Writing the Pandemic: An Instructor's Reflections on a New Era in Education

Writing the Pandemic is for first-year college composition teachers and other English and language arts instructors at the postsecondary and secondary levels who have experienced the seismic shifts in writing instruction and education more generally that have been necessitated by the pandemic. These include challenges during the pandemic years in instructional delivery (in-person, hybrid, and remote classes); campus and classroom protocols (masking, distancing, and cleaning); safety (quarantining, isolating, and reporting); and social justice (antiracism, political divides, and implications for education). The author, an award-winning college writing instructor, paints portraits of the pandemic experience that writing teachers and their students will relate to, complemented by students' stories and photographs, and offers practical learning material for four assignments that can be used in writing courses. He also presents questions for reflection and speculations about the future to stimulate readers' own thoughts about what has changed, and how much, in the context of the pandemic, and about what writing instruction will look like going forward.