Volunteer Explorer

I left in the middle of class last Thursday. We had started using our new textbook, which includes very little writing in English, and which I didn't purchase in hard-copy, settling for the much cheaper online version. Thursday's class was the first to indicate that a lot of content from the hard-copy book is not included in the online version. I felt immediately at sea when Eihab began our lesson on a new verb and some new vocabulary, even though I had spent several hours working on the homework. It seems our classwork has taken an exponential leap forward. My stomach knotted as I tried to write phrases with the new words, gleaning their spelling from my neighbor's textbook. I tried to remain calm, to focus on absorbing Eihab's vague instructions about definite articles that attach to adjectives and not nouns. My neck got hot. Tears welled unbidden in my eyes. To avoid an embarrassing breakdown in class, I went to the ladies' room. There, m...

When a student came for tutoring last week, she took out a folder as she searched for the essay she wanted to work on. I glanced at the red folder on the table and was struck by what she had written on it in thick black marker: Writing & Survival Skills. Huh. There was talk in some of my MFA workshops of writing as a survival skill, writing as a way of coping with trauma or mental health issues. And many of our workshops turned into therapy sessions for some of us. Indeed, the first summer after my dad died unexpectedly, I channeled my grief into every writing prompt my undergrad professor threw at us. A strong response to music? My dad's funeral. Writing about the body? My dad's enormous body in a coma in a tiny hospital bed. A short narrative about myself? My connection with my dad through our shared love of tattoos. All these essays were more therapy than literature, though I still think some of them are quite good. And I still—six years later—have a str...