Writing from a Former Student: Luke 

I remember reading this student’s take on The Grocery Game in my office in October 2014. I was pleasantly surprised by his insight into the course. Since then, I have tried to explain the eight week writing collaborative project—The Grocery Game—more clearly; however, Luke’s words encapsulate so much of my approach to teaching writing, that I include his words here because they are better than any I could produce.

Furthermore, Luke’s explanation shows from the student’s perspective how I have approached college writing—the course I have taught most frequently over the years—with strong influences from technical and professional writing and rhetoric.

The Grocery Game, as an educational vehicle, utterly shatters the traditional barrier between academic writing assignments and the written communication we do every day. When most people think of writing for school purposes, they tend to think solely of the dry, isolated essay, a strictly regimented form of communicating ideas necessarily limited to one context (places of study) and one relationship (student-teacher). By contrast, the Grocery Game leaves this “ivory tower” of traditional academia and brings English education to the critical realm of real-life communication scenarios, which can take place in a variety of contexts and relationships, from the formal to the informal, from the familiar to the strange. People don’t seem to realize it, but you employ writing and communication skills every day, on your computer, your smartphone or at the tip of a pen in class. This class, unlike some other English class, targets all those forms of communication. It is geared for the high-technology age we live in and embodies the notion that we should have a broader focus of English instruction, aimed at improving our writing skills and training us to better communicate our ideas in ALL contexts . . . enabling us to achieve success in the academic, professional, AND personal realms.

So even though we might not have done well, even though this class has definitely put us through the wringer with some unpleasant experiences – we must be grateful for this genius bit of instruction and the new perspectives from which it has forced us to think.”

–Luke, former student

Updated on 01/2020