Introduce your students to new voices from around the world

The Common in the Classroom

We make it easy:
1. Pick two issues of The Common.
Use our most-recent issues or select from our archives. Our staff can help
you choose the best issues for your curriculum. Single-issue and digital
options are also available.

2. Schedule your classroom visit.

Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Acker answers students’ questions and provides a
rare window into the publishing process.

3. Use our supportive resources.

We’ll send you sample lesson plans and complementary readings, audio,
and interviews tailored to your chosen issues to enhance student engage-
ment.

4. Rinse and repeat.

With two issues published each year, you’ll always have exciting new writ-
ing to explore with your students. Find an issue you really love? You can
keep using that, too.

All for just $20/student*

*We can invoice your department or set up a storefront for students to pay individually.

Learn more: visit thecommononline.org/teach

Get started: contact [email protected]

“Teaching The Common shows my students that literature and its produc-
tion and distribution are living processes, part of a living world that they
can access as artists and future professionals. The video chat with Jennifer
Acker was priceless in bringing this within their reach.”
—Amy E. Weldon, Professor of English, Luther College

“The Common’s exemplary resources for teachers and its devotion to elevat-
ing new writers will help bring into being a new generation of readers and
thinkers.”
—Judges’ citation for the 2019 Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes.
 Teach The Common in your classroom
A Modern Sense of Place: Stories, Essays, Poems, Images
Ideal for courses in:

• Contemporary Literature
• Creative Writing
• Editing and Publishing
• Travel Writing
• Comparative Literature
• Landscape and Architecture
• Place-Focused Seminars
• First-Year Seminars
• Rhetoric and Composition
• Interdisciplinary Studies
• Translation Programs
• Arabic Literature in Translation
• Latinx Literature
• Middle Eastern Studies

The Common features place-focused portfolios and works in translation,

with a focus on contemporary Arabic fiction.

Discounted student prices, plus a free desk copy, lessons plans, and a virtual
visit from the Editor in Chief.
 Sample Lesson Plan
Group Assignment & Student-led Exercise: Divide students into small groups (trios work well)
and give them a week to:

1. Meet together outside of class with their copies of The Common in hand;
2. Select, as a group, a poem they particularly like,
3. Prepare to read that poem aloud to the class, and
4. Design and lead an in-class writing exercise for their classmates and teacher that is inspired by a
technique or aspect of that poem.

Adapted from Amy Weldon, Professor of English, Luther College

Example:

One group chose Fatimah Asghar’s poem “Kul” from Issue 14, read the poem aloud, and noted that
it was based on one word that could mean several, potentially opposite things—a contronym. The
students had generated a list of contronyms in advance and projected them on the board (e.g., “sanc-
tion,” “oversight,” and “left”). They then invited their classmates to write at least a few lines of a poem
that would, in their words, embrace these opposite meanings.

“I like this exercise not only because it gets students engaging with the fresh texts in detailed ways
(at the same time we are all receiving and getting into our new issues) and working together, but also
because it gives them a sense of what it is like to be in front of a class, teaching (potentially useful
information for those who may be considering that path.)” —Amy Weldon
 Sample Lesson Plan for Literature in Translation
In this exercise you will explore the multidimensionality of a poem, essay, or story by “living with” the author and
translator: reading and thinking about their work every day for a week. This is a multi-step assignment, so read
carefully and make sure you plan in advance.

Step 1: Read “How to Read a Translation” by Lawrence Venuti (wordswithoutborders.org/article/how-to-read-

a-translation). From your issue of The Common, choose one work in translation that you like enough (or perhaps
that is difficult or strange or intriguing enough) to spend a week with.

Step 2: Keep a written journal about your experience, using the following assignments:

Day 1: Read your piece twice. Write at least two paragraphs (200 words) detailing your initial reactions,
explaining why you chose it.
Day 2: Read the piece out loud. Then circle the words, phrases, sections that jump out at you (because they
surprise you, annoy you, because you like the sound of them or don’t like the sound of them, etc). Look up
any word you don’t know and then write at least a paragraph (100 words) about why you think the author
used those particular words (please include a list of the words you circled).
Day 3: Read your piece. Paraphrase in a paragraph (at least 100 words) what is happening in your own
words. You can use phrases like, “And then the author says that..” and “Next the author describes…” (re-
member to identify the piece by title).
Day 4: Read the piece again. Then research information about the author and about the translator. Write a
paragraph (at least 100 words) about what you learned and how this influences your understanding of the
piece.
Day 5: Read your selected piece out loud to someone else (friend, parent, girlfriend, boyfriend, uncle,
stranger) and write one paragraph (100 words) about this person’s reactions and your feelings/thoughts
while reading it aloud.
Day 6: Reread Venuti’s “How to Read a Translation” and consider how you have been reading your piece.
Write two paragraphs (200 words) about what you learned from this.
Day 7: Read your piece one last time really, really slowly, line-by-line. Then reread your first journal entry
from Day 1. Write two paragraphs (200 words) about how your initial reactions to this piece has changed.
Include a description of your favorite and your least favorite parts as well as any images or sounds or inter-
pretations that stand out to you after this week of living with this piece.

Step 3: During class discussion, you should be prepared to discuss why you chose your piece, what you learned
about the author and translator, and the experience of living with this author and translator for a week.

Adapted from Curtis Bauer, The Common’s Translation Editor, and Director of Creative Writing Program and
teacher of Comparative Literature at Texas Tech University.
 Sample Lesson Plan for Personal Essay:
Developing Voice, Exploring Roots
Assignment:

Using these essays from The Common as inspiration, bring your completely current voice to an exploration of
history; write a concise personal essay exploring your personal history or the history of a place.

“Coastlines” by Teow Lim Goh (may also be presented in conjunction with other California authors: Fante,
Didion, Jeffers, Hong Kingston, Mori, Himes, etc.)

“The Teak House” by Lamtharn Hantrakul

“The Town with the Golden Future” by Will Preston (Issue 14)

Assignment:

Write a “roots” paper; dig into family photo archives, probe family lore, myth and history, and perhaps,
interview. Below are some examples from The Common.

“Death of the Family Farm” by Sarah Smarsh (Issue 8): This essay demonstrates how an author (and student)
might make a gentle shift away from personal narrative (and out of the spotlight) into the role of observer or
even chronicler.

“Country” by Mistinguette Smith: An edgy and persuasive argument, its voice, its deeply personal and historical
braid provide a wonderful model for conveying the family history through a particular lens. Supports a
discussion on craft while students are working on personal essays (may also be presented in conjunction with
other texts that probe migration within the US – Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, etc.).

“Project for a Trip to China” by Lisa Chen (Issue 16): This elliptical essay delves into familial history, obligations,
and relation to an ancestral homeland through the lens of Susan Sontag’s writings and travels to China.

“Leave the Child” by Akwe Amosu (Issue 12): A collage of poetry, images, and extracts from letters and other
ephemera combine to evoke a child’s experience of parental conflict and Nigeria’s political strife in the 1960s;
this hybrid piece provides students an example of how they might employ source material in new ways.

Adapted from Ralph Sneeden, English Teacher, Phillips Exeter Academy

 Sample Lesson Plan for Writing & Publishing:
Encountering the Literary Journal
Discussion Questions:
What is your first encounter with this magazine, as an object?
What do you think about the physical and aesthetic features of the magazine: the weight, the paper stock, the
cover, the cover art, the font? What, if anything, would you change?
How do you read it? In order? Piecemeal? How do you think this affects your reaction to the magazine?
How do pieces relate to each other? What is the effect of their placements on you as a reader?
Why do you think a specific piece was chosen? Would you have chosen it? Why or why not?
Choose a story that made you feel a particular way. Explain this feeling, and then explain what in the text
contributed to that impression.
What can you gather about the authors included in the issue?
What do you think it means for a creative work to have a strong sense of place?
What do you see as the advantages and challenges of curating a magazine with a defined sensibility or theme?
What is the effect of having such a defined theme?
Do you believe the magazine is succeeding in its mission?
How do you imagine finding the audience for this magazine?
How do you see this magazine fitting into the broader literary landscape?
If you became editor of The Common tomorrow, what is one thing you would change?
How do the website and print publication relate to each other? What do they offer that is different? Similar?
What is the effect of the digital pieces versus the print pieces?

Assignment:
Write a sample review of an issue of The Common for a website or newspaper. Think about the questions above.
Help your reader understand what The Common is, and what they might find if they pick up an issue. Consider
aspects of the journal (or particular works) that you find to be particularly strong. Consider what might be
improved.

Assignment:
Select a story, essay, or poem and describe why you think it was selected. What are its strengths? Weaknesses?
Consider how the work fits with the journal’s mission. Think about how the work relates to other pieces in this
issue.

Assignment:
Select a story or essay, and write a letter to the author. Choose one of the following:

Draft an acceptance letter, in which you describe what you like about the work, as well as what aspects you
would like them to consider changing.

Draft a rejection letter, identifying any areas of the work you find to be successful, and describing in what ways
the work might be improved. Invite the author to send future work for consideration.