Café Day is part act, part pact. 

The “act” is to sit in a café and write for an hour. The “pact” is the commitment students make to dedicate themselves to their projects with the aim of getting something sincere down on the page. 

Walking off campus at the start of fourth period, we are a typical class of stressed-out teens with one overworked teacher, but once we hit the café, we become whatever we believe a “writer” to be—pensive, moody, pencil in hand, laptop open, plotting or unpredictable.

Once we hit the café, we become whatever we believe a “writer” to be—pensive, moody, pencil in hand, laptop open, plotting or unpredictable.

Café Day is perfect for mid-November, right as our National Novel Writing Month novels start to sag in the murky middle. I started doing NaNoWriMo with my students years ago when I realized many of them were doing it outside of class. The collective excitement (and exhaustion) of taking on this task together means we can share opening pages, character arcs, plot struggles, and dialogue techniques, but by the middle of the month, we can’t bear to look at the same four walls for another minute. Venturing out into the world with our notebooks and laptops is a well-deserved treat and quite often the final push we need to get to the last scenes of our books. 

Here’s how Café Day works:

Treat it like a single-period walking field trip.

Since our high school is within walking distance of a bustling strip with multiple cafés and coffee shops, I treat Café Day like a walking field trip and send out permission slips with a reminder for students to charge their laptops, bring a notebook and $5-10 to order whatever they want. Students understand that they will not miss any other period, so they do not need to worry about making up a test or getting other teachers’ permission for the excursion.

Designate an “anchor” café.

 We meet in my classroom at the usual start of class. I put my cell phone number on the board with strict instructions that they are to use this number only to text me from their chosen café and send a picture of their writing set-up—open notebook, laptop, mug of tea, whatever. Then we walk the two blocks together to Park Street. At that point, students head off to various cafés. Most go in pairs, some in a larger group, some head out solo. 

I always go to a café called Julie’s Coffee and Tea Garden, and I tell the kids ahead of time that that’s where I’ll be. This way, Julie’s becomes our anchor spot. Julie’s is a peaceful, lowkey café with outdoor seating, potted plants, and flowing fountains with lots of room to spread out. I wait for the texts to roll in. It’s great fun to get these photos and messages:

I’m w Ronit, we r at Starbucks

We are all writing at Ollie’s and eating waffles

Homeskillet with Farber

Peet’s with Lilac and Anika and Coco

Photo proof from me (Nico) at the bagel place

The Local with Cora but Sally and Jess r at the table next to us

I always respond with: Happy Writing! And once I know where all 35 of my students are and that they are settled and writing, I, too, start to write.  

Watch and Wait and Write

I usually have a few students follow me to Julie’s. It’s generally the kids who haven’t found a buddy in class yet or who are uncertain about taking on the role of writer on their own. I cherish the informal conversations I can have with students in situations like these—walking in, ordering a cup of coffee, sitting down to write. I tell the students with me that they can select their own table, or they can sit with me.

One year, a student bought my cup of coffee for me. Another, a shy student who had never tried coffee asked me what I usually drink and then ordered the same: a café au lait that I could tell he did not like at all. He kept adding sugar packet after sugar packet and finally left the thing untouched when we headed back to campus. And another, a large group of us sat at the picnic table out back and talked about our novels in detail, adding only a few words here and there, but working out some of the plot holes through our conversation. This, too, counts as writing I told them. 

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It takes confidence to be a writer. To claim the time and space, to commit words to a page—all of this requires the belief that what we have to say matters.

The risk of letting students head off on their own to write is not so much of a risk when I consider the café to be an extension of our classroom—a classroom with steaming mugs instead of whiteboard prompts and more windows than walls. This expansive view of the classroom allows them to take themselves seriously as writers beyond the school day. Being writers in this extended classroom allows them to be writers in the real world. 

Of course, there was the time when two ninth graders couldn’t figure out which café to go to and sent a text from the CVS parking lot with a picture of the two of them leaning against the building drinking Gatorades. Or the time a boy came to class late and forgot we were doing Café Day, so he spent the period in the library downstairs wondering where we all were.

But they never take advantage of it. If anything, it brings the class closer. They act like the responsible teen writers they are—observing, joking, spouting, sparring, writing, and having fun together all at the same time. And they remember it for years to come—for their own reasons: 

We got some weird looks . . . 

Some stranger asked me about my novel . . . 

I overheard two people in a fight and worked it in perfectly to my chapter . . . 

Next time I’ll get more done if I go alone . . . 

The “next time” part is what makes Café Day a success. That my students know they can do it—head out into the real world and act the part of a writer long enough to finish a paragraph or page—means most likely that they will do it again. It takes confidence to be a writer. To claim the time and space, to commit words to a page—all of this requires the belief that what we have to say matters. To some degree, the value in Café Day for me, as a teacher, comes from infusing this confidence in even my most tentative students. Yes, your words matter. Yes, carving out the space to write is important. Yes, I trust that you can do it. It sounds so simple, but it’s true—when we show students we trust them, they learn to trust themselves. When we show them we value their stories, they can’t help but value their stories, too. 

This year was the first time no one in class tagged along with me to Julie’s. It was raining, so I sat alone inside. I felt a little gloomy about it at first, but then I took out my notebook and my phone and waited for the location texts from students to come in. My favorite came from a large group of creative seniors—all friends before class—who also took the kind initiative to invite a few others who had nowhere else to go. They sat at a long table and sent a photo featuring a few open computers next to a tall stack of chocolate chip pancakes, whipped cream dripping down the side—smiles and pencils all around.

Photo by Jakub Dziubak on Unsplash.