An Interview with Brigitte Whiting

by Frank Richards

What made you decide to become a facilitator?

I was nervous about whether I could do it but I wanted to take the classes anyway and had enough time to try it out, so I jumped in.

Has being a facilitator affected your writing?

 I’m facilitating nonfiction and some of the poetry classes which means being in courses where I’m very much a student and I retake most of them for the structure and the craft. I’ve also been facilitating MFA110 and I reread the text, all the lectures, and leave feedback for everyone in my classroom—I find it’s a good review. With this many prompts, I end up writing pieces and trying genres I might never have thought of otherwise, and there’s always the challenge to see whether I can pull some idea off.

What tips do you have for a newbie facilitator?

Since facilitating takes time, start out with a one-week literature course that you need for credit. Don’t take yourself too seriously, meaning post the lessons, respond with the feedbacks, and keep records. If the posts are within the ballpark of the assignment, and this is something you’ll discover, within what each classmate is capable of doing, then accept what has been posted. I feel very much that it’s up to each student to be responsible for his or her work, not the facilitator to cajole anyone.  The weeks go by very quickly in these courses so check on your classes each day and keep up with whatever needs to be done. It’s easy to lose track of who has left feedbacks so keep a handwritten chart—I use accounting forms.

Have you taught or facilitated classes outside of WVU? 

Technically, I guess I facilitate my two local writers’ groups. I’m very much a behind-the-scenes person and will usually only step in to smooth out difficulties, to pull someone back from the cliff of giving up on writing, or to encourage us to learn new crafts and stretch our creative muscles.

What has been your favorite class or classes to facilitate?  

I like all of them.

How much time does it take to research and prepare for each class? And to give feedback? As a facilitator, what other kinds of things do you spend time on?  

Since I’m now doing the same classes, I’ve copied the lessons with their HTML coding so all I need to do is post them and reread them for clarity. The amount of time to do that varies a bit but it doesn’t take all that long. Leaving feedbacks vary, of course, depending on the lesson. If the assignment is to comment on the reading from the text, I’m usually fairly brief. If the assignments are for actual writing, I’ll spend whatever time is needed. I read everyone’s feedbacks and answer questions that come up and research those. If the course has a final project, I’ll run searches for how those are usually done and develop templates for them. Some courses are more hands-on than others.

Please share what you’d like to on your special love of writing. Is there some aspect of writing which really intrigues you? What classes have you taken here?

I think I’ve taken nearly all the MFA and literature courses, albeit some before the MFA-Certificate programs were put in place. I feel that writing is a continuing challenge to tell a story so it works, to find the words that convey what I mean, and to set up scenes so a reader can step into them. I suppose I’m a perpetual student.