To start off classes this semester, I had the students sit in groups of five. This meant 5 tables of 5 students each. I asked the students to list each member of their group on the board as well as a detail that might help us to get to know them. After they finished doing that, they listed five “Rules For Writing” that they believed in or had been taught to them in previous classes.

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Next, each group read a different text written by a writer about writing. On the first day, I used these texts/excerpts:

• Black Boy by Richard Wright.
• “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott
• Life by Keith Richards
• Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
• “Unlearn to Write” by Donald Murray

The students read the excerpt out loud and answered the following four questions:

1. What is the writer’s message about writing?
2. What are some “golden lines” that you think are worth talking about?
3. How can you apply the ideas here to your own writing?
4. Does any of what this writer says about writing cause you to rethink any of your own Rules For Writing?

When each group was finished, I counted off by fives at each table. Students moved to a new table and presented the text they had just read to students who had read something different. I want to thank St. John’s University doctoral student Katelynn DeLuca for reminding me about this “jigsaw” method of getting students to move around the room.

In the coming weeks, students will be reading and commenting on texts written by writers about writing. This exercise was a way for all of us to begin to get to know each other and for the students to get acquainted with some of the choices they have for their reading this semester.