Another Covid semester is about to begin. After so much trauma and exhaustion in the last eighteen months, how can we possibly get back into the rhythm of learning together?

The challenge of starting a new semester – or beginning each class meeting throughout a semester – ready to dive into the course subject matter is real. Even in a typical semester, before battling a pandemic became a daily reality, my students came into each class with the weight of their lives on their shoulders – their health, jobs, families, friendships, romances, and anxieties about their studies and futures. They also often entered distracted with texting roommates or talking to classmates as they settle into their seats. When teaching moved online during the height of the pandemic and students began logging into virtual class meetings from home, they contended with many additional upheavals, often living in cramped quarters that were less than ideal for concentrating and participating in class.

I used to struggle with the first five minutes of class. Those moments of transforming a room into a classroom have so much potential, but they can also be awkward. It took a lot of energy for me to convey my own enthusiasm for any given subject and to outline my goals for our time together before a group of students pulling out notebooks or catching their breath. It isn’t always easy to get them all instantaneously focused and into learning mode. When class didn’t begin in the right way, it was often difficult to get back on track.

A few years ago, I began a simple practice that has transformed my teaching. Now, I look forward to the first few minutes of class as my favorite time.

When my students enter my classroom, they find a handout on their desk with instructions for a brief writing assignment. If they arrive early, we chat about how they’re doing. But the moment class begins, I play a piece of music that is related in some way to the theme of the class, and my students spend those first 3-5 minutes answering the prompt on the handout. When the music ends, I welcome everyone to class, frame our session, and then build upon the work they did in the opening minutes of our meeting, either by explicitly asking them to share what they wrote or using it as a jumping off point for the day’s learning. I begin almost every single class with this practice, and after a few class sessions it becomes a ritual. This simple strategy allows everyone to transition from the outside world into a space of learning, and it encourages students to start each class actively thinking and learning on their own terms and in their own words.

My prompts include the personal, the historical, the theoretical, the visual, the mundane, the profound, the concrete, or the abstract. Sometimes, I ask students to answer a question about their own experiences that relates to the class material. Other times, they encounter a short excerpt from the assigned readings and a set of questions. In certain cases, I print an image of an object or a work of art and ask them to analyze it in a particular way. I try to vary the prompts, so that students not only practice different types of thinking and analyzing, but the exercise also remains fresh each time they enter class.

As I construct the prompts, I try to articulate for myself what it is that I want students to contemplate at the beginning of our session. What is my overarching goal for our time together? I then build backwards from there.

Importantly, the handouts are self-contained documents that students can complete without instructions from me. The handout always has the prompt clearly written on it, so students know exactly what they need to do in the brief time they have to write. I provide enough space (and usually lines) for the students to do the work on the page itself. This allows them to focus quietly without confusion or distractions.

I also try to be creative; I add photographs, cartoons, or other graphics when they might spark new ways of thinking. They may be single- or double-sided, and each side of the page asks something different of them. I mix formats between landscape and portrait orientations. Through these handouts I convey the importance of aesthetics to the learning process, a messaged reinforced by their writing and the ambience set by the music.

While I occasionally collect these handouts, I often have students keep them at hand for class. If I plan to have students share their reflections with classmates, I indicate this on the handout in the directions (e.g. “during our discussion, you’ll have an opportunity to share your reflections with your classmates”). This warning allows them to control what they feel comfortable sharing. In contrast, I also indicate if the reflection is deliberately designed to remain personal, thus giving them the freedom to write in a different way.

Here are a few examples of prompts from a course I teach titled “On Time and Its Value,” which explores the topic of time from many different disciplinary angles, covers a global history of timekeeping, and studies debates from the past and present about how time ought to be conceived, structured, and used.

For a session early in the semester on time in the disciplines of philosophy and physics, I asked students to radically re-think how they conceive of time. On the handout, I wrote: “This past week, you read Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams, which describes 30 dreams that Einstein might have had as he was conceiving of his theory of relativity. Imagine that you have been asked to add to Lightman’s novel for a revised edition of the book. Please spend a few minutes writing an additional chapter – a 31st dream – about yet another conception of time.”

The following session, I asked students to contemplate what we learn when we think about how time has been visualized differently in different disciplines. I asked: “How Do We Visualize Time? Here are three images that depict the passage of time in the three disciplines (astrophysics, geology, dendrology) at the center of our exploration today. Based on your reading for today’s class and these visualizations, please list three similarities and three differences in the approaches to and conceptualizations of time in these disciplines.”

For a session on bodily time – circadian rhythms, menstrual cycles, pregnancy, and so on – I got more personal: “This class session is devoted to the temporal rhythms of our bodies and how our lives are affected by them. How is your body affected by time? Please take a few minutes to write about an experience related to one of the temporal dimensions of your body or reflect on how your body’s clock has affected – or continues to affect – your life. (We already know whether or not you’re a morning person, so try to think of other aspects of time and your body.) You’ll have a chance to share your ideas with your classmates shortly.”

