On Writing and Teaching Writing. An interview.

Recently, I was interviewed by a college student in my life who's taking a class on the teaching of writing. We met last week and had a really interesting conversation about, among other things, the art and craft and writing, teaching writing itself, and where AI may (or may not) have a role in either of those questions. 

With her kind permission, I'm sharing the interview here, since it's been over a year since my last blog... Please enjoy and if you have any questions to add, please email me or add them to the comments. 

You can see more of my interviewers amazing work on her Instagram.


An Interview on Writing and Teaching Writing with Robert Kugler, Author and Teacher

Q: To you, what is the value of writing?

A: The value of writing for me is how I make sense of the world around me. If you take the long view of it, it's essentially how civilization passes itself on. We used to sit around fires and tell each other stories. Now we write them down. 

Q: What setting or atmosphere is most conducive to writing for you?

A: It varies, honestly. There are days where I need complete silence and nobody around bothering me. There's other times that I'd rather go to a crowded restaurant or something like that and sit at the bar and write there. It kind of depends what I'm writing and what I'm doing in that moment. Sometimes if I'm writing a scene that's about a lot of people interacting, being around and having that ambient noise is really helpful. That's where a lot of good ideas come from is just being out in the world. Periodically, I'll hear somebody say something or do something and I go “oh, I gotta remember that for a book.” And that's where details come from, is being out and interacting with the world.

Q: How has your perception of writing and/or the writing process changed over time?

A: When I was younger, if I wanted to write something, I used to think I had to wait for some brilliant idea and then burp it out all onto the page. Now I know it's a craft, it's an art, and it's a muscle that you have to use regularly. So you know, it's a craft, you have to practice it. So that means sometimes sitting down even when you're not in the mood to do it. It means sometimes sitting down when you're feeling inspired, you just have to go to work. A lot of the time, the ideas come once you get going. I used to think, “oh I can't, I'm not going to write today. I don't have any ideas.” Well tough, sit down and do the work. 

To me, that process has become a lot more demystified as I've written my own books and as I've connected with other writers who go through the same thing: that whole process of having an idea, and then working the idea, and then second guessing the idea, and then thinking “oh god, I'm a horrible person. I'm a horrible writer. Nobody's gonna love me, my family will hate me.” And then finally coming back around to the “you know what, this idea isn't that bad. I can keep working on it.” Every writer I know goes through the same cycle of awfulness, but it's a craft. If you want to get better at soccer, you play soccer. You want to get better at writing, you gotta go write, even when you don't feel like it.

Q: How does your experience as an author influence your experience as a teacher?

A: That's an interesting question. I think I just value it in a way that is different [from] some of the other people in my department because it's actually something that I do. I've made money from it, I've gone out in the world, I've worked on my craft. [My students are] not really writing creatively, [but] I've put such a high premium on the importance of writing, in particular critical writing, thoughtful, well-crafted writing. I appreciate it more. And you know, I can literally say to my students, “listen, this has value and here's why.”

I've been out in the world and I've worked with other writers and I've seen other writers make a living from it, and there's value to it. No matter where you do it, if you write well, there's always going to be a job for you to find someplace to do that. If [someone wants] to go into the military, they're going to have to write reports. If they want to go and work in business, they're going to have to write reports and if you can write [the reports] better than other people, you're going to make more money. 

I think just being able to say to my students “listen, okay, you might be bad at this now, but you can get better at it by working” [has value]. Like, that's literally how we get better at anything. And, you know, my students are a little frustrated right now because the things that I'm asking them to do in their papers are very difficult for them…it takes time to learn how to really craft a good analytical essay. Analysis is very difficult for them. But you know, whether you write creatively or you write academically, it's work. You got to keep working at it to get better at it.

Q: What advice do you have for dealing with writer's block?

A: 24 minute power nap or a 42 minute power nap if you have the time, but not a minute longer than 42 minutes. You take a nap, you get up and then you sit down at the computer and you write, even if you don't feel like it. You take your nap, good tight 42 minutes, and then you sit down and you work. And even if it's bad, it's on the page and you can't edit what's not on the page…Just say, “I'm just gonna write.” And maybe it's garbage, but you're writing, so then you're not blocked. You can't edit what you didn't write. So yes, it might be garbage, but you can make garbage better. We all write garbage sometimes.

Q: If you could only teach your students one thing, what would it be?

A: Just keep writing. Just keep going, just keep doing it. Do the work. Once you've written it, then you can make it better…but when you walk away from the work, that's when it becomes that much tougher to go back to it.

Set yourself a goal: “I'm going to write this many words. I'm going to write this many minutes every day”…That's the advice I need to take myself right now, is just go do the work. Like, set a goal, meet the goal. But just keep writing. When in doubt, keep writing because you can always fix it later.

