Episode 53
“On [the] creative writing side of things, I like teaching humor writing because I think it offers a very sneaky and strategic way of working on fundamental writing skills that are widely applicable across genre. So, for example, a big part of doing parody or satire well is playing with form.
If you’re going to parody a newsletter, or a Facebook marriage announcement, or a Netflix true crime documentary, that has to begin from a place of really deeply understanding the distinctive qualities of that form.”
Ian Shank is a member of the expository writing faculty at Harvard College, where he has taught the first-year writing requirement since 2021. He also teaches a variety of literature and creative writing classes at Harvard Extension School, including a survey course on the work of George Saunders, a class on the campus novel, and a humor writing workshop.
Before coming to Harvard, he taught courses on creative nonfiction and rhetoric at the University of Iowa and helped lead the Brown University Writing Fellows Program. He holds an MFA from the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa and BA degrees in History and Italian Studies from Brown University. He is a native of St. Paul, Minnesota.
It was our pleasure to speak to Ian to hear about his experiences as a writing instructor, and to learn about his perspective on teaching humor writing.