In a unit about historical timekeeping, I also drew on students’ lives to make seemingly distant materials from the ancient world closer to home. When we discussed the topics of apocalypticism and eschatology in the first centuries CE, I began by asking them to reflect on their own personal experiences of waiting in anticipation. I wanted them to recall the feelings they have when they anxiously wait for something that they expect to happen. I wondered: “Have you ever waited for something? Did what you expect to happen transpire as you expected that it would? That is, were your expectations met? Please take a few minutes to reflect on the experience of anticipating something – the practical steps you took in the process of waiting, the emotions bound up in the waiting, the moment at which you realized that your expectation for the future would or would not be met. You’ll share your experience with your classmates in a few minutes, so please write about something you are comfortable sharing with others.” Their answers served as an interesting way into a discussion about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the community at Qumran.

When we explored the Benedictine Hours and the intertwined history of prayer and time in late antiquity and the medieval period, I asked students to fill out their own hourly schedule. “Today’s class is devoted to the history of hours and to daily schedules. How do hours figure into your day and into the organization of your daily time? As a way into this topic, please fill out the “Daily Activity Schedule” below. (You may also fill in the hours before and after 6am / 6pm as fits your personal schedule.) Then, take a minute to reflect on how the unit of “hours” affects your daily life.”

This exercise can be adapted for courses on a broad range of topics and texts. I used it very successfully, for example, in my course on the history of Jerusalem.

During our first class meeting, I wanted to get a sense of what students already knew about Jerusalem, and their preexisting associations with the city. Knowing what they came to class with would help me tailor my teaching to the students in the room and their interests. So I began with a simply yet powerful task: “Please write the first 20 words that come to mind when you hear the word “Jerusalem.” They were able to write their list while listening to music from Jerusalem.

In a subsequent session, when we would be discussing Solomon’s temple dedication address in 1 Kings and the idea of the temple as a sacred place, I asked my students to “reflect, in writing, on a space that is sacred to you. What place comes to mind? What makes it sacred?” Their answers were mind-blowing, each one relating to our discussion about theories of sacred space and the history of the Jerusalem temple in sophisticated ways.

When we discussed 4 Ezra and the Book of Revelation, I wanted students to think carefully about why cities are so often depicted in feminine terms. To help them get started, I share a series of images with my students from Assyria, Antioch, Corinth, Dura Europos, and New York. The prompt read as follows: “In ancient sources (and even today), cities are often personified as women. Sometimes, cities and nations are even visually depicted as women, wearing crowns in the shape of her city or its gates, as the images below illustrate. Please take a few minutes to reflect in writing on why you think that the metaphor of city-as-woman might have been developed, what purposes it could have served, and what effects it might have had on a city’s inhabitants and their conception of their city.”

Oftentimes, the prompt is directly related to the reading, asking students to look carefully through the texts they prepared for that day to answer specific questions. For example, at the start of a session devoted to the Fada’il al-Quds, I asked them to think about the temporality of this literary genre and how Jerusalem is situated, in these texts, not only in space but also in time. I instructed them to “Please look through the excerpts from the Fada’il al-Quds that you read for today’s class and place the different praises of Jerusalem into the appropriate category – which ones address the city’s past? Present? Future?” I then provided a chart divided into three sections (past, present, and future) for them to enter their answers. This led to a broader analysis of the texts as a full class discussion.

These are just a few of many examples, which I hope are helpful.

Each prompt is paired with a piece of music related to the course material. Sometimes, the connection is meant to complement the materials we’ll be discussing, and at other times it is intended to complicate them. At times, I find a song that is from the same historical period or the same geographical location. Other times lyrics that come from a text we’re reading, or an instrument mentioned in a passage. I try to vary the genre, artists, rhythm, and tempo. I might choose upbeat songs during midterm week when everyone needs a bit more energy, or an unexpected artist when I want students to rethink their expectations about a topic. In my course about Jerusalem, we listened to Fairuz and Naomi Shemer, Boney M, Lauryn Hill, Mahalia Jackson, Matisyahu, Paul Simon, Orthodox hymns, Gregorian chants, Sufi music, Jewish niggunim and piyyutim, troubadour songs, and more. As the semester proceeded, I created a course playlist on Blackboard, so that students could return to the music later and relisten. Music is another way of exploring the themes and history of each course, and connecting students with the material in this way can generate new ideas and deeper understanding.

Because each song has a set timeframe, playing music also allows me to avoid that awkward (seemingly everlasting) silence that takes over the room when students are doing independent work. It lightens the mood, and often feels uplifting. Moreover, the music provides me and my students a timer. I know precisely how long the song will last, so I can get ready to begin the next segment of class. Students, too, can hear the arc of the song and recognize when the song begins winding down, so I do not need to announce “two more minutes” or “please wrap up.” The music does this work more elegantly than I could alone.

This classroom practice of starting with individual writing and musical accompaniment accomplishes several things.

