Learning with letters: epistolary pedagogy in anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

This article is about the use of long-form letters in the pandemic-pedagogical practice of a third-year undergraduate and writing-intensive course titled “‘Race’ and What it Means to be Human” and offered in anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2020. It was part of the university’s Writing Programme and of a project on epistolary pedagogy which emerged when the Covid-19 pandemic started in South Africa. I provide a reflexive analysis of five pedagogical practices: epistolary pedagogy; “the epistolarium,” a concept introduced by Liz Stanley; voice; writing as thinking; and pedagogical care. I draw on 10 student portfolios selected across grade bands from a class of 60. The data includes student responses to two introductory writing exercises, extracts from their notebooks and reflections on the course, response letters to students by the tutors and my letters to the class. I argue that letter writing created a dialogical presence that mediated the absence, distance and dispersion amongst teachers and learners enforced by the pandemic. Its facilitation of writing as thinking makes letter writing an effective form of learning beyond the pandemic.