had been hired for this job after all—that should be enough to let them know I had their best interests at heart!

But, in fact, they had no good reason to trust me. I was still finding my place in academia, developing my confidence as an instructor, and figuring out my voice and style in the classroom. They could surely sense my occasional moments of uncertainty or doubt.

It took me a few years to solve this dilemma, but I eventually realized that students weren’t simply going to trust me because I was in a position of authority. They needed to believe that their learning, their engagement, and their well-being was at the centre of everything I was doing. And it was my job to convince them of this.

Luckily, there are a few simple strategies for creating trust with students and increasing your own confidence at the same time. These strategies easily translate between online and in-person classroom environments.


1- Explain the “why” of everything you do.

As a student, there’s nothing more frustrating than busy work. When students don’t know why they’re doing a particular assignment, activity, or exercise, it can be easy for them to feel like they’re wasting valuable time. In my classes, I try to connect every lecture, assignment, writing prompt, and discussion to our larger goals for the course. Often, I make this explicit on the assignment sheet, in the lecture, or on the syllabus. (E.g., “The goal of this exercise is to practice using different verb tenses and see how they impact the reader’s experience. You’ll have the opportunity to apply these skills when you write your first assignment.”)

Other times, I’ll ask students to make connections between the reading material or writing exercises and other things we’ve done in class. (“How does this exercise help you think about lyricism in the personal essay? How might you use this technique in your next assignment?”)


2- Show students how you’re giving feedback—and why—before you give it.

Different assignments benefit from different kinds of feedback. A simple ten-minute technique exercise doesn’t benefit much from detailed line notes. And a polished essay or short story requires more than “keep going”-style encouragement.

For each assignment, I explain why I’m giving a particular style of feedback and how I think it benefits students at this stage in the writing process. For example, I might say, “Since this is a technique exercise (and since criticism can make it harder to try new things), my feedback will focus on two things: 1-where I feel a lot of energy and momentum in your prose, and 2-some questions that might inspire you to turn this exercise into a longer piece of writing.” I like to copy/paste this language at the beginning of my feedback for each student.

If you’re not sure what style of feedback is going to be most useful for students on a given assignment, talk with the course instructor and your fellow TAs. You can even workshop your pre-feedback statement together.

3-Check in and acknowledge everyone’s feelings—including your own.

If you’re exhausted two-thirds of the way through the semester, there’s a good chance your students are too. Use your own experience as a reminder to check in with them: “How’s everyone feeling at this point in the term? I felt my energy start to wane for the first time this week.” Set aside a few minutes of class time to listen to their responses. Maybe even adjust the activities in response to their feedback.

For example, if students seem unusually quiet, it might be that they don’t fully understand an assignment or that they found the reading material particularly challenging. Check in with them: “That craft talk was pretty dense: do you all want to spend a little more time going through the big concepts?” Or “Would it be helpful if we did a Q&A on your upcoming assignment?” In person, this can be done with a show of hands. Online you can use a poll or virtual show of hands.

Remember that screen time can be a lot more draining than classroom time. Regularly checking in on students’ energy levels and engagement (and your own!) is even more necessary in online classes. Making adjustments to screen time as you go along is an easy way to respond to class energy levels.



These three strategies are fairly simple but they can have a big impact. When students understand the design of the course and the assignments, they’re more likely to invest in the work of the class. When they understand how and why you’re giving a particular style of feedback, they’re more likely to find that feedback beneficial and integrate it into their writing practice. When they sense that you’re noticing and responding to their engagement in the classroom, they feel like active participants in their own learning.

Creating transparency and trust with students helps cultivate a sense of belonging for you and for students. When I first started teaching, it helped to remind myself that everyone in the classroom has the same goal: to thrive in and out of class. When I put that assumption at the centre of everything we did, cultivating trust came a lot more naturally.

Time management is important when you’re helping students on-line. My main suggestion is to set yourself a routine and stick to it. For example, if you need to answer emails from students, set yourself a time to check those emails and only check and answer them at that time. Admittedly, this might need to be a daily routine. Also, in my experience, it’s best not to try to answer long complicated questions about craft, for example, via email. Instead, suggest a time for a Zoom or a Skype call. Keep your TA emails in a different location from your regular email so that you can maintain that boundary between TAing and the rest of life.

Online discussions in Canvas are another area that will eat up a lot of time if you’re not rigorous with your time management. Again, set a time when you are going to engage in the discussions and only engage during that time. If the students are online for the discussion during a certain time, then try to be online then and only then. Canvas discussions can be a compelling distraction because your participation feels virtuous; an infinitely justifiable Facebook. You have been forewarned.

Finally, a word on marking. It’s worth reading 2, 3, or 4 assignments before you officially start marking. If you’re just starting with a new group of students, you might need to read more, rather than less. Reading a few before you start will give you a sense of the quality to expect in the bunch so you know about where average is going to sit.

