TCOB?

TCOB: It was Elvis's motto, and if it's good enough for The King, it's good enough for me. It stands for "Taking Care of Business." For our purposes, it's "Class Participation" on steroids. The trouble with your everyday, garden-variety "Class Participation" is it sort of implies that if you just do your work and don't make somebody cry, you'll get full credit for it. Yes, I want you to do your work. No, I don't want you to make anybody cry. But that's an exceedingly low bar, is it not?

What I really want is for you to be a writer:

• Writers show up to do the work.
• Writers engage. Ideas. The human experience. The world.
• Writers have empathy for anyone brave enough to stake a claim to what she/he thinks.
• Writer's know they don't know everything. Not knowing is the fun part.
• Writers pay attention.
• Writers are curious.
• Writers read.
• Writers listen.
• Writers think.
• Writers write. A lot.

Okay, maybe not all writers do all those things. But if you're doing all those things, then you, my friend, are definitely TCOB as far as I'm concerned.

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