The joy of teaching

I teach amateurs. That’s the point: “Getting Published” is a course for beginners, and most people who take it have never been published, at least not for pay. Maybe they’ve had just a short item in a company newsletter or a letter to the editor in the newspaper, but they have dreams and ambitions and questions, and they bring those to class to explore the options.

In the very first minutes, I tell them that some writers have an abundance of talent but never get published because they lack confidence or the basic knowledge and skills to connect with an editor correctly to sell an idea to the right market. On the other hand, some writers don’t have talent but get published regularly because they do have confidence and know just how to get the right editors’ attention with the right information. My aim, I say, is to draw out of these students their natural talent and add to it the nuts-and-bolts skills they need to research a story idea, write a terrific query letter, find and connect with the right editor at the right market, and construct an article that works so well that the clip helps win the next assignment in an even better market and for a bigger paycheck.

As you might expect, in addition to dreams and questions, students bring a range of talent. Most, frankly, aren’t very good. They can’t write, or they don’t grasp the concept of a query, or their style clashes with the markets they choose to pursue. Maybe they’ll develop after finishing the class. Many or most won’t stick with it, which is okay; I’ve taken enough classes (ballet and pottery come to mind) that were interesting and worthwhile but for which my modicum of talent wasn’t enough to propel me to continue. Taking classes pushes our boundaries a bit, tests our abilities and inclinations, makes us a little better at something, and that’s all to the good.

Every once in a while, through – every couple of years – a student comes along who’s a natural. Reading the first paper by such a student, a teacher’s eyebrows go up: Two paragraphs in, and I’ve used the red pen only to fix punctuation! The lead is a grabber, one sentence follows from another, use of similes and metaphors is sophisticated, vocabulary is a match for the market, quotes are appropriate, and attention does not wander from beginning to end. Wow, I think, we’ve got a live one.

One of my first classes at Montgomery College had such a student. He wrote about motorcycles. I know nothing about motorcycles, but his query and article were so good that I found them riveting. Something similar happened this semester. My only male student wrote about the pros and cons of a particular model of boat, then about a dangerous sailing adventure. I know nothing about boats, either, but these were so well written that I wanted to read more. The only red marks I made were to fix spelling, subject-verb agreement, and the occasional run-on sentence.

On the last day, I tell students I’ll look for their bylines. I always hope to see them, and sometimes I have. I never saw the motorcycle guy’s byline, but surely that’s only because I wasn’t looking in the right magazines; I have no doubt he’s been published somewhere. Same with the sailor: An editor will say yes soon, and he’ll know the joy of a bylined article. To a writer and editor, that is part of the joy of teaching.

Copyright 2011 Ellen M. Ryan. All rights reserved.

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Tags: bylined article, bylines, editor, editors, getting published, joy of teaching, magazines, metaphors, modicum of talent, Montgomery College, published, query letter, similes, vocabulary, writer

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