In my experience, it’s easy to overmark and cost yourself a lot of time in the process. Avoid giving detailed, line-by-line feedback. Instead, focus on a technique or an aspect of the writing that needs work. Finally, you’ll want to use the sandwich model of “positive feedback, constructive feedback, positive feedback.” Be sure to notice, while you’re reading, what you can include in your positive feedback.

With these tips in mind, you’ll be able to manage your time effectively as an online TA!

I am an MFA Creative Writing grad (May!), and I’ve done remote TA work and been a student online. I’ve got a few tips and tricks for surviving this new online environment as a TA, ranging from marking to communicating with students, and finally, course wrap-up.

Grab some tea/coffee/water/your preferred hydration beverage. We got this.

Marking Assignments

Assignments have been submitted. You have a little over a week to mark 50-60 (or more) student papers and provide feedback on each paper. Don’t panic! It can seem overwhelming at first, but here are a few handy approaches to marking assignments in a timely manner:

Aim to mark 8-10 papers a day.

In the beginning, it will take longer, but about halfway through the week you’ll get the hang of it and find yourself speeding through, especially as you’ll have a better understanding of the rubric and general quality of student submissions. Once you’re finished, go back to the first few batches just to make sure the marks and feedback are consistent with your later batches.

How do I mark 8-10 a day and provide feedback?

I like to go for the sandwich method: a one-to-two sentence summary of the assignment, followed by what the student did well, usually with a quote from their submission, and then a comment on where the student might have gotten stuck or struggled with the assignment. Having been a distance student myself, it always helped to know what specific areas I struggled with, especially because I couldn’t meet instructors or TAs face-to-face, and most of my communication was through email.

What about different genre submissions?

If assignments are a combination of various genres, group them together for ease of marking and reference with your assignment rubric. It makes life just a bit easier to focus on one genre rather than hopping from nonfiction to poetry to scripts.

How do I make time to mark?

This can be tricky, especially if you’re taking classes yourself as well as taking care of other people or working other jobs. It’s best to set aside some days for marking, so building a calendar is incredibly helpful. (Also, if you’re under a lot of stress, printing it out and keeping it by your bedside to check at three a.m. can help.) If you feel marking will take you a few days after the expected deadline, contact the course instructor to negotiate an extension.

If you find yourself struggling with a student’s assignment for any reason, reach out to the course instructor and let them know. It’s okay. Being a TA can be hard at times, but it’s a rewarding experience.

What about me? What about my “me time”?

Unless I was up against a deadline to get my marking done, I kept my weekends clear to work on my own personal projects and to just take a breather. Be kind to yourself and know your limits. There might be an internal sense that you should always be available online 24 hours a day, seven days a week (especially early on in the semester), but that can cause exhaustion and eat at your class hours.

Communicating with Students

The class has started! It has begun!

The first week’s TA email is busy. New students are coming in, some students are dropping courses, and some students are already trying to understand the parameters of the first assignment. It can be a little bit stressful and you’re going to start messaging the professor for clarification of details. That’s okay. It might take several days for a response, but again, that’s okay. The course email is usually busiest in the week leading up to when the assignments are due, when grades are released, and when Canvas breaks (which does happen from time to time).

You might also notice messages popping up in Canvas from students. If you’ve been broken into TA groups to mark specific students for the semester, you’ll usually get messages from that group. Sometimes students who are in other TA groups will send you a message. Often the student is confused or picked the first TA they see on a list. An easy response is “Hey (student name), I see you’re actually in (other TA’s group). I’m forwarding your message to them. Best, (your name).”

If a student has messaged with a specific question about the course (readings, quizzes, discussion posts, etc), direct them to the modules on Canvas and specify the week and section that they should refer to.

Video Hours with Students

Chances are, you’ll end up doing video office hours with students. Here’s how to prepare:

If the student has made an appointment, make sure to ask them beforehand what they want to talk about specifically. Assignment grades? Class readings? Expectations about an assignment? This will help you prepare for the meeting.

If you are talking with a student and are uncertain about details regarding an upcoming assignment or have no idea how to respond and feel yourself start to panic, it’s okay to say, “You know, that’s a good question. Let me do some digging/contact the instructor.” Note their first and last name so you can message them a response in Canvas.

A few more tips:

• I find having some water and tea/coffee nearby helps to stay hydrated, especially if you have a dozen students popping in during office hours.
• Have the camera on but the microphone off, and turn it on when a student comes in.
• Have the Canvas grade book, the upcoming assignment details, and the course syllabus open. This way, if a student shows up unannounced or with an unexpected concern, you can quickly find the information that you need.

Wrap Up

It’s over! You’ve marked your final assignment! Time to cheer and dance! But, hold on, there are still a few more things to cover before you can rejoice:

• In the Canvas grades section, make sure that the discussion posts, quizzes, and other areas you are responsible for have been marked.
• Check the TA email, check your own Canvas messages, and send a message to your fellow TAs that you’re finished.
• When you’re sure you’ve finished, email the instructor to let them know. You might be asked just to check in on the TA email for the following week in case of last-minute students asking questions, or you might really be done! Either way, it’s important to check in with the instructor.

With these tips in mind, you’ll be prepared for success as an online TA! 

Being part of the digital classroom is a rewarding and enriching experience when approached with the right mindset, but can seem daunting if you haven’t taken or taught an online course before. I’m an Optional Residency student going into my final year of graduate studies and have done all of my course-work and TAing online. I’d love to share some of my most helpful tips to smooth your transition to the digital classroom in the early days of the course.

PARK YOUR EXPECTATIONS AT THE DOOR

Before becoming an online TA, it is important to examine your own understanding of the digital classroom. There are those who feel that the online classroom is an inferior replacement for an on-campus course. This couldn’t be further from the truth! Optional-residency courses are simply a different style of classroom with their own unique rewards and requirements for success, both as a student and as a TA. Online courses arguably require more self-motivation, discipline and organization, but they are also a fulfilling way to learn and study that offers greater flexibility than the traditional classroom. The digital classroom is often a place for students with a wider range of ages and life experience, and generally fosters a more diverse community of learners due to its potential for wider accessibility.

Most Common Struggles in Being an Online TA:

*Knowledge Barrier to Entering the Digital Classroom
*Feeling Invisible in the Digital Classroom
*Inability to Manage Tasks and Organize Efficiently

PACK YOURSELF A DIGITAL TOOL-KIT

UNDERSTANDING CANVAS

Before you do anything else, it is essential that you take the time to learn how to use Canvas properly. Many TAs feel that they can figure things out on the fly, and this is a mistake that will make your entire semester more difficult. Watch the tutorials and complete the training modules as quickly as possible so you can seek help early for the aspects of Canvas that you don’t understand. Being able to quickly navigate Canvas will keep you from having to struggle with it later in the semester, when assignments are due, and your own coursework is piling up. Acquiring this knowledge early means you spend less time having to figure things out as you go. I really can’t stress this enough.

EMAIL: YOUR PRIMARY METHOD OF COMMUNICATION

Almost all of your interactions with the Instructor, your fellow TAs and the students in the course will be conducted over email. Make sure that you are checking your email promptly and reading rather than skimming through the messages regarding the course. It is easy to miss important information, as it tends to get buried in the long list of replies, as there are often many people are in the conversation. Make sure that you are entering updated deadlines into your calendar and responding promptly when the instructor asks if you’ve received the information.

YOUR COMPUTER AS A WORK-STATION

Just like in the traditional classroom, it is important not to let yourself get distracted by your computer and the temptations it offers during the hours you set aside for work. When answering emails, doing participation marking or any other work for your TA course, close other windows that might distract you to focus on getting your TA work finished. This helps you get things done faster, and also helps you map your workflow patterns early in the course.

CULTIVATE CONNECTIONS

Forming connections early in the semester with your Instructor, fellow TAs, and students is critical. Feeling invisible in the course can lead to feelings of disconnection, which makes it difficult to enjoy your TA experience and stay motivated. At the beginning of the semester, it is helpful to have a video chat in order to get to know your fellow TAs, and have the opportunity to put names to faces. Almost all of your subsequent correspondence will be done over email, so it’s important to make these video conferences. You will have to put the extra effort into personalizing your communication with the others in the course at an early stage, which can be a challenge at first, but I promise this effort will pay off over the course of the semester.

ORGANIZE A SLACK GROUP

Organizing a Slack Group for TAs can be a lifeline in the digital classroom. It is a great place to ask one another questions, check in with everyone’s progress throughout the semester, swap marking assignments or tasks, and ask one another general questions about the TA process. It’s also a place that can also be used for Marking Parties when assignments roll around, which can be helpful in making sure you’re getting everything done in a correct and timely manner.

PERSONALIZE EMAILS TO STUDENTS

Your office hours will all be digital, and it is very important that students feel like they have a connection with you. When I was in charge of class emails, I always replied to students with a personal message explaining which TA I was and said a few words about myself to the student before replying to their query. This is an easy way to help students to get to know you and makes your subsequent emails with them more effective. You’ll be communicating with these students all semester, and if they feel like they know you through your emails, the process will feel much more rewarding.

COMMUNICATE WITH THE INSTRUCTOR

Make sure that you keep an open line of communication with the instructor regarding any questions or issues that arise during the course, especially concerning students and their performance. In my experience, these issues range from the mundane (students needing to be excused or not turning in assignments) to the serious (content in a student’s writing submission raising concerns about their mental health). Because the course is online, it is important to be aware of these issues and deal with them as speedily as possible in case a student is in trouble, as they are more disconnected from mental health services and other support than they would be on campus.

ORGANIZATION IS KEY

Being a TA for an online course requires a higher level of organization and self-direction. Because of the flexibility online teaching offers, it is important to use this to your advantage and not let it result in procrastination. Also, being organized with your time isn’t just for your own benefit. Being disorganized can lead to tension with your fellow TAs.

KEEP TRACK OF DUE DATES

Find a system that works for you for you to keep track of your due dates. Knowing when you are expected to be performing certain tasks is critical to your success in the digital classroom. At the beginning of the semester, you will be asked to sign up for various tasks, such as email surveillance, chat surveillance, and participation marking. Your office hours are digital, so time will be set aside for this aspect of the course every week. I found it helpful to print out a list of dates and tape them to the wall beside my computer, update them as necessary, and cross things off when I was finished. Another important thing to keep in mind is that forgetting to do your assigned work when it is due creates more work for the other TAs.

KEEP TRACK OF YOUR HOURS

The first two or three weeks as an online TA are critical in helping you understand your workflow. Keep track of your TA hours and note how long it takes you to finish specific tasks. After the first few weeks, you should be able to map out how much time you will need to spend per week finishing certain tasks, as well as what you can spend more (or less) time on. You can also ask your fellow TAs (through your handy Slack group) how long they’re spending on the same tasks to give you an idea of where you should be.

OVERALL…

Being a TA in an online course is very rewarding, but it does have its challenges. Ensuring that you understand how to navigate the digital classroom, make an effort to foster connections with your Instructor, fellow TAs, and students, and find a way to stay organized is the key to your success. The digital classroom is an exciting place to teach and learn, and I wish you every success in the upcoming semester.

Have you heard of the enneagram? It’s a system for understanding personality … There are nine core types, each with their own core fear, core desire, and directions of growth and disintegration.

You can find out more about the enneagram here. Wondering which type you are? Take the quiz here!

Once you know your type, there are endless enneagram-based blogs, books, Instagram accounts, etc., that you can peruse to develop more self awareness and understanding.

We bring our full selves to the classroom, which means that your enneagram type undoubtedly influences your teaching practice! Once you’ve typed yourself, read on to learn more about how your personality traits, strengths, and growth areas might impact your work as a TA. Understanding the enneagram can help you become your best self!

 

1: The Reformer: Rational, Idealistic, Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic

Ones make great teachers because they are driven to improve the world and push everyone, including themselves, to be their best!

Ones’ teaching superpowers include: maintaining high standards; being hyper-organized; and molding students into not only good writers, but also good people.

To bump your teaching up to the next level, let go of perfectionism and embrace the messiness of learning, remembering that this is where the real growth happens.

2: The Helper: Caring, Interpersonally-Oriented, Demonstrative, Generous, People-Pleasing, and Possessive

Twos are born teachers. Selfless and giving, they will do whatever they can for their students and colleagues … you’ll find a Two holding extra office hours, bringing in cookies for the class, and tidying the lounge.

If you’re a Two, your warm, nurturing approach makes your students feel loved and accepted as their full selves.

However! You know on the plane when they tell you to put your own breath mask on first? That’s a subtweet for the Twos of the world … When you’re busy taking care of everyone around you, don’t forget to set boundaries and put yourself first once in a while.

3: The Achiever: Success-Oriented, Pragmatic, Adaptable, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious

Threes knock it out of the park in every realm of life, and teaching is no exception. Whatever the contest, Threes are here to win. You can spot a Three by their flawless attendance at any and all professional development opportunities, the marking they complete in record time, and their ultra-professional demeanour.

Threes make good teachers because they’re good at, well, everything … and if they’re not there yet, they’ll stop at nothing in their quest to fulfill their potential.

Since Threes love improving so much, here’s a tip: approachability and authenticity go a long way with students — don’t be afraid to let the facade crack and show your vulnerability once in a while.

4: The Individualist: Sensitive, Introspective, Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental

The MFA is a hotbed of Fours. Find them crying in art galleries, suffering from insomnia (but kind of enjoying it), and writing poems about the moon.

Fours dgaf what anyone thinks, and they’re not afraid to break with tradition and try something new in the classroom. They’re deeply creative, which comes in handy when they’re teaching creative writing.

The challenge for Fours is getting their feet on the ground. Believe it or not, cultivating routine and self-discipline is actually good for your creative practice. I know you like to pretend your life is a movie and whatever, but at a certain point, you have to get your marking done.

5: The Investigator: Intense, Cerebral, Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated

Fives are rare birds. With their borderline-excessive love of alone time, they take “a room of one’s own” to a whole new level. Fives love falling deep into Wikipedia holes, watching documentaries, and spending long, peaceful days on the quiet floor of the library.

Fives are independent thinkers, unafraid to follow their own instincts in the classroom rather than mindlessly implementing traditional approaches. Thanks to their deep focus and relentless pursuit of knowledge, Fives’ craft knowledge is unparalleled; it’s safe to say that a Five always knows what they’re talking about.

It’s great to be so independent, but Fives also have a tendency to isolate. Don’t forget to take the time to connect with your colleagues … you might be surprised by how much you’ll learn.

6: The Loyalist: Committed, Security-Oriented, Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious

For Sixes, on time is late and early is on time. You can always count on a Six to get their marking done, leave the TA office better than they found it, and follow the TA handbook guidelines to the letter.

Sixes are deeply loyal and will truly commit to everything they do, including teaching. A Six won’t hesitate to take one for the team and can always be counted on to back up a colleague.

To thrive as a Six, remember that anxiety is normal — just a visitor who comes and goes. Taking steps to manage the anxiety that you experience will help you become more trusting and secure. And when you feel safe and held, your students will, too!

7: The Enthusiast: Busy, Variety-Seeking, Spontaneous, Versatile, Acquisitive, and Scattered

Sevens are a blast to spend time with! Find them riding every rollercoaster, attending six parties in one night, and throwing caution to the wind.

Whether it’s a hilarious meme included in the PowerPoint, a game that gets everyone laughing, or an icebreaker that creates instant friendship, in a Seven’s classroom, the fun never stops.

In the midst of all this engagement and joy, it’s important for Sevens to take moments here and there to slow down and reflect, and allow their students to do the same. To paraphrase Beyonce, a little silence ain’t never hurt nobody.

8: The Challenger: Powerful, Dominating, Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational

Eights are unstoppable! When it comes to setting boundaries, hashing out conflicts directly, and getting stuff done, an Eight is your best friend.

As born leaders, Eights make great teachers. They’re decisive, authoritative, and will do whatever it takes to get themselves and their students where they need to be.

A tip for Eights: you’re great at taking charge, but don’t be afraid to step back once in a while, too. You don’t have to — and in fact, you can’t — do it all alone.

9: The Peacemaker: Easygoing, Self-Effacing, Receptive, Reassuring, Agreeable, and Complacent

Nines are homebodies who love nothing more than curling up with a good book by a crackling fire, preferably wrapped in a blanket, eating something that involves melted cheese.

A Nine’s classroom is a peaceful, harmonious place where everyone gets to speak, no one feels rushed, and peaceful nature sound YouTube videos are involved in most activities.

Although Nines are afraid of conflict, those clashes and challenges can be a place of growth and learning. Don’t be scared to let your students (respectfully) argue with one another; you might be surprised by how much learning productive disagreement this can yield. As Michelle Obama would say — run towards the noise!

 

Understanding your (and others’) Enneagram type can make you a better TA and person! If you have any questions whatsoever about the Enneagram, please do not hesitate to contact me for more information and details!

In the fall of 2019, the instructor for the course I was TAing asked me whether I’d like to present a small lecture to the class. Although at that point the extent of my personal experience with lecturing was instructing a dozen middle schoolers at a summer camp, I knew this would be a valuable opportunity to develop as a teacher. I agreed, and began charting out my first lecture.

I doubt it will come as much of a surprise that writing that first lecture with no prior experience was, in fact, pretty difficult. But the process taught me much about how to present a lecture in a university classroom setting. If you’re a new TA faced with the prospect of preparing your first lecture, I hope these notes will be of some use.

Topic

It’s hard to start writing a lecture if you don’t know what you’re lecturing on. Your instructor might have already selected your topic in advance, but I’ve also worked with instructors who let TAs select their own topics.

The topic of the lecture I gave was assigned to me based on my current line of work—indie video game writing—which filled a niche that had been vacant in the course. But if I had been able to choose a topic, I would have made the same choice. In my view, lecturing on a subject within my experience offered two major benefits—first, it let me speak on a subject I was already very familiar with, which is great for mustering confidence when you’ve got a bad case of stage fright; and second, it meant that the students would (hopefully) be getting a more useful lecture, one grounded in practical experience.

As the instructor told me while I was outlining, the students are there because they want to get something for themselves out of the lecture. If you can offer something unique, like your personal perspective and expertise, then everyone benefits.

Visual Aids

Regardless of what you end up presenting on, I think visual aids are invaluable. Almost every classroom at UBC has a projector on hand, so slideshows, like a Powerpoint or Prezi, tend to be the most common form of visual component.

The best advice I’ve heard is to avoid letting your slideshow make your voice redundant. If the slides contain everything you say aloud, the audience will simply read the information off the slides and stop paying attention by the time you get around to saying it. It’s more useful if the slides focus on the key concepts that the audience will want to take away; if you were taking notes as you listened to the lecture, what would you write down?

Aesthetically, there are two main schools of thought on how to design a slideshow: stylized, with a touch of decoration to keep it visually engaging; or minimalist, with no decoration, in order to focus on clear presentation of the information. I’ve seen both looks executed well, and I don’t think either is better than the other. That said, I did go with plain white text on a black background for my presentation, with the hope of making the slideshow easy to both produce and read.

Script and notes

During my first TA orientation, one of the instructors remarked that he usually had his TAs throw out their notecards before presenting—a fact that drew a nervous laugh from the new TAs in the room, myself included.

For this lecture, my initial plan was to write a very polished script, commit it to memory as well as I could through rehearsals, and recapitulate it in class roughly as written with the aid of notecards. While I didn’t want to come across like I was reading from a teleprompter, the prospect of potentially needing to improvise in front of a crowd terrified me. I was confident that a thorough script would help me avoid this problem, and this confidence lasted right up until the moment when I stood at the podium, glanced down at my notes, and realized I actually wasn’t going to have any time to reference them.

But, as it turned out, knowing what to say without a script was really a non-issue. Although I couldn’t reference the words I’d originally written for my script, the process of outlining my ideas and drafting the slideshow meant that I’d already given a lot of thought to every slide and to the sequence of concepts, and the rehearsals I’d done prior to giving the lecture helped it stick in my memory. When I had to talk about a slide, I didn’t need to consult the notecards to know what my thoughts were on the subject or what to say. Although I’m not sure I’d recommend abandoning your notecards entirely, I don’t feel that they’re necessary for delivering a lecture successfully. Developing a clear vision for what needs to be said and then rehearsing it can serve just as well.

Conclusion

Despite my initial concerns, I feel my first lecture ended up going fairly well—and certainly better than I had thought it would when I was going into it. Preparation was the key to success, more so than comfort with public speaking or prior experience as an instructor. This term, I plan to give a revised version of the lecture to the class, hopefully with fewer nerves and no notecards.

Daunting as it was, presenting that first lecture was a fantastic opportunity and a lot of fun as well. If you have the chance to prepare a lecture of your own, I hope you’ll consider it!

“This is such a crazy time of year!” said every UBC MFA student, at every time of year. Will things ever calm down?! It seems like they won’t. It’s hard to maintain a creative practice at times like these! The only thing to do is … keep going.

Austin Kleon’s latest book, Keep Going, offers tips on doing just that … maintaining a creative practice even when your head is spinning with your endless to-do list. Here are a few takeaways from this tiny, inspiring book! (Kleon also has a newsletter, which you can sign up for here.)

1. Kleon starts out with the same advice that we’ve all received 1000 times, and that most of us have a very, very hard time sticking to: FIGURE OUT A DAILY PRACTICE, already, and consider every day a fresh chance to stick to it.

Most likely, you’re a writer because writing offers you a way to derive meaning from this confusing, difficult, unpredictable life. As Kleon says, “The only thing we can really control is what we spend our days on. What we work on, and how hard we work on it.” As Oprah would say, “This very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.” And as the cast of Rent would say, “No day but tooooooooodaaaaaaaaay!”

“the Muse is ready to surprise me if I show up every day and say, ‘Wanna hang out?’”

2. Create a “bliss station” … a magic space AND / OR a magic time when you can get work done. Your magic time could be the early morning (a time many writers swear by, when minds are fresh and emails haven’t yet started piling up in your inbox), the late night, or anywhere in between. And your magic space could be your desk, kitchen, table, or a favourite coffee shop … but wherever and whenever it happens, the bliss station is a space where your creative work takes priority.

This is mine:

3. In Kleon’s words, “Forget the noun, do the verb.” So … forget about “being a writer.” Just write. And be at play in your work as much as you can.

Remember the way you wrote in high school, or even earlier? Think back to that very first poem or story. You probably weren’t worried about what your peers or teachers would think, about whether your work was publishable, about whether you were somehow embarrassing yourself. Back then, the work didn’t even feel like work — it felt like play. So do what you can to recapture that magic now. This could mean seeking out new experiences and materials … write in rainbow markers, make a collage, cut up the words and rearrange them. See what sparks. Teaching undergrads can also help you connect with that magical creative bubble … when you’re marking, see if you can remember what it felt like to write a story / poem / script for the very first time.

4. Make gifts.

Kleon makes three points here.

i. Protect your valuables. I’ll share this quotation, which MIGHT BE CONTROVERSIAL: “When you start making a living from your work, resist the urge to monetize every single bit of your creative practice. Be sure there’s at least a tiny part of you that’s off-limits to the marketplace. Some little piece that you keep for yourself.”

ii. Ignore the numbers, aka the online metrics of engagement with your work. Forget counting the likes on your tweets! Write more poems (or stories, articles, songs …) instead! Think less about quantity (of faves, shares, sales) and more about quality … you are the only one who knows whether you’re producing your best work, so make yourself proud.

iii. Where there is no gift, there is no art.

