Writing Groups pt.2: Mike Rose

At first, this was going to be only a part 2 but I realize that this is likely a much longer series, and I especially wanted to have the "Mike Rose writing group" be a separate post in it of itself.  This is the format I learned from the late, great, Dr. Mike Rose. He taught a generation of folx at UCLA this format and I still utilize it with friends in writing groups. 

FORMAT
The format for this writing group includes regularly, usually weekly meetings. For almost all of them, it's about 2 hours each week. The format is as follows: 

• Everyone comes to the group with 2-3 pages (double space) of writing that they are prepared to share. For the group, the person will bring copies (if in person) or share the document (if virtual) so that the group can follow along, annotate, etc. 
• In the beginning, we do a brief check-in, and then the first person begins. The person starts by explaining what feedback they'd like and/or what they are struggling with (no more than 1-2 minutes), and then they start reading aloud the 2-3 pages
  • At first I didn't understand why we all had to read aloud, but I appreciated how in this practice, Mike taught us to slow downm and often in reading aloud, we caught those minor grammar errors that with all our time starting at screens and go go go movement, we often miss. 
    
• When the person is done, the rest of the group provides feedback (e.g., things that they've noticed, trying to address the concerns the person brought up in the beginning, etc.), and then we move-on to the next person. 
  
• At the end, we talk about what worked, what didn't, and what 2-3 pages we'll be bringing the following week.

TIMEFRAME
Part of why this format and process so well is because everyone follows a strick timeframe (with a timer) and we don't go over for anyone:

• ​When Mike Rose'ing (yes, we all made it a verb), a group of 5 people each got 18 minutes (for 90 minutes total) + 30 minutes of debrief, check-in, and chatting each week
• With my friend and I who Mike Rose, we do 30 minutes of check-in, each of us do 45 minutes of reading aloud, for a total of 2 hours each week

ACCOUNTABILITY & CONSIDERATIONS
The other reason why this works so well is because you have to bring something every week. It doesn't have to be polished, it doesn't have to be perfect, but being forced to bring 2-3 pages every week is a pretty incredible form of accountablity. In doing so, and as you can read in the tributes that folx wrote for Mike, we finished dissertations, chapters, and even books, through this process. Every one of my articles that has been published, has had at least some part of it Mike Rose'd. 

As a note with this, bringing 2-3 pages of work per week and reading it aloud is vulnerable. Sharing work and giving feedback is vulnerable, it's raw, it's hard. So in this, I'd also say that it takes time to Mike Rose with folx and to build out that type of rapport. What made Mike's process ​at UCLA so incredible, was how he was able to do that for each of the sections he taught (which were A LOT), and do it so quickly, so well, and in a way that made each of us feel seen.