I often open and close the college writing classes I teach with two low-stakes writing assignments. One is called “Draw Your Feelings,” although participants do not always physically draw during it. Sometimes students post memes, images, or GIFs that express how they are feeling in that particular moment. My closing activity is a reflection essay, or exit ticket. I often ask students to discuss one thing they learned that day and one thing they need clarity on. I will sometimes switch up the questions during the semester to avoid monotony and increase student engagement.

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Gathered images of a notebook I used while teaching College English II at Medgar Evers College, CUNY. I found that taking the time to reflect on my practices several times as I taught during the semester (as opposed to one time after the semester was over) helped me respond to issues in real time and also helped me to understand what approaches were successful. (Note: If you’re not an analog note-taker, using the Notes app on your mobile device to create these prompts is just as useful.)

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I have written about engaging ritual work in teaching here, but I wanted to post a simpler ritual exercise here. I also discuss ritual in my scholarly research—rituals are simply habits. Because we all perform rote tasks everyday, we all have access to ritual—it isn’t a skill one needs to learn. We just need to pay more attention to the rituals (habits) we perform regularly to appreciate their importance.

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I adapted this student-centered pedagogical strategy from a K-12 teaching source (see here). I’ve included a summary of the gallery walk here.

Helpful teaching resource for any instructor teaching at the college level! This handbook is updated annually by staff (former staff member here) from CUNY Graduate Center’s Teaching and Learning Center (TLC).

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