The Origin of Strength

Unbelievable I know, but I’ve always had trouble expressing myself, especially through writing. Writing is about understanding. I often get stuck inside my head and I can’t get out correctly my story, what I want and mean to say. A brilliant author once told me that writing is a sequencing of words to get at meaning, and when you can interject meaning into a series of words you are making a contribution. One must look for but one word and build upon it. One simple word can open up a story, and the best words imply a story; it is here where the richness lies. Writing is a trial and error process for me, and I’ve learned that my success is not found within the words I throw away, but the words I keep.

My personal power, my strength is a large part of my identity. I have recently learned through my experience with the Minnesota Writing Project and the Young Writers Workshop, that my identity is not choosing who I am, it’s understanding who I am and making the best of it. We are the things we think about. It is easier to choose what is good from what is bad. This is what I mean. This is what I want to contribute, my human story, my emotional truth.

Strength is hard to acquire and is truly only achieved over time. It is ever changing, hard to define, and constantly redefined. However, my strength is what helps define me, today. It is one of my most prized possessions as it's the thing for which I've worked the hardest, clung to the tightest, but could not have possibly achieved on my own. Today my pictures are my words, the ones I have kept, the ones I think about, my understanding, the good. As of current, herein lies my strength, my story, and my eternal gratitude:


In hope for the future, for the success of others in achieving remarkable things.


In finding and knowing pure beauty, peace, and serenity.


In experiences from which I have lived, recovered, and learned.


In my passions, my refuge.


In my friends, my family, my colleagues. Those whom have been unwavering within my perfect storm.


In my mother for always believing in me.


In my father for never believing in me.


In my students for keeping me honest, grounded, dedicated, deliberate, purposeful, and spirited.

Is This Thing On?

Technology. