Check it out: my first set of class magazines, which feature an essay from every student in my first-year seminar. These aren’t meant to impress you—I know they’re not that fancy—but to make you think, Hell, I could do that. You’re right, you could. Easily.

Why would you want to?

1. The “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing” asserts that students should write for a genuine audience. With class magazines, the students become readers as well as writers of essays; they become the audience for each other.
2. It might provide an incentive for your students to care a little more and work a little harder on their essays. Not long ago, a student told me they work at one level if they know a teacher is going to read their stuff, but they work at a higher level if they know their peers are going to read their writing.

So how do you put together a class magazine?

You’ve got options. It doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive. You can cobble together a long Word document or PDF and distribute it electronically. You can print that long document and pass out hard copies. Or, if you work at a school with a print shop and a bookstore, you can do what I did:

• Make the class magazine a required text for your class, and have the bookstore charge students a few bucks for it at the beginning of the semester.
• Ask the bookstore to send that money over to the print shop.

Voila, your students have funded the publication of their own magazine. If your print shop can handle design as well as publication, all you have to do is send them the document.

All in all, it’s a pretty easy way to create a genuine audience for your students’ writing. Give it a shot, and hit me up at furuness(at)gmail.com with any questions or if you’d like to share your experience with class magazines.