I taught a writing course in Ecuador
Here's my lesson plan
This chocolate bar will forever change the way I think about writing. Maybe it’ll change your perspective, too.
In January, I joined a few men from my church, Trinity Anglican, on a trip to Ecuador. We visited Amor y Esperanza, a decade-long partner that provides high-quality education to kids from low-income families. Part of the trip was hosting a career day. Two guys taught finance and entrepreneurship. Another taught the kids about solar power. And I taught a writing course.
Here’s my lesson plan — in case you ever need to teach a class in a foreign country.
Opening activity: What’s your favorite English word?
I kicked things off by asking the students to share their favorite English word. I said mine was ‘hippopotamus.’ That was a lie. It was just the first fun word that popped into my head. ‘Balderdash’ might be my real favorite. Because I like the sound of it, and I love the game.
The kids’ favorite words? ‘Love’ and ‘happy’ were the top two. That’s more tender than a Big Zax Snak. ‘Butterfly’ was the most surprising, earning multiple shoutouts. I get it — it’s a word that shows how English is strange.
Why does writing matter?
Once they were warmed up, I told them why I believe writing is the most powerful skill anyone can learn.
No matter what you do when you grow up, writing will help you be better at it. Unless you’re a mime. Then writing won’t help much with your mime craft. Wow — pausing to put ‘mime craft’ on my list of Fishbowl phrases.
Writing will improve your life because you’ll be more equipped to express your truest thoughts and feelings, communicating clearly with those around you. But writing goes beyond communication. It leads to connection.
Good writing is empathy in motion. It’s the ability to step into someone else’s shoes and string together words that resonate with them. Writing says, “I see you.” If you can develop that skill, you’ll soar higher than any ‘balloon’ a mime lets loose.
But what is writing, actually?
I told the kiddos that writing is giving life to ideas.
Your brain can imagine. It’s what sets us apart from our hippopotamus friends. Ideas that just stay in your head don’t create anything more than a mind so cluttered it’ll make Marie Kondo curse.
To create change, you have to transport ideas from your mind to the physical world. You have to write. (Or you can speak. But speaking usually goes better when it’s first written.)
When ideas leave your head, they have the power to influence others. They can shape thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Ideas that meet oxygen can change the world.
My story
Now that I (hopefully) had their attention, I could afford to bore them with my story, including how I got into writing and what it looks like for work.
When a high schooler learns you’re a writer, they imagine Christopher Nolan or Brandon Sanderson (IYKYK). I dispelled that myth by sharing the different types of writing.
Sure, authors and film writers get all the glory, but copywriters make capitalism spin. Ok, I didn’t get into capitalism or even use the word copywriter. But I did share how I majored in marketing, which I realized was hard to explain to young kids who don’t speak English. I boiled marketing down to a fancy word for activities that convince people to buy a product or service from a company. Writing is one of those activities.
I told them about writing websites, video scripts, captions, and newsletters. How behind every word they see, a human had to say, “Let’s put that there.” And they can be that human if they want to be.
How to unlock creativity
The hardest part about writing is getting started. Like Luigi hitting the gas before the light turns green, it’s easy to spin your wheels at the starting line. Thankfully, I believe the antidote to writer’s block is what kids are already great at: playing.
So, we spent some time talking about how play can get your creative juices flowing more than Wonka’s chocolate river.
By setting your body in motion, your mind follows.
“The moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.” — Henry David Thoreau
Everyone may not get mentally energized by taking a stroll through Walden. But everyone does have a form of play that sparks joy and motivation.
I shared with the class Dr. Stuart Brown’s eight play-based personality types. Because everyone — from an Ecuadorian 9th grader to you — loves to look at a list and say, “That’s me.”
Here’s that list:
Collectors: You love collecting things. These are the baseball card collectors, the birdwatchers, and the Pokemon Go players.
Competitors: You turn everything into a competition. Board gamers, salesmen, and people like me who take pickleball too seriously.
Creators: You have a blast making things with your hands. These are your crafters, bakers, and woodworkers.
Director: You have more fun planning the party than attending it.
Explorers: You crave the next adventure where you can try new things.
Jokers: You love making people laugh.
Kinesthetes: You have to move your body — a lot. These are the walkers, dancers, and yogis.
Storytellers: You’re drawn to a great story — whether you’re creating it or consuming it. These are your moviegoers, book readers, and songwriters.
Once every kid picked which play personality resonated most, I told them to hold onto it. And whenever they feel stuck at school, make time to play.
The assignment
I gave the kids the assignment that helped me realize I loved writing. It was an advertising class at UGA, where the professor had us write 100 slogans for the newest Toyota Tacoma.
Instead of hitting 100 with a truck, I gave the kids three minutes to write 20 slogans for Manicho, an Ecuador chocolate. It’s an impossible task, but I wanted them to move so fast that they didn’t have time to be afraid. Because quantity is the gateway to quality.
If you want to become good at writing, like anything else, you have to do it a lot. Your best results never come from your first attempt. Which means you have to embrace your worst to reach your best.
Writer Julian Shapiro says,
“Visualize your creativity as a backed-up pipe of water. The first mile is packed with wastewater. This wastewater must be emptied before the clear water arrives.”
Too many people get stuck when writing because they’re ashamed to see their ‘bad’ ideas on paper. But a bad idea is like a hernia exam in high school sports — you have to go through it if you want to play the game.
The results
The best part of the class was sharing ideas out loud. Kids were hesitant at first, but once a single student shared, the dam opened and we were flooded with ideas that made us all laugh.
Here are some of my favorite slogans from the kids:
“Dreams are sweeter with Manicho.”
“The taste of Ecuador”
“Don’t cry, eat Manicho.”
“When your girlfriend dumps you, eat Manicho.”
Class dismissed
During Q&A, I shared about the three qualities I believe make a great writer: Curiosity, humor, and empathy. But the greatest of these is empathy.
Curiosity is essential because one of the goals of a writer is to get to the essence of a thing. The work of distilling thoughts into words requires you to ask questions. Writing is just making sense of what you’re learning along the way.
Humor matters because if you can make someone smile while reading, they’ll keep reading. The world is too full of buzzwords and jargon. Comics feed you simple truth by disguising it in stories and language you’d use over a drink. Plus, funny folks are usually observant and see the world differently.
Lastly, empathy is the essence of writing. It’s about meeting people where they’re at and taking them to a better place of understanding.
Thank you for attending my class!
✌️
— Luke
P.S. Here’s some content I’ve enjoyed lately:
📺 Severance: I have no idea what’s happening, but I can’t stop watching.
📺 The Prince of Egypt: Thanks to growing up in a Christian school, I’ve seen this movie more than anything else. But it was fun to recently rewatch it as an adult with friends. Hans Zimmer did the music for this biblical musical about the life of Moses. And the voice casting is insane: Val Kilmer, Sandra Bullock, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Patrick Stewart, Michel Pfeiffer, Jeff Goldblum, and Danny Glover.
📚 North Woods: Loved the concept of this book where you follow the story of one plot of land over hundreds of years. It’s fun and poetic, but warning: it reads like a collection of short stories. You’ll meet an apple farmer, envious spinster sisters, a con artist, and many others who step on this wooded land in Massachusetts.
📚 The Tainted Cup: A whodunit fantasy novel with eccentric characters, sea monsters, and biology-based magic that usually leads to plants killing people. Most fun book of the year so far!
That sounds like an incredible trip!!