Teaching & Learning: Creative Writing

Part Two: What I Use Now that I Learned Then

As a TA, I had the chance to observe a wide range of different approaches to teaching. Some people I taught with used 70 slides for a sixty-minute lecture and some people used 5 slides. Some told jokes; others remained serious. Some offered an outline for the day’s lecture at the beginning. Some called students up to the front of the room to participate in an experiment. Some had pages of detailed lecture notes; others had a small list of bullet points.

Teaching Means Best Practices but Also Individual Strengths

Over time, I came to see that some of the choices I observed worked better or worse. It’s never a great idea to have a big block of text on a slide and lecture alongside it without reading it out loud, for example. But many of the variations I saw were not better or worse but simply the teaching persona or individual strength of the person teaching. As I worked with different faculty, I took notes on approaches I saw that crashed and burned as well as techniques that struck me as excellent strategies to reproduce in my own teaching, but I also accepted the invitation to experiment in my teaching and see what was right for me.

As a TA, you can try out detailed notes one day and loose bullet points the next and then reflect on which feels more like your style.

Teaching Involves a Series of Paradoxes

In the first workshop I took as a Ph.D. student on learning to TA, a senior professor described reading a student evaluation that dramatically changed her teaching practice. “You always know what’s coming next,” the evaluation praised, “and we just follow along like lemmings.” While the statement was offered in praise of her knowledge and planning ability, the professor understood it also as a statement about her fear of risk in the classroom. “From then on,” she said, “I looked for ways not to be completely in control, not to know exactly what was coming next. I tried to ask questions that I genuinely didn’t know the answer to either.”

I think this story has stayed with me because it so clearly illustrates a key paradox of teaching: how can we be truly open to surprises without abandoning our responsibility to hold the structure of a class?

As I prepare to teach CRWR 550: Teaching Creative Writing, I’ve been thinking about the many paradoxes we navigate as teachers of writing and how to explore them as a class. Freedom to explore and make mistakes is essential in learning to write, but so is the safety of students to learn in an atmosphere free of racist microaggressions. Teachers need to plan, but we also need to be present enough to notice when a plan must shift to accommodate more pressing questions or concerns. It’s important to extend flexibility and grace to students when they struggle, but having no deadlines and no clear expectations can be just as unkind as excessive rigidity. Working as a TA offers a rich series of case studies on how others navigate these balancing acts as well as a chance to practice them yourself.

You’re a Methods Expert Even When You’re a Content Novice

As a TA for an interdisciplinary critical thinking program, I worked with professors of Computer Science, Linguistics, Creative Writing, Literature, Linguistics, East Asian Studies, and Medieval Studies. I often found myself standing at the front of the room leading a discussion on a theory or concept I myself had only encountered the week before. In these moments, I drew on Therese Huston’s Teaching What You Don’t Know, which introduced me to the terms “content novice” and “methods expert.” Huston’s book reminded me that even when I was teaching the history of technology, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, or the structure of Russian folk tales, all “content” that was well beyond my personal expertise, I could draw on the methods and skills I’d spent years developing expertise in: close reading, the writing and revision process, structured discussion, information literacy, and so on.

Being a TA gave me practice in stretching out of my comfort zone and helped me understand that I could help students through my experience with the writing process and my knowledge of how to ask good questions even when they were working on topics, texts, or genres that were new to me. This practice served me especially well when I took a job as the only faculty member in creative writing at a tiny college where I was constantly expected to stretch intellectually and creatively.

When you’re invited to TA in a genre that’s a bit of a stretch for you, remember that you still have a wealth of method expertise to draw on.

Teacher is a Role Any of Us Can Put on and Take off

Finally, being a TA helped me think of the roles of teacher and student as frameworks that we enter together by mutual agreement that could always be otherwise. To be the teacher, I don’t have to be the one in the room who knows the most or has published the most; I just have to be willing to take responsibility for making a space where learning and growth can happen. More and more, I see the role of teacher as holding space and offering resources, and the role of student as engaging with that space and accepting those resources.

We are all teachers at times and all students at times, and each role can be a pleasure. And really, if we’re paying attention, resources always flow both ways.

When I accepted a teaching fellowship at the end of my Ph.D., I had already taught my “own” Creative Writing, Literature, and Composition courses at five different institutions. “I’ll be a kind of glorified TA,” I explained to friends who asked about the new gig, “but I’ll get to work with some cool people.” Over the next three years, the pleasures and challenges of the TA role became increasingly clear.

You’re Caught in the Middle

Working as a TA sometimes reminded me of another job I’d held before: waiting tables in a restaurant. Once again, I was the person in the middle. I didn’t make the food (assignments, structure of the course), but I was the one people came to if they had a problem with it. I was expected to be a compelling ambassador for key concepts, texts, and projects, even when I might have presented or designed them differently. When a class on stories and storytelling assigned Aphra Behn’s 1688 Oroonoko alongside a bunch of novels and films focused on World War II, it was up to me to make a case for this choice to students (and then grade a stack of essays on it!).

To stay sane as a TA, it helps to make peace with being caught in the middle.

You Often Have Influence Without Authority

As part of our professional development, teaching fellows were introduced to the concept of “influence without authority.” While we couldn’t necessarily make the big decisions, we still had space to maneuver. And the faculty we worked with were often willing, even eager, to draw on our various expertise. When a group of us working on “Technological Visions of Utopia” asked the professor to address a troubling scene of compromised consent in Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed directly in lecture, he was happy to do so. When I suggested that instead of writing an essay analyzing and reflecting on the restaurant review they’d written for “The Language of Food,” students might annotate their original review using ten key terms from the course, faculty were delighted to try out this new option. And the second time we taught the stories and storytelling class, we dropped Oroonoko.

For each class, that space to maneuver will be different, but keep in mind that you don’t need authority to have an influence.

The Class May Be Theirs, but the Students Are Yours

One reason faculty were often eager to listen to us TAs was because it was as clear to them as it was to us that while the class was theirs, the students were ours. We had our finger on the pulse of where students were struggling and what got them excited. We knew their names, read their writing, answered their crisis emails. And there’s a lot of power and responsibility in being the person who interacts directly with students.

Even in the midst of finding your balance as an ambassador and translator between faculty and students, remember the vulnerability we all bring to our creative work. When you comment on student writing, your voice stays with each person. When students think back on the class years later, there’s a good chance they’ll forget many details of the lectures and what they read, but they’ll remember how you responded to their writing and how it made them feel.

Your encouragement might be the reason someone is still writing in ten years.

Wondering what to do after the MFA? If you’ve loved being a TA (and/or a New Shoots Mentor), qualifying as a K-12 teacher can be a great next step. Keep reading to find out how your experience as a TA will be helpful in a K-12 setting and to learn more about how to go about qualifying as a teacher.

Whether you’re teaching four-year-olds, 14-year-olds, or undergraduates, a lot of the same skills come into play. Here are a few things you’ve likely learned as a CRWR TA that will easily transfer to working with younger students:

Assessment: This is a HUGE component of teaching at any level. The assessment practices you’ve learned through TAing—navigating rubrics, giving descriptive feedback, and evaluating students’ work according to established performance standards—are just as relevant when you teach Grade 12 or Grade 2.

Classroom management: If you’ve had the opportunity to TA a seminar, you’ve learned how to hold the group’s attention, give clear instructions, and exercise flexibility when things don’t go as planned—skills you will continue to refine if you ever find yourself standing in front of a room of squirrely Grade 1s when the SmartBoard isn’t working, a fire drill is expected at any moment, and someone has a nosebleed.

Navigating interpersonal conflict: In the CRWR classroom, where people often feel vulnerable sharing deeply personal and/or political work, emotions sometimes run high. Your role as a TA is to help students navigate the conflicts that inevitably arise in a way that makes everyone feel heard. This skill will come into play when your Primary students return from recess with tears streaming down their faces, when a high school student concerned about university acceptance approaches you with a worried expression and their graded paper in hand, or when the time comes to have a tough conversation with a parent about their child’s performance or behaviour in class. You’ve got this!

It’s also important to be aware of the requirements to become a K-12 teacher. The application process differs province-to-province—here are some tips on preparing for a K-12 teaching career in British Columbia.

