Does Teaching Provide Insight into the Writing Process?

What do Zadie Smith, Brian Oliu and Colin Rafferty have in common (other than being successful, published writers)?

All three are professors of creative writing: Smith teaches fiction writing, and literary and cultural criticism at NYU; Oliu is a professor of poetry and the lyric essay (among other subjects) at the University of Alabama; and Rafferty teaches creative writing, specializing in nonfiction, at the University of Mary Washington.

With the number of writers emerging in the 2010's, a significant number are also teachers of some form of writing, whether it be journalism, creative writing or literary studies. Granted, writing is a difficult field to get into and even more difficult to make a living from. But the correlation between teaching and writing is definitely a close one. Which begs the question: does teaching make one a better writer, or vice versa?

Downs and Wardle address this connection in their journal "Re-imagining the Nature of FYC: Trends in Writing About Writing Pedagogies." Among the many trends mentioned in the article, the one I found to contain most interest is the "auto-ethnography" required of all first-year composition students.

Downs and Wardle describe this process as, "they talk-aloud and record themselves in a natural setting while writing a paper for a class. They then transcribe their own protocol and code it, using as a starting point a code the class invents together after reading studies by scholars...Coding categories might include “lexical revision,” “conceptual revision,” “writing without planning,” “re-reading,” and so on. The students might discuss the form their papers should take, debating whether the task is entirely writing-to-learn and thus can take the form of an informal reflection, or whether it is also a learning-to-write activity preparing them to write about research in a more formal way. The students draft their papers in the genres agreed appropriate by the class, read and respond to one another’s drafts in a structured workshop, and then revise for teacher feedback, which leads to grading in the end-of-semester portfolio."

This style of group-revision in writing not only provides students with the methods to workshop in a group, but also to teach other students methods of writing that they may be gifted in. I know from experience that I could bring an essay to workshop that wasn't working and another student will often give a suggestion that I had never considered. Or have what I think is the perfect underlying theme to a memoir piece and it takes a room of fellow students to convince me that the piece isn't working. And because they're my readers, they're probably right. These are both examples of students teaching other students how to compose a successful story, essay, poem, whatever the piece may be. These methods not only help students to improve their classmates' writing, but gives them the opportunity to learn from other methods used by their fellow students.

But back to the question posed above: this is kind of asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. You can't force something that isn't already present (i.e. a talent in writing); and very often this talent doesn't need to be taught in a classroom. However, one of the best ways to learn a skill is through teaching it to another person. Which, as teachers of first-year composition and creative writing, these fore-mentioned authors know well.

Although teaching may not be an essential for being a writer, it certainly provides insight to other forms of writing and helps one improve based on styles seen in the classroom. And if one wishes to be a successful published writer, why not follow the example of those same authors (and teachers of writing) we all admire?