Q: Describe a writing assignment you teach consistently. Why do you use that assignment?

A: I show the kids a painting and I say “tell me the story. What's the story that's happening here? If you were going to write a book, or write a short story, or write a TV show, and the only source material is this painting, tell me the story.” I like using that [assignment] because the first thing it shows them is that everybody has a different perspective. If I've got 20 students, I'm going to get 20 different stories. Some kids are going to focus on one part of the painting and the other kids are going to focus on another. I usually try to have it be a painting that's got a lot going on, with lots of little things and big things that they can focus on. 

Especially at the beginning of the year, it gives them a question that there's no real wrong answer to. In a curriculum like ours, where there are a lot of wrong answers waiting for them, it's kind of nice for them to start the year with one that they can't really screw up. It stretches the imagination, it gives them some flexibility, and it also just lets them also see what the other minds in their classroom are like.

Q: Do you teach your students how to revise their writing and if so, how?

A: We try to do peer editing. In both jobs of mine, writers are really bad at editing their own work, because we know what it's supposed to sound like. So that's one of the first things I tell them is “yes, you should read over your work and edit. But if you have the opportunity to have someone else do it, that should happen regularly.” And I give students time to do that. They don't always take advantage of it, because sometimes they make poor choices academically. But I think the more eyes you can get on your product, the better, because you can't catch your own errors most of the time. I know I can't, because we autocorrect, we know what we meant. 

So getting a fresh set of eyes and going through line by line, does this all make sense? You know, each sentence is its own sort of animal. So you got to make sure that they're all in a row, they're all doing their heavy lifting, they're doing what they need to do. 

But in terms of how to teach them to revise, it's really just practice. Like, if it doesn't sound right, make a little note of it and then say, “hey, well, why doesn't it sound great?” Okay, well, maybe it doesn't sound right because it's not a complete sentence. Or it doesn't sound right because it's too long a sentence. That smell test of “this doesn't sound right” is what I try to aim for students to start to develop, the ability to get those kinds of editing chops where they can say “okay, this doesn't work and I don't know why.” So let's go find out why. 

Q: When you grade assignments, what elements do you focus on?

A: With [International Baccalaureate] it's all rubric-based for the big assessments. So they look at knowledge and understanding, meaning, are you demonstrating knowledge about the question and about the subject? Then analysis, like, “are you giving me a summary of what you read or are you really dialing down into author choices and giving me what I'm asking for?” 

So those are kind of the two most important factors, then there's structure and language. Did you structure properly? We usually ask them to do five paragraphs, because that's kind of the standard. If you've given me two paragraphs, that's not following what I've asked you to do in terms of structure. And then language is just, you know, is that the appropriate language? Are you eliminating and avoiding contractions? Are you avoiding first person? Things like that. So those all go into that. Each type of paper we do has a different rubric, but they all focus on those four areas. The subject-have you analyzed the subject or are you giving me a summary? Did you structure it right? Did you use the right words? Those are the four that we look at, and we do it in different capacities. Like in Paper Two, which is a literary paper, knowledge and understanding and analysis count twice as much as the other two on that one. But on Paper One, they're all equally weighted because that's a non literary paper. 

Q: What impact do you see AI having on your classes?

A: There are kids who have tried to turn in ChatGPT as their papers and it didn't go well for them because ChatGPT writes bad papers. There is a line of logic that I've heard some teachers espouse, none of them English teachers. But I've heard some say that ChatGPT and AI can be a tool for helping students organize their ideas, and figure out how to structure things, and maybe find and access information in a more detailed way than just doing basic research. But the impact I've seen so far from my end is that it's made some students very lazy. It's made them make some very poor choices. And unfortunately, it's led to a lot of failing grades; because they'll turn something in that they think is phenomenal, but what they don't understand is that at least for now, the way the algorithms are working they make up quotes, they make up characters.

If you said “give me an analysis of the use of setting in The Hobbit,” it'll probably start you off with something that sounds right. But you know, two or three paragraphs in, it's not it's not Bilbo, it’s going to be Brian, and it's going to be quotes that don't exist in the book. It literally makes up quotes, I've watched it do it. 

So I think unfortunately, as with any new technology, there's going to be good uses for it and there's going to be bad uses. My problem is that right now what it’s doing is making students lazy…Is there a way for it to have a meaningful role in the teaching of writing? I don't know yet, to be honest with you. I'm skeptical of that. Is there a usable framework for it to be a productive way to help students organize thoughts for a paper? I just don't know. I don't know that I have enough confidence in the algorithm because, like I said, I've experimented with it myself so I can understand what they're doing with it. And what they're doing with it is getting a lot of D- papers.

Thanks so much for reading!