Building up Jerusalem in the Classroom - William Blake and Writing Pedagogy

Oct 15, 2026

A teaching-focused essay examines how William Blake’s short lyric “Jerusalem” can guide college composition and literature instruction. Through class discussion and close reading of weapon-like imagery, the piece argues that “Mental Fight” can be repurposed as writing and intellectual struggle. It outlines pedagogical strategies for building an “intellectual community” via workshops, thesis development, research writing, modeling effective habits, and fostering exchange that moves beyond students’ subjective viewpoints.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages34

Reading Time1 h 26 min

AccessFree to download

Class discussion as a model

Interpreting “Jerusalem” and its symbols

Blake’s “Jerusalem” as community-building

“Mental Fight” and writing as struggle

Teaching strategies in composition

Specificity, modeling habits, and collaborative revision

Course design: Writing in Context I & II

Building up Jerusalem in the Classroom: William Blake and Writing Pedagogy Matthew Leporati College of Mount Saint Vincent Our class discussion about William Blake’s short lyric “Jerusalem” was producing far more questions than answers.“What does he mean by ‘arrows of desire’?” wondered Jessica after our first reading of the poem. Writing the phrase on the board, I prompted students to volunteer other terms that they found obscure and confusing. Soon I had rewritten nearly the entire poem. I filled in some context, including the legend of Christ’s sojourn in England during his“lost years” and some of the scholarly speculations about the historical referents ofthe phrase“dark, Satanic mills.”1 Yet my students reported that while this information helped illuminate some lines, the overall message of the poem in some senses remained dim. Broadly speaking, Sarah suggested, the poem seemed to be calling for some kind of “national pride,” but its symbols seemed “off.” Recalling earlier class periods in which we had discussed Blake’s condemnation of the oppressive force of the state, she asked,“Wasn’t he against militarism? Why would he reference arrows and swords?” Indeed, the poem concludes with the famous lines,“I will not cease from Mental Fight, / Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand: / Till we have built Jerusalem, / In Englands green & pleasant Land”(lines 13-16) . I encouraged my students to think about why Blake would employ the imagery of weapons, and I asked a few leading questions about the effect of the potential contradiction between his beliefs and his use of symbols. Steven proposed that Blake could be making fun of militarism. Jacob half-questioned,“Or maybe he’s trying to mix up a reader who supports it?”Cynthia pushed their suggestions further by considering how Blake might be repurposing these the symbols: “He says that he’s interested in ‘Mental Fight.’ What if the sword is really a pen?”she offered.“His way of fighting could be with writing.” William Blake’s poetry seeks to inspire readers to participate in the construction of an intellectual community that he calls “Jerusalem.”2 This process remains ever incomplete and is, in a sense, incompletable, for the work of producing such a community involves “continually building & continually decaying”(Jerusalem 53:19, E203) .3 Yet college classes (especially composition and literature courses) can provide the space to foster such community, as instructors aid their students in manifesting this ideal both within and beyond the classroom. Blake’s poetry – especially his final epics – reveals various pedagogical strategies that are useful for encouraging students to “build up Jerusalem” by improving the quality of their thinking and writing. In what follows, I examine some of these strategies, highlighting where Blake illustrates them and demonstrating how college instructors can employ them to prompt students to develop as thinkers, writers, and participants in what Blake calls “Mental Fight.” These strategies include guiding students in increasing the specificity of their thought, modeling for them effective habits that they can adopt in their writing, and encouraging them to escape their own subjective vantage points in order to engage in a dynamic exchange of ideas with others. I draw the anecdotes and examples in this article from my experience teaching the freshman requirement Writing in Context I & II at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York City. A two-semester course centered around close reading literary texts as a basis for critical writing, this class allows instructors to tailor the syllabus to their own interests and student needs. My Writing in Context I begins by inviting students to examine closely short lyric poems, such as Langston Hughes’s “Harlem (or a Dream Deferred)” and William Wordsworth’s“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” as they consider how writers deploy poetic devices such as similes in specific historical contexts. Tu

FAQs

How does the article connect Blake’s “Jerusalem” to writing instruction?

It treats “Jerusalem” as an ongoing process of building an intellectual community through language. The article argues that “Mental Fight” can be understood as writing-based engagement rather than literal militarism.

What interpretive problem does the classroom discussion begin with?

Students raise questions about confusing phrasing and symbols, such as “arrows of desire,” and even the poem’s weapon imagery. The discussion explores potential contradictions between Blake’s beliefs and his use of such symbols.

Which course activities are used to develop students as thinkers and writers?

The article describes close reading and collaborative revision, thesis development, summarizing scholarly arguments, and writing research papers. It also emphasizes guided revision through identifying specific words, phrases, and images in texts.

Oct 15, 2026

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