Be More Dog and Other Writing Workshop Lessons

Here’s another post from the Engaging with Online Writing Students class I took a few terms back. It’s required to receive a certificate for teaching online courses. The prompt for this decision was to look for ideas to move a class or workshop away from basic discussion boards.  

There seems to be a slight lack of self-awareness in a discussion prompt, looking for ideas to move away from discussions. But who am I to judge?

Here is my response.

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Hi everyone,

So, I’m going to tell you all a story. It’s what I do. If you read it closely enough, you may find my answers to the prompt. You see, in the end, the fancy paper SNHU gives me for doing these classes will look lovely hanging on my wall, but it’s all the words I manage to get written that will make me a better writer.  

I can point to a discussion post in an undergrad history class as the first place where I found what my writing needed to sound like. I found my voice. It was lying there piled up with my thoughts on the hippy counterculture and Frank Turner’s “Love, Ire, and Song.” This was also the place where I learned my use of entry-level foul language would pretty much go unchallenged.

Here's the story I promised. It’s not a story about finding my voice or even fostering engagement with students, but it’s a story, nonetheless.

Before that damn virus hit, Trena and I were seeing live music four or five times a month. We would go to bars with black-painted walls, drink brown vodka and PBR, and see bands like Mickey Rickshaw or the Whiskey Shivers. During the lockdown, we fell out of the habit.

Then, as the world was getting back to normal, my brother-in-law was murdered, and our fuckin family imploded. Trena and I managed to avoid most of the collateral damage, but it was all but impossible for us to stay entirely out of the psychological shit splatter. We were left with the task of keeping everyone else from sinking too deep to be able to make it back.

A few months later, I found myself in a Ken Elkes online writing workshop. The first week’s theme was to be more dog. The idea was to shake things off like a dog shakes off a rainy day. Then write. Perhaps it was because of all the weight sitting on my shoulders, but I couldn’t seem to make any sense of it.

On a Saturday night early in the workshop, Trena and I went with some friends who had never been to a punk show to see Flogging Molly and Anti-Flag. During Anti-Flag’s set, I headed off by myself to the front of the crowd for some friendly consensual violence. I slipped through the halo of bodies around the pit. The closer I got, the tighter they were compressed by the pulsing mass at the center.

Mosh pits have an event horizon, a point of no return. It lies just beyond the ring of people who want to but lack the nerve or just can’t figure out how to take that step from motionlessness to frenzy. Pushing through into that no-mans-land, I paused for a breath, then jumped headlong into the chaos. 

In the euphoria of that fast-moving crowd, it hit me. I was banging around, covered in sweat and beer, and shaking it off like a mother fucker.

I was only able to hang for a few songs. I’m old, so cut me some slack. When I returned to Trena and our friends, one of the first-timers asked if I had a good time. Or I think it’s what she was trying to ask. I cut her off with a primal scream, and I’m almost ashamed to admit that I about cried.

Now, I may owe you an explanation of why my story matters to the prompt. It’s simple: we’re trying to engage with writers, and I can’t think of a better way to engage writers than to encourage them to tell a story. Using discussion posts this way has the added benefit of letting everyone get to know each other better, and this is the big one: the students get to practice their craft.

The be more dog thing is a bit more esoteric. Connecting with students requires reaching out to them where they are. What works for one student may not work for another, or it may not work for the same student on a different day.

Thanks,

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Note: A few weeks after that show, Anti-Flag disbanded. It had something to do with a sexual misconduct allegation. I have to say I was never all that into their politics, but their live shows sure as hell kicked ass.

Also, you should check out Ken Elkes | Substack and consider taking one of his workshops