How Teaching Writing Helps My Writing & Lets Me Pay It Forward

I recently started teaching a short, informal online course to two friends on the art of structuring and writing a memoir. (These friends are fellow writers I got to know last year when we attended a Creative Non-fiction writing course together)

Now in case you start searching online for my course, don’t. Because you won’t find it.

Here’s why.

Teaching As A Way To Pay Forward

First off, I’m not a published memoirist, or for that matter, a published author. Nor have I ever taught anyone how to write a book, let alone a literary genre as niche as a memoir. Conventional wisdom would deign that one ought to have at least published a book to be a reliable voice to teach others how to do it, right? So naturally, I wouldn’t be touting my wares publicly since I lack conventional credentials.

(I’ll attempt, however, to make a counterpoint to this at the end of my post, so stick with me okay?)

Second, it was someone else who designed this short course I’m teaching. Now just in case you think I’m some scam artist trying to rip off the innocent by pawning another’s hard work as my own, please don’t. Both of these friends know I’m sharing stuff I learned from someone else. But they were curious to find out more, and how it helped me structure my manuscript these past few years.

Hence their decision to “sign up” for my little fledgling writing course. Bless their brave souls!

Finally, I wanted to get off my lazy horse and take what I’ve learned more seriously, by passing on what I know. My way of ‘paying it forward’, in a manner of speaking.

It’s bad enough I’ve been quietly writing and re-writing my book on my own since 2020, without a clear goal (even now) to publish or not. So the least I can do if I never publish is not to let all that knowledge go into hiding or to waste. Especially since I’ve been applying everything else I learned from the course so far, other than copyediting and publishing.

There are also two other (more important) reasons why I ‘offered’ this course.

ONE: Teaching Helps Me Come Full Circle

You might have heard the adage by Aristotle: Those who know, do. Those who understand, teach.

To that I would add that teaching is a great way to help someone come full circle in his/her journey of learning something. In this instance, I’m that ‘someone’ who’s using the process of teaching to learn and discover more about my ‘something’, namely memoir writing.

Looking back over my last three decades as a working adult, the idea of teaching to learn certainly rings true in my experience.

Each time in the workplace, when I’ve had to explain a task, project, or process to an intern, a colleague, or even a superior, I’ve found my understanding of that work expand as I shared what I knew with them.

And because most of my 30 years were spent as an educator, I can say with confidence and the benefit of hindsight, that this learning-from-teaching experience has happened for me more times than I can count!

Many were the days I walked out of classrooms at the end of a lesson I taught, thinking stuff like…maybe I need to bring that piece of content up first rather than last. Or …perhaps a different illustration would better help my students understand that principle. Or…instead of just showing a how-to video, maybe I should use a role-play next week to let them experience it for themselves.

I’ve also wrestled with my understanding of the content whenever a student posed an off-beat question that doesn’t fit neatly into my internal FAQ list. Those kinds of questions — and the interactions and subsequent insights — have helped me over the years to dig deeper and grow further my knowledge of a subject.

This would not be possible if I had resisted being challenged by my students. Or worse, stayed cloistered in some cold, ivory tower many accused academics of doing throughout the ages.

SECOND: Teaching Helps My Writing

The other reason is that, by offering my friends this online course, I’m offering myself a unique opportunity. An opportunity to test my knowledge of structuring and writing memoirs.

Each lesson, I present the materials from the source. But I don’t stop there. I also share what I know as clearly and concisely as possible. I use my writing journey these past four years as a way to illustrate to my friends the skills and techniques mapped out by the course creator. That way, they will hopefully better grasp the lesson to aid their own memoir writing journey. And I, in turn, will reinforce my knowledge of writing too.

As I prepare each lesson, I’m revisiting the materials in a manner no different from taking a refresher course on driving. I am reminding myself what I learned before, and solidifying my understanding in ways big and small.

After each lesson, I cross-check with my draft manuscripts to ascertain if I’ve properly applied what I learned (and am now teaching others). If I have, it’ll be like a pat on my shoulders. If not, I will return to the drawing board to make the necessary adjustments and edits.

Truth be told, one’s skills in writing are best honed in rewriting. So teaching and engaging with my friends in the course is also helping me to further develop my skills in writing and rewriting.

A Non-Published Author Can Teach Writing Too

At the start of this post, I mentioned I will attempt to make a counterpoint to the conventional wisdom that only published authors can teach writing.

Instead of one, how about if I gave five counterpoints?

Firstly, teaching is a skill that is first learned, then honed through years of practice. I’ve had at least 20 such years now so I know I can do it. Plus, not every published author necessarily has the skills and experience to mentor and teach.

Secondly, writing is ultimately a form of communication. As a language and communications lecturer all these years, training my students in the art of academic and professional writing, I’ve already been active in the field of writing towards effective communications.

Thirdly, I’ve been writing actively for much of my life, starting with private journaling during my young adult days. I’ve been faithfully blogging here every week since 2019 and have accumulated nearly 600 posts now to show for it. I have also been published on other platforms and been paid for my pieces too. Meaning my writing chops have been independently endorsed.

Fourthly, I’ve also done some copyediting over time, including editing the freshmen orientation magazine for the tertiary institution I taught in between 2012 and 2017, and several guest posts on my blog in the last few years. So I know what goes into good writing.

Last but not least, I’ve attended several writing courses in recent years to update and improve my knowledge about writing, particularly in the area of memoir writing.

Chest-thumping My Way To Teach Writing!

If all the above sounds like excessive chest-thumping, then please allow me to thump away!

For too long, conventional wisdom narrowly dictates what qualifies people to speak and teach on areas of expertise. This includes either having a professional certification or the exact work experience. In STEM fields like say rocket science or bio-engineering, that might well be true. If I have to go under a knife in a surgical ward, I would certainly want my doctor to have proven skills and experience for the task. Not someone who only knows surgery through watching YouTube tutorials!

However, in the fields of Art and Humanities (A&H), the net can — and I might venture to even say, should — be cast wider. When it comes to A&H, it’s more about the creativity and ability to articulate and express, and less about exact experience. As an example, one of my writing coaches, Ms Allison K Williams was a fire-breathing circus trapeze performer before switching successfully to writing, editing, and coaching others how to write!

A final ingredient, if I might add, to qualify someone to teach writing (or anything really), is passion.

I know I have passion in abundance when it comes to writing and communications. One of the reasons I started a writing circle last August (besides seeking a writing community to commiserate) was the passion I had to encourage and motivate other burgeoning writers to succeed. I see this as my way to give back and fulfill my own self-actualization goal in the process.

In closing, as long as there are fledgling writers out there willing to take a chance on me, I will be more than happy to help them in their writing journey.

Just as how others have done the same for me.