Academic requirements: To teach in the K-12 system in BC, you will need to complete a B.Ed., which is a one- to two-year program.

For aspiring elementary teachers, there are quite a few prerequisites—you need to have taken undergraduate-level classes in English, Math, a laboratory Science, Canadian History or Geography, and another Canadian Studies class. Look into the requirements early to make sure you’ll have all the coursework you need.

If you’d like to teach high school, you’ll need to have quite a few credits in the specific subject areas you plan to teach. To avoid unpleasant surprises, it’s important to do the research—don’t just assume that you have the credits you need.

Experience: This is key. Try to get as much experience as you can working with students in groups (vs. one-on-one) since group management is a huge aspect of teaching. There are so many ways to get this experience—summer camps, Scouts and Girl Guides, the YMCA, the Boys and Girls Club, the public library, community centres, sports teams … the list goes on.

It’s also a good idea to get experience volunteering in a school—teachers love extra hands, and spending time in a classroom will give you a clearer perspective on what the day-to-day of teaching will be like. You probably remember your own experience in school, but things can feel very different on the other side of the classroom. Also, many people love children but aren’t necessarily prepared to spend six hours a day, five days a week, managing thirty kids. There are many ways to work with children, so try to get a real sense of whether teaching is for you before you commit to another degree.

If you have any further questions about this topic, feel free to reach out!

Hi everyone! My name is Cole Klassen and my pronouns are they/them. I’ve been working as the TA Training Coordinator for just over a month now and, as I prepare training for the fall, an idea that seems to keep appearing again and again is the difficult balance of authenticity and professionalism required of TAs.

By authenticity, I mean communication that makes students feel cared for, excited, and part of a community; when fully authentic, you seem to students like an honest person who cares about them.

By professionalism, I mean communication that shows students you are an authority; when fully professional, even if you are nice, there is still a boundary that keeps the student/TA relationship from becoming something too personal like a friendship.

Since both of these approaches are really important in TAing, it can be a hard balance…Professionalism without authenticity leads to students feeling like their education is just a product they are paying for, which kills community and excitement. However, authenticity without professionalism leads to a lack of boundaries; then, the TA’s relationship with some students becomes like  friendship, which can lead to favouring some students over others.

This balance is important in all teaching-related jobs, and is probably a component of every customer/patron/student service job. Yet, how TAs experience this balance is unique. For many TAs, this is their first time serving directly as an educator. Additionally, since TAs are generally working with large classes in which the instructor doesn’t have the capacity to work personally with each student and build community, there is a lot of pressure on TAs to do so. No one wants to be that “bad TA in a massive hundreds-of-people class” that everyone complains about.

Additionally, like all fine arts, creative writing involves a heightened level of vulnerability and emotion compared to more empirical disciplines. Most students take creative writing courses because they want a break from the employment-focused parts of schooling. Even if a student in CRWR 200 hopes to make a living teaching creative writing one day, their main motivation for taking creative writing isn’t to make money—it’s an excitement for writing. This craving for the authentic side of things—art, emotion, community, excitement—puts unique and sometimes paradoxical pressures on TAs. For instance, although the alluring part of creative writing is its more artsy side, students aren’t sure how the inevitable empirical facets of our current education system—namely grading—can fit into something as emotional and subjective as art. Consequently, creative writing students want their TAs to do completely opposite things. They are anxious that their TAs will be too professional and cold at the same time that they are anxious their TAs won’t be professional enough to be objective in grading.

I don’t have the answer to completely finding this difficult balance. I think that everyone approaches this in their own unique way. Also, simply being aware of the importance of this balance within every level of TAing is maybe the most crucial step. Anyways, even if I don’t have the complete answer, I can still share a few ideas and methods that I’ve found useful!

One thing I’ve found really useful is to pay attention to my favourite instructors. We all have a few instructors we love who manage to build community and make us very excited while simultaneously being very professional. These instructors show us that it’s possible to have a class that is fair and involves firm rules and boundaries, yet still feels very personal and exciting. Pay attention to the kind of language these favourite instructors of yours use when talking to students: the language they use when building excitement, the language they use when laying down rules. If you feel that your rule-enforcing is too strict or your feedback is overly critical, pay attention to how your favourite instructor fosters excitement and enforces boundaries in a way that doesn’t feel alienating. If you feel that you aren’t being firm enough with rules or you are spending hours and hours crafting elaborate and encouraging feedback, pay attention to how your favourite instructor’s feedback manages to be efficient without becoming impersonal. Directly asking your favourite instructor how they do it via email isn’t a bad idea either!

A valuable idea here is fairness; it’s an idea I find myself coming back to again and again when thinking about this balance. For instance, if you are burning out because you are spending too long creating deeply encouraging and sensitive feedback, you are not being fair to yourself! When you have good intentions, it can be hard to realize you are giving too much of yourself. And even if it seems like burning yourself out is helping students in this situation, the truth is that it’s impossible to keep burnout from affecting those around you. For instance, if you’re spending 30 minutes on feedback for each submission, you’re going to be pretty worn out by the time you’ve completed 25/50 submissions. Inevitably, the final 25 submissions will receive less considerate and measured feedback. This is an example of how being unfair toward any party in the equation is going to cause an imbalance—even if that party is you and it seems like you’re being helpful!

Every TA is going to run into some sort of imbalance like this—it’s natural. As I continue to work on training materials, I’m going to keep thinking about this difficult balance between authenticity and professionalism. Hearing about every TA’s experience with this—their struggles, solutions, and philosophies—is probably the best educational tool when it comes to a broad issue like this. Hopefully we can have some fruitful group discussion in the coming year! Even though it doesn’t necessarily solve the problem, I hope this blog post helps as you develop or reinforce your own ways to balance authenticity and professionalism as an educator.

They say, “We are our own worst critics,” and though I do not know who this “They” is, I can say that adage has never sat right with me. As writers, isn’t it sort of a given that we critique our own work? Who else but us has unfettered access to our material 24/7? I know that by the time I’ve reached the “ask-an-equally-exhausted-creative-type-friend-to-look-over-your-work” part of the editing process, everything can seem predictable or unimportant. But that’s only because I’ve lived with it for so long and so intimately that I’ve lost perspective on it.

How are you doing? No, really, how are you doing? Have you been kind and patient with yourself the last while? Have you been keeping perspective on your own writing? On everything you’ve accomplished this last year?

It’s easy to sound insincere when trying to reassure or encourage someone. But if you’ll indulge me, I’d love to take this time to remind you just how amazing you are.

1. You made it through Zoom University! Whether you’re in the midst of your degree or preparing to graduate, you’ve done it! This was a huge shift, and it wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination, but you did it!

2. You were a TA! You graded dozens, if not hundreds, of assignments on top of your own coursework, and you were there for your students, ready to help at a moment’s notice. You got to aid young creatives in finding and refining their voices; that’s so, indescribably cool!

3. You took care of yourself! This is the most amazing thing of all (in my opinion). You kept yourself fed, you took time for yourself, you laughed…You’ve survived. You’re here. Thank you.

I won’t pretend to know how much else you took on this year, what other roles you had to fill—socially, professionally, personally—but you’ve done it all so, so well. Keeping these plates spinning can be hard at the best of times, and as we all know, these are not the best of times. I hope that if you’ve critiqued yourself, you’ve also been able to keep perspective on all that you’ve accomplished this year. The work you’ve put in is incredible and worthy of celebration. You are worthy of celebration.

There’s no question: being a TA is a demanding job that can often add extra stress to a challenging semester. No matter how hard you try to avoid it, a marking deadline always seems to conflict with an upcoming story deadline of your own. You sift through piles of student stories, pointing out the underdeveloped inner journey of the protagonist or the abundance of grammatical mistakes in the work of students who may or may not revisit the piece and work on revising it once the semester is over. Meanwhile, your own story is sitting unwritten in a nonexistent Word Doc on your computer. Sure, it’s great to have a little extra money coming in, but is a TA-ship really worth diverting focus from your own work to critique the work of others? Wouldn’t that time be better spent agonizing over your own drafts?

You could probably tell from the rhetorical question set-up: my personal take is, no, it wouldn’t be better spent that way. And it absolutely is worth opening up the tunnel vision of your own writing habits to assist with the work of others.

