Raise your hand if you have ever waited until the last minute to write an English paper. I assume I now have both your attention and your hand in the air. Who among us has not put off a paper to within hours of its due date? I saw this as early as fourth grade when I watched my twin brother finish his term paper on Greek mythology in the car ride on his way to school. I certainly saw it in college. One student actually had his hallmates barricade his dorm room door so he could work uninterrupted to finish his senior thesis. And in thirty-five years at Pingry, I have seen more than my share of eleventh-hour heroics, including one student (back in the days of hard copies) who actually handed me his essay as I drove out of the parking lot at the end of the day.

As an English teacher, I have long fought the good fight against such tendencies, exhorting my students to see me early with their drafts and to revise their work  carefully throughout the writing process. And I repeat that message here to reinforce the obvious: It is always better to plan ahead, to develop ideas thoughtfully, and to draft deliberately along the way to the final submission. But to that standard stump-speech message I must add a confession. Over the years, some of my best writing  has happened in last-minute moments, in desperate circumstances (of my own making) that forced me to come up with something spontaneously, with virtually no planning or drafting. Facing the final countdown, I dropped back in the pocket, metaphorically speaking, hurled a Hail Mary, and scored a touchdown. As counter intuitive as it may sound, I think that, at least for some of us, the do-or-die situations we all dread may actually (and paradoxically) yield some of our best stuff.

To illustrate my point, let me share a story. In 2008, Jenna Devine became a Presidential Scholar, the only student in Pingry’s history to earn that distinction. She asked me to join her in Washington for the ceremony. Shortly afterward, I was contacted by the program’s awards committee, inviting me to contribute a statement about my teaching philosophy; it was to be included in a book about the student recipients and their teachers. The submission request included a due date, which I promptly ignored, consumed by more pressing matters at school. About a month later, I received an email countdown notice as the deadline loomed. I was right in the middle of something, so when I finished up, I refreshed the message. To my horror, I discovered I had three minutes to submit my contribution. Three minutes (roughly the time I wait in line at Starbucks) and I had to come up with a teaching philosophy going into a book to honor our country’s most accomplished students. Of course, brainstorming, drafting, and revising all went out the window. After all, I had 180 seconds to get it done.

So I sat back, cleared my head, and let my thoughts drift. Thankfully, the words came, and I typed out my statement, which included the following line: I tell my students that Shakespeare was a genius because that’s my job. But when my students tell me that Shakespeare was a genius, that’s why I teach. Two months later, I joined Jenna and her family in Washington, and we circulated around the opening-night gala at the Kennedy Center. At one point, I found myself standing opposite the Secretary of Education. I stepped forward to shake her hand, and she glanced at my nametag. “Great teaching philosophy,” she said. “That’s the key, isn’t it?” Somehow, I fumbled out a response, something like “It sure is,” omitting  the fact that I had written it in less time than it takes to boil an egg. Needless to say, that brief encounter remains for me a cherished moment. And while, over the years, I have written many statements about the teaching profession, from fellowship applications to alumni speeches, my three-minute special from 2008 remains my favorite.

I realize I am playing a dangerous game here. The last thing I want to do, implicitly or otherwise, is encourage students (especially my own) to put off their writing assignments for greater inspiration. Most of the time, eleventh-hour heroics do not work out for the best. I would also note that, at Bucknell, I earned a reputation as a strong writer, and my senior honors thesis won an award that included public recognition at my graduation ceremony. Believe me, that didn’t happen because I put it off. It happened because I read over thirty books and spent nine months (and countless hours) in front of a typewriter. In forty years of teaching English, I have met fewer than ten students for whom writing was easy. For most of us, it is hard work.

But along with the dogged discipline required to write well is the inspiration to have something meaningful to say. As we all know, inspiration is far less controllable than the more practical aspects of writing like researching, outlining, and proofreading. The way I see it, we don’t call on inspiration so much as it calls on us, and that can happen anywhere, from taking a walk in the woods to shoveling a driveway full of snow. We don’t dictate its course; we just marvel at its arrival and take it from there. For me, and I suspect for at least a few of you, some of those magical moments have come under the looming shadow of a deadline, in situations one might think least likely to yield something worth reading. But believe me, it can happen. So my parting advice is this: Try to keep last-minute moments to a minimum (for sanity’s sake). But when they occur, don’t panic. Sit back, clear your mind, and wait for the words.

 

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Author photo by Anthony "Truncs" Truncale '26

 

To contact the author: Mr. Keating