Teaching Critical Reading and Writing at Fountain House

I taught a Critical Reading and Writing course at Fountain House, a New York–based organization that supports people living with serious mental illness through a community-centered model focused on dignity, mutual support, and participation in public life. Fountain House is known for its clubhouse approach, which emphasizes recovery through shared work, learning, and community rather than clinical treatment alone.

The course was part of Fountain House’s educational programming and was designed to introduce participants to critical reading and writing as tools for interpretation, reflection, and engagement with the world around them. The curriculum treated reading and writing not as neutral skills, but as practices shaped by power, context, and lived experience.

In teaching the course, I emphasized process over performance. Participants were encouraged to read closely, ask questions of texts, and experiment with writing as a way to clarify thought rather than produce polished outcomes. Writing was framed as a space for inquiry, attention, and agency, with clear boundaries around disclosure and self-exposure.

The course focused on:

• Developing critical reading practices
• Understanding how texts produce meaning
• Writing as an iterative process
• Revision as a tool for thinking
• Voice, clarity, and structure
• The relationship between personal experience and public language

Teaching at Fountain House required attentiveness to pacing, care, and accessibility, and reinforced my commitment to pedagogical approaches that prioritize respect, autonomy, and intellectual seriousness. The classroom functioned as a shared learning space where participants engaged as readers, writers, and thinkers.