First, we don’t waste any time starting the learning process. Because the handout is already distributed when students walk in, I don’t need to wait for it to be passed around. Because the handout contains all of the instructions that are needed, students can read it themselves and get right to work. Because class begins the same way each time we meet, they know the drill and begin thinking, writing, and learning from the moment class begins.

Second, it creates a ritual of learning. Despite the diversity of the prompts, students know what to expect at the beginning of each class. The routine is helpful because the material I assign in my courses is diverse and unexpected in so many other ways. It is both a fun and extremely effective way for students to learn on their own terms and through their own insights. It is, by definition, student-centered, active learning.

Third, it serves as the foundation for an excellent discussion. Every class session, I learn from my students, and they learn from each other. After the music ends and students put down their pens, I often ask them to share some of their responses with the class. Rather than asking a question and then immediately expecting a thoughtful reply, I have given students time to think about their answers, rendering their contributions so much more thoughtful. When appropriate, I encourage my students to conduct conversation organically among themselves without my prompting, and I gauge when to jump in to ensure that each student participates. I sit and listen carefully, taking notes on the board, my notebook, or the shared zoom screen. Doing so means that within the first fifteen minutes of class, each student has not only thought carefully and written something but also shared a relevant idea with classmates. They have actively participated and have been heard; this means a lot to my students, and to me as their instructor. Then, I can easily step in to summarize the discussion, bring in other materials they prepared for class, lecture, or direct the conversation in new directions. Because students have overcome that initial hurdle of participating for the first time, they also feel more comfortable jumping back in with additional comments and questions later in the class session.

Fourth, the assignment means that students are writing regularly in a low-stakes context that privileges creativity and critical thinking over perfection. These brainstorming activities are never graded. They are designed to pull students into the work of learning, to get them to start thinking deeply about the day’s theme and material, to allow them to connect personally with the course in a creative way. Often, the ideas they generate in the first five minutes of class serve as the basis of the entire class session, carrying us through the 75 minutes of textual analysis or theory. There are times when I have told students that their answers have been so robust, informative, and comprehensive that there is little need for me to explain existing scholarship to them, because together they already articulated the very ideas that scholars have developed over decades of research and scholarly conversation.

Fifth, the music sets the scene and mood. Music not only deepens the experience but also reaches students through another one of their senses, encouraging them to listen carefully not only to the words that are sung or spoken but also to the way in which they are communicated.

Sixth, starting with five minutes of “warm up” allows those running late to settle into the room and reflect, even if they don’t have the full time to write. It eliminates the shame of sheepishly walking in after class has begun and finding a seat. I have never found students to take advantage of this practice and come later than they otherwise would; on the contrary, I think that they appreciated the opportunity and made an extra effort to arrive on time.

Seventh, this assignment works just as well on Zoom as it does in person. When I adapted this exercise during the pandemic, I converted the handouts into slides, and then I shared my screen and my computer audio with students so that they could hear the music and see the prompt. If students logged in late, they knew that they, too, could join the exercise even mid-song. During the subsequent discussion, I sometimes brought up a Google Doc on which I took notes, in lieu of a physical whiteboard. At other times, I took notes on paper so that everyone could see one another.

Most importantly, it serves as an effective and kind way of ushering students into a framework of learning. They learn better when they have a moment to catch their breath and think about why they are there. I think that this is true as a way of starting the semester after a long and difficult summer, and also as a way of starting each class during an equally challenging semester.

Finally, it allows me, as the course instructor, to get into the mood to teach. I use those five minutes to review my notes, ground myself, and remember what I want my students to learn. It makes the transition from chatting with my students before class begins to leading a discussion much smoother and more effective. In short, it not only helps my students get into the rhythm of learning, it also attunes me to the rhythm of teaching.

I’m currently on research leave, so I won’t be greeting students with music this semester; but I’m already compiling the playlist for when I’m back in the classroom. For those of you starting a new semester of teaching, I hope you find creative ways of helping your students find their way back to the classroom, physically and emotionally, after a devastating period in their – and our – lives.

Acknowledgments:

I developed this pedagogical practice after a series of workshops in Anne Fernald’s year-long Faculty Pedagogy Seminar, in which we discussed using music during teaching, and Moshe Gold and Michael Bauer’s Ignatian Pedagogy Seminar, in which Moshe often began class with a written brainstorming exercise. I simply put the two ideas – music and writing – together. I first experimented with this practice in a course when Natalie Reynoso served as my Graduate Teaching Assistant; conversations with Natalie about each class session inspired me to continue beginning class with this exercise week after week. As I chose music for each class meeting, I always kept my colleague Tom Massaro in mind; his office was right next door to my classroom, and as a lover of music he always guessed (correctly) the music I was playing and often made suggestions for upcoming class sessions. I’ve stuck with this practice in every course I’ve taught since.

Sarit Kattan Gribetz is Associate Professor in the Theology Department at Fordham University. She is the author of Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism (Princeton University Press, 2020), and currently writing a new book titled Jerusalem: A Feminist History.