How My View on Content Warnings in the Creative Writing Classroom Changed
Last fall, during my second year as residential faculty, I abandoned my Intro to CRW class ten minutes after it started. As we prepared to begin an in-class workshop, my heart began racing, and I couldn’t get it to stop. Years earlier, I’d been diagnosed with tachycardia (which presents as rapid heartbeat), and I’ve routinely taken medication to help control symptoms ever since. But this particular day, something felt off. I tried my best to take a few deep breaths, unable to get control over what was physically happening to me. I made my way to my office and called our department secretary. My pulse was not calming. I felt the urge to get home immediately to my heart monitor and call my cardiologist to report that I was having an episode of some sort. I asked the secretary to dismiss my class, and I left campus.
At home, I followed my doctor’s instructions and took another dose of medication and drank a ton of water. In a while, my pulse returned to a normal rate, and I collapsed into my bed, exhausted.
Later that week, I met with my therapist, and we unpacked the events leading to my abrupt campus exit that day. I shared with her that my class was preparing to workshop a new piece from one of my students who had previously submitted a piece I’d rejected due to sexually violent content, something I’d never done before. She asked how I felt after reading the original submission. I told her I went numb, recalling specific details from a personal trauma I’d survived almost 40 years ago—a trauma I thought I had adequately processed.
My classroom is a judgement-free zone. But now as I prepare to enter my third year as a program lead, I am asking myself, at what cost?
She explained that the body doesn’t care if the trauma is old or seemingly healed; it often resorts to fight or flight mode when it perceives a threat. She said she felt confident that is why I fled campus that day; my body perceived a threat even though I knew intellectually that there was none. I was confused.
“But I’m a professional,” I explained to my therapist. “I’ve been teaching creative writing for over seven years. I’ve read a lot of personal essays containing a multitude of unspeakable truths. I’ve never had this problem before.”
She asked me what I did with all of that absorbed trauma.
I told her I didn’t understand her question.
She tried again. “Do you go to the gym? Run? Maybe hit a heavy bag?”
“No,” I responded. “I just go home, eat dinner, and go to bed.”
In her essay “Carework in the Creative Nonfiction Classroom: Toward a Trauma-Informed Pedagogy” author and University of Central Arkansas professor Jennifer Case writes, “Therapists are trained to notice the states of their own nervous systems and to practice grounding practices and self-care when they feel themselves becoming activated in and after sessions. Creative writing professors, I’d argue, need to do the same—especially if and when we find ourselves working with student stories about trauma. We need to know ourselves and to be able to lean into self-care (meditation, walks outside, connections with others, exercise, healthy eating, etc.) when student work or student distress dysregulates us. In other words, we need to prioritize maintaining our own windows of tolerance so that we can remain as regulated as possible.”
For years, I have prided myself on creating a safe space where my students can find their voice, even when it feels scary. My classroom is a judgement-free zone. But now as I prepare to enter my third year as a program lead, I am asking myself, at what cost? How can I find the balance between giving my students what they need while literally protecting my own heart?
I recently watched a 2023 Virtual AWP panel titled “Pedagogy: Content Warnings in the Classroom.” Discussing Kate Manne’s NYT op-ed piece about Roxane Gay’s take on trigger warnings in her book, Bad Feminist, Harvey Mudd College Associate Professor of Literature and panelist Ambereen Dababhoy explains: “Students needing warnings have most likely experienced the worst of the world. [By providing content warnings,] we are not coddling them; we are caring for them.”
Until last fall, I’d never implemented trigger warnings in my creative writing classrooms. I took what I believed to be a tough-love approach with students, assuming we were all adults and any hard truths shared could and should be handled as a result. Now I know better. Now I know the body does indeed keep score. I understand the importance of content warnings, and I implement them, explaining to my students that they are a way to honor each other and foster safety for everyone involved—including me. By doing so, we mindfully acknowledge everyone’s unique window of tolerance. Together, we actively work to avoid unnecessary trauma activation, and we give each other a chance to regulate emotions, tapping into our shared humanity as we work to make the world—or at least our little corner of it—better, one draft at a time.
Kim Sabin, Member
Kim Sabin is a writer and an educator. She received her MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles in 2017 and was named English Faculty and Creative Writing Lead at Scottsdale Community College in 2022. Her work has appeared in Lunch Ticket, Hags on Fire, and on Kelly Corrigan Wonders podcast. Kim is currently revising her first manuscript, a young adult novel about the moment we acknowledge our parents are human just like the rest of us. When she isn’t busy grading papers or talking to fictional characters, Kim enjoys spending time with her husband in their empty nest and visiting with their daughter.
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Kim's Instagram: @kimwrites
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