‘I Made My Professor Cry’

When people ask you about your day, you can say, “I made my professor cry.”

It was workshop day in my Writing for Cultural Engagement class. “Workshopping” one’s writing means that you read aloud to the class your draft of a soon-to-be-submitted assignment. Students and professors then make productive comments about shifts and changes that might be helpful. Last week we were hearing satire and Substack student work.

Course Interlude: When creating curriculum, something I’ve been doing for over 40 years, a writer begins at the end asking, “When the class is finished, what should my students know, be and do?” The process is referred to as “backward design.” In this case, I wanted my students to read all different writers who spoke into their time and place. Satire (think Babylon Bee) and Substack (a journalistic platform for independent writers) are important voices for any era. In my class we have read women and men, unbelievers and believers, progressives and conservatives.

The first to read was a brilliant satirical piece about living a “crunchy lifestyle,” a person given to only natural foods and processes. The young woman was poking fun at the movement because she is in it! The self-deprecating viewpoint made her writing so fun! I told her she needed to publish her work. The third reader also wrote satirically. Hers was a sarcastic take on “get a ring by spring.” For those not in the Christian university setting, being engaged to be married by the spring of your senior year is a pretty big deal. Some refer to the process as getting your “MRS” degree. And the poking fun went both ways as she did an over-the-top rendition of a guy proposing. Again, publish that!

“But wait! You skipped the second reading!” Indeed, I did. Another young lady (the guys read last on that day) decided the night before to change her writing from satire to Substack. I have been teaching long enough to know that the “night before” rewrite can go either way. This student made the right choice. Grandchild of a Filipino immigrant, our reader gave exacting detail about how much she owed her grandparents. Her writing was a generous, kind, loving retelling of her family’s history. Over and over again she made sure the reader knew that everything of earthly value came from her forebears. The touching tribute radiated honor, respect, admiration, care, and earnestness that comes from the depth of the soul. By the end, tears stained my cheeks. It took a few moments for me to regain my composure. And then I said,

When people ask you about your day, you can say, “I made my professor cry.”

Even now as I type these words, my eyelids barely contain the flow. All of us come from somewhere. All of us have a genealogy. All of us reminisce over memories. All of us can tell personal stories. Our past may contain hard times or good times, bad experiences or positive vibes. And these stories must be told.

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