William Blake's poetry seeks to inspire readers to participate in the construction of an intellectual community that he calls "Jerusalem." 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). 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. This article examines some of those 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. The author draws anecdotes and examples from his 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.