Feeling alienated from your gifts lately? Sometimes the answer is … making a gift. Draw your partner a comic, write a poem for your best friend or a bedtime story for your child. Some of the most beautiful art ever made started out as specific gifts for specific people.

Last semester, Sheryda made tarot cards for each of her poetry students … so beautiful!

5. To find the ordinary, pay attention to the extraordinary.

Again, there are three important points Kleon makes here:

i. You have everything you need already to create your best work. Conditions are never perfect, but they’re always right.

ii. Slow down. As you go about your day, pay attention, and record what you see.

iii. Pay attention to what you pay attention to. If you’re a notebook keeper, reread your old notebooks from a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago (or reread your tweets, or your blog, or scroll back through your camera roll) … what were you paying attention to, and how has it shown up in your art and in your life?

6. Remember that writing is for life (not the other way around).

In the day-to-day of TAing, completing assignments, writing response memos, etc., it’s easy to forget why we wanted to write in the first place … writing makes the world, and our own lives, more beautiful.

7. You are allowed to change your mind.

We live in an age when people love certainty, but good writing, and good teaching, often means being a little uncertain. Think back to the first story you wrote, or the first seminar you led … I bet you’ve grown a lot since then, and you’ll grow just as much in the future. As scary as change can seem, it’s not a threat; it’s an opportunity.

8. When in doubt, tidy up.

Kleon suggests that you shouldn’t be afraid to let your bliss station get a bit messy, because chances are, when you’re tidying the mess, you’ll find something beautiful.

I love this quotation: “Creativity is about connections, and connections are not made by siloing everything off into its own space. New ideas are formed by interesting juxtapositions, and interesting juxtapositions happen when things are out of place.”

Reminds me of this poetry collage, created by Sheryda’s workshop last semester:

9. Demons hate fresh air.

Bogged down in marking? Can’t get the words right? Struggling to revise your story for the millionth time? Take a break and go for a walk! Fresh air makes everything better.

10. Plant your garden.

Remember that, like everything else in life, your artistic practice has its own seasons and rhythms. Is this your creative winter? Be patient — spring always comes.

An image created by Kleon:

Kleon has also written two other books about creativity, Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work. Check them out if you’re in need of inspo! And no matter what you do … keep going!

It’s that time of the year again: student assignments are in, your own assignments are due, and you’ve got a day job thrown into the mix. I’ve been marking essays for years, and assessment period is the worst. But not to worry! If you are new to this, here are some basic tips for making the experience as efficient and painless as possible:

Make Plans: Be sure your professor is clear at the beginning of each semester about when assignments are due from students, and when corresponding marks are due from you. This will enable you to integrate marking into your overall schedule and set aside time for it in advance.

Mark by Genre: If you are TA-ing a mixed-genre class, mark assignments by genre. Assessing one genre at a time reduces the need to readjust your reading lens with each new assignment, making the process more efficient. It also helps you get a sense of the general standard of submissions more quickly, which will help you understand what an average submission looks like.

Keep Rubrics Handy: I always have assessment rubrics visible when I mark. It helps me remember what I am supposed to be looking out for, and prevents me from veering towards my own personal tastes. It is also a great help when it comes to creating comments: ensuring that the bulk of your comments respond to points listed in the rubric not only saves you (a lot of) think-time, but also safeguards you should a student disagree with a grade they are given.

When Possible, Minimize Typing: My favourite feature on Canvas (besides the little window that shows you the mean average grade at any given time) is its ability to save comments that recur across assignments. If you have a standard opening greeting or word of encouragement, consider saving it in the drop-down options, so that you can click on it when you want to use it, instead of repeatedly typing it out each time. Additionally, if you notice that you’re repeating certain comments about craft or formatting because a certain kind of mistake is common, you can save and re-use those comments as well!

Value Your Time: Keep track of your hours. If you are exceeding the hours allocated to you for each assignment, check in with your fellow TAs to see if their experience is similar – if it is not, you might be allocating more time to individual assignments than is actually necessary. If this is the case, consider being strict with yourself and marking with a timer. (E.g., I literally set an hourly timer to ensure that I complete a certain number of essays per hour!) If all the TAs in a single class are overrunning hours, get together and let your instructor know – they may need to rethink the scope of the rubric, or provide you with overtime.

Create Conditions That Work For You: Do you thrive on short bursts of energy? Do you prefer solitary or communal marking? Identify what works for you and do your best to create those conditions for yourself. For example, I like to work for long periods of time without breaks because I find that repetition increases my efficiency, and helps me maintain standard consistency. In addition, before I start marking anything, I create a table containing columns for student names, rubric marks, and final marks. I print this out and fill in grades as I go along so that I have a tactile record accessible to me at all times (I’m a semi-tactile learner) and a visual record of my own marking standards (which helps maintain standard consistency). These tactics work for me – identify and make possible what works for you.

All the best for assessment period! I wish you patience, god-speed, and exceptional submissions!

I write and draw every day. I’ve been working on building a daily practice for about three years, and it’s been consistent for about a year now. This discipline has been hard-won after decades of procrastination and neglecting my craft. And I expect it to fluctuate as I continue: at some points I will need to do longer stretches each day, and at some points I will be able to do next to nothing. But I want to try to do at least a tiny bit each day as much as I possibly can for as long as I possibly can.

Artists step away from their creative practice for lots of reasons. For me, it’s been a whole range of things. One that I think a lot of you can relate to is a lifelong struggle with severe anxiety. In the past, when I didn’t have many tools or skills for managing this condition, it created long stretches of time in which I felt frozen, unable to do any creative work at all. Another barrier to creative work has been painful life events (like illness or death in the family), during which I haven’t had the energy or focus to do much besides cope with the situation. And then of course there’s work, and spending time with family and friends, and the daily list of mundane to-do’s that can crowd out any time for writing, drawing or other creative expression.

My second book, published in September, took me eight years to finish. This is partly because the research, writing, drawing and revisions took a long time. And partly because I spent many months and years of that time dealing with all the factors I’ve just listed.

I’ve come to believe that establishing a daily practice earlier in my life would have helped me immensely, both with my creative projects and with my mental health. Even a tiny bit of work every day is better than long stretches in which I’m totally separated from my writing and drawing. Some days this looks like hours of productivity. Other days it’s a few minutes late at night, when I want to go to sleep but am determined to get my daily work done.

Daily practice makes me feel that I am still connected to the artistic part of myself, even if the work I’m doing isn’t connected to the project I’m focused on right now, even if it’s something I end up recycling or hiding or tearing up in frustration. Daily practice builds my skills, keeps me thinking and exploring and experimenting. Daily practice lets me connect with a joyful, constructive energy even on days that completely suck in every other way.

So — here are some things you might try, gleaned from my own experience and others’, in order to keep your creative practice going even when times are tough and the world is conspiring against you.

Keep it small: Commit to doing something each day, and try committing to less than you think you can really do. So, for example, “I will write/draw for 3 minutes a day.”

Make yourself a workspace: Whether it’s a cozy chair or a fully-equipped ergonomic work station or a table at your favourite cafe, it helps to have a location where you can sit down and work for your three minutes without complication.

Use a timer: I think this helps give a sense of how much you can get done in a short chunk of time — three minutes can be surprisingly long — and it also helps set a boundary around your work time.

Get a buddy or two: Maybe you sit down and work together. Or maybe you just check in with each other at regular intervals. I have used a shared blog and shared Google docs for this purpose. You can set your goals and report to your buddy(ies) about your progress. They can cheer you on and remind you of your deadlines.

Build up your daily practice to a longer period over time if you like, or maybe just promise yourself three minutes a day minimum, knowing that some days you will do way more. But the three minutes remains non-negotiable.

If you miss a day, just start over the next day. Don’t waste time beating yourself up.

If you want more ideas about maintaining your creative practice, I highly recommend Jessica Abel’s work. She has a book (Growing Gills) and blog posts and exercises and questionnaires you can fill out (we love those, right?). She also regularly runs a course called Creative Focus. I took it a few years ago and it was very helpful. She is also a fantastic cartoonist and comics teacher.

When I came and spoke with the TAs on November 4, we did an exercise that is influenced by the work I did with Jessica Abel as well as a book called Taming Your Gremlin by Rick Carson, a classic self-help book that’s been in print since 1984.

Here’s the exercise: Get two index cards, or two smallish pieces of paper and a pen. Don’t use a pencil; you shouldn’t spend any time erasing. Think about all the negative messages you have in your head about your creative work (you can’t do it, you’re not good, etc.). Set a timer for three minutes, and on one index card draw the jerk who’s saying these things. Maybe it’s a person, maybe it’s a monster, maybe it’s a blob. But give it form and personality. Add a speech balloon if you feel so moved. Don’t stop drawing until the timer stops. Now, think about a character who would talk back to that first monster, stick up for you and your work. If that’s hard to do, pretend you’re doing it on behalf of someone you love, not yourself. Then set the timer for three minutes again and draw that character and give it some words.

I drew my jerk monster years ago and kept it on my desk for a long time. I felt like I could let go of some of my own self-criticism when I knew that guy was taking care of it. You can see him in this article by Jessica Abel, wherein she also discusses the amazing work of Lucy Bellwood, who drew her demons for 100 days.

I hope that some of this helps. Please know that I feel like a total beginner at this, and am always worried that I won’t be able to maintain it. But I do it anyway! Whereas in the past I wouldn’t have bothered starting, knowing that I was destined for failure. Know what I’m saying?

Here’s a comic I made some years ago that captures some of these ideas. It’s about comics, but I think you could apply it to anything!