Teaching commitment

Laid low by a vicious chesty bug, I managed to teach two classes last week, but I’m sorry to have missed the blog.

The Tuesday was a simple 2-hour introduction to creative writing – one of a series in the route this institution is taking to attract new student-clients: it was FREE. Such is the state of ‘leisure’ adult education; a good ploy, I think – come and taste our wares. I wonder if it costs less/more than advertising and brochure distributions; and how do they measure effectiveness? Over to marketing.

Meanwhile, the maximum signed up, but fewer turned up. If they’d paid, would it have been the same? Nevertheless it was fun to be in a roomful of entirely new to creative writing adults. I had assumed the challenge that it could be a range of interests – short story, novel, non-fiction, children’s, not-really-sure, poetry – and I was right (nil poetry, however; nor plays, scripts, lyrics). Therefore I stuck to four of my basic writing process tools; did NOT ask them to read aloud to the group, but by the end had them share in pairs, 5 minutes each, and by this point they could choose from 3 little paras written during the session. I love that lively chatter of pair work. On leaving all seemed happy and interested in more... if they can fit it into their lives. Bon voyage!

Hero’s Journey/Writer’s Journey continues on Thursdays and guess what? My team leader asked me to do two runs of this for year 2008/9. Heavens! A year from now, talk about commitment. But commit I did. Repeating the course in November and post-Easter.