As a TA, you basically get paid to (re)take foundational creative writing courses. You become intimate with the fundamentals, the basics of writing. (And this time you have to know them well, because you’re responsible for explaining them to the students.) Not only that, but you also have to consider and apply these fundamentals when you mark. Every. Single. Time. You need to be able to justify issuing a 3.5/5 on story structure somehow! It makes you diligent in assessing the bones of the story. And then, guess what? When you finally get the chance to return to your own writing, you can assess it with the eagle eye of a seasoned writing teacher: the setting is lacking, this character has an unclear desire, there’s no dialogue—why on earth is there no dialogue?!

It’s all very wax-on wax-off. By doing the work that feels like a distraction, you’re actually developing your own skill and eye. You’re better equipped to face the writing challenges ahead. And hey, you’re also getting paid.

Everyone knows communication is important, but in the midst of one’s own coursework, grading, and various other responsibilities, this knowledge can get misplaced.

Earlier this year, I took part in the CTLT’s Instructional Skills Workshop. In the workshop, we learned how to create lesson objectives: “By the end of this lesson, learners will be able to do x, y, and z.” When students know what they are supposed to take away from a lesson, they are better able to allocate their attention.

This isn’t always applicable in TA positions since not every TA assignment involves lesson planning. However, I think that communicating what you hope students will take away from your feedback is valuable. When I am marking, I tend to focus on the positive aspects of an assignment. I was inspired to do this because of Sheryda Warrener’s module in the TA Orientation. One of the things that has stuck with me from that presentation is that “studies show that positive technical feedback at the undergraduate level is more effective than critical technical feedback”.

However, when I focused exclusively on the positive, many of my students were confused. They were used to getting critical comments on their work. After emailing back and forth with a few of them I realized it would be easier (and save time!) to explain my approach in their feedback. So, I drafted a few sentences about my approach and then copy and pasted that into my feedback for each student. I have found that the responses to this have been overwhelmingly positive. Some students and I have discussed this in my office hours and they have expressed appreciation for this method.

Another communication method that has benefited both my students and myself is responding quickly to their emails. Even if I am not sure how to reply, I let the student know I have received their question/concern and will get back to them when I know more.

I hope these communication tips are helpful for TAs!

Here is the thing about novels: they take time, thought, percolation, consideration. And then, when they’re under classroom or advisor deadline, they are required to exist, without any consideration for the author’s need to mull deeply on questions of good and evil, or what they want for lunch.

Now, I am not some famous novelist with twenty books under my belt, but I have had a lot of experience writing novels and thinking about novel-length projects in terms of deadlines and school settings, and if you are a student needing to write for a deadline, or just someone desperate for advice, here is my Totally Unauthenticated Advice on jumpstarting a novel.

Step one: Lie. Tell yourself, this is not a novel. You are going to write a novella. Novellas are only 17,500-40,000 words, and 17.5k is hardly anything. It’s only 3 longish short stories! Or . . . around 15 flash pieces. Still, nothing! (Tell yourself this, firmly, in a confident voice.) But 17.5k is too long for a tidy idea, so you’re looking for a messy one instead, which is great. You have plenty of messy ideas. And then, when you hit 40k with a big chunk of story left, you’re golden. This is a Novel.

(Please ignore the prospect of hitting 90k with a big chunk of story left. That is future-you’s problem, and future-you can handle it. They’ve got a flying car. Probably.)

Step two: Pick a really cool idea. Ignore all ideas that sound like a Sensible Plan or are Clearly Appropriate for the Market/Suit your Instructor’s Tastes/Will Appeal to your Audience. Dig through your old ideas. That one that was “I want to write a love story about a skateboarder falling for a surfer” great. Choose that. Then up the cool factor by 20%. Love stories are fun, but kind of tidy. You need mess for a novel. What if it’s also a mystery?! Maybe an environmental mystery. Maybe the main characters are teens and their parents are entangled in this mystery. Or are dead and they are wracked with grief. Maybe . . . maybe there are ALIENS.

Then, judge your idea based only on whether or not you want to write it. Do you want to write it?

The answer has got to be an enthusiastic YES. Novels are long-term relationships. You don’t want to marry someone who makes you tired or stressed out or bored. Nor do you want to marry a novel that makes you tired or stressed out or bored.

If the answer is a maybe yes, it’s time to apply the attention grabber. What will make the project obsess you? Maybe you like challenges–can you use the epistolary form? Maybe you like experimental approaches–consider numbering all your scenes and ordering them randomly. Maybe you really want to make your reader miserable–kill the love interest 1/3rd of the way into the novel. (No, don’t do that. I did that, and reader response is Not Thrilled.)

Remember, a novel project is great when it’s a puzzle, a pleasure, and a challenge. If you’ve got some characters, an aesthetic choice, and some tension, then it’s time for step 3.

Step three: Take a shower. Or go for a long walk, or a drive. Or sit by a stream, or relax with some coffee. Lift weights. Climb a mountain. The goal is to start your subconscious thinking about your idea. Don’t try and logic it out, just explore.

The goal for this part is to find the Key Thing for starting a new novel:
the first Emotionally Horny Moment.

Emotionally Horny Moments are the moments that make you go unhhhh, just to think about. They’re the dangling carrots that you are writing your way towards. They are the Good Parts.

What next? Some people outline, some write synopses, some make copious notes, beat sheets, story bibles, playlists, moodboards. But I think you will know when to take the next step by tasting your idea. Is it rich, delicious, like chocolate mousse or thick curry? If you put your fingers on the keyboard, will the story start to drip out of them?

If it will, then you’re ready to go. Just write.

Here’s the thing. Sometimes it feels like your idea has gotten overworked, it’s gone dry and brittle, it’s lost that sense of engagement and play. But the truth is, it might actually be you. You’ve gotten overworked, dehydrated, sad and tired. And so the most important thing, while working on your novel, is to take care of yourself.

If you keep yourself together and remember why you loved the idea in the first place, (also, always “retain the right to have a better idea,”–listen to Grand Master Lois McMaster Bujold), and keep writing, you will get there. Or you’ll get somewhere. Maybe Albuquerque.

If you’re not yet tasting your story, if it’s watery or bland, then you might need to try some outlining strategies, maybe layer on some more flavours, or strip out the bad tasting ideas. Keep playing with your ideas, make notes, scribble down scraps of scenes, dialogue, images; focus on those emotionally horny moments, and let that story build.

And take a lot of showers.*

Results may vary.

Feeds 6.

*More environmentally friendly strategies also available.

In addition to acting as one of your TA mentors, I, David Johnston, have volunteered to be the Union Rep for the Creative Writing Program this year. As the new year and semester begin, remember that CUPE 2278 is here if you ever need us.

If you haven’t read it already, the quick guide to the CUPE 2278 collective agreement, which outlines job descriptions and wages, vacation and leave, seniority, and other rights as a member of the union is a good place to start.

We’d like to remind you to make sure the course instructor sends you the Allocation of Hours form and that you track your hours. Please note that the Allocation of Hours includes the online training and vacation hours. If you think you’re going to exceed your allotted hours, let the instructor know as soon as possible. This allows the program administration to plan more accurately for the future, and also to make other arrangements for the current semester.

You also have paid sick days if you need them and academic unpaid leave if your schoolwork conflicts with your TA duties (e.g., due to attendance at a conference). 

Most issues TAs encounter result from misunderstandings and are easily resolved by communicating directly with instructors. However, if you need advice or support, the Union is there to help. CUPE 2278 has paid staff who are experienced in navigating TA work-related issues. You pay for this service out of your dues, so don’t be afraid to use it! Also, bringing issues to the union’s attention helps them know what to address next time they negotiate a collective agreement with the University.

Any communication is kept confidential and CUPE will not take any action on your behalf unless you instruct them to do so. If the union intervenes on your behalf, labour law prohibits employers from taking any punitive action. 

The gig economy endangers workers’ rights that were fought for generations ago. We’re lucky, as Teaching Assistants, to be part of a large established union (in fact, Canada’s largest, with over 700,000 members) that helps to set standards for the rest of the working world.

If you have any questions, you can reach me at factotumfilm@gmail.com. Or you can contact the union: president@cupe2278.ca. If you’re interested in getting involved in committees, attending union meetings, and getting to know the union community, which extends far beyond CRWR, please get in touch!