Writing Instructor

Never mind that sticks and stones break more bones, and that pictures are 1,000 times more valuable. No matter what popular aphorisms suggest, words are powerful stuff. Just like reading and speaking, therefore — both of which require words — writing is a critical life skill.

In fact, good Writers typically get higher grades, which often gets them into better schools, allowing them to eventually land better jobs. If you’re a Writing Instructor, therefore, you’re a success-maker, making you among the most important kinds of Teacher.

And, of course, “teach” is exactly what a Writing Instructor does. Oftentimes you teach young people, at middle schools, high schools, community colleges and universities. Sometimes, however, you teach adults, perhaps as a Corporate Trainer, or a Coach who teaches recreational writing classes. Regardless, you’re paid to make people better Writers.

How you do that depends on what type of writing you teach. As a Writing Instructor, you might teach creative writing, for instance, academic writing or business writing. Typically, you offer a mix of lectures and workshops. In a creative writing class, for instance, you may spend the first half of the class talking about the use of metaphor in short stories, discussing strategies and reading examples from published Authors. Meanwhile, you’ll spend the second half of the class discussing student work, offering feedback for the purpose of revision.

You may or may not test and grade your students. Always, however, you’ll evaluate them, pairing instruction with constructive criticism. After all, you can’t teach someone to write the great American novel. You can, however, teach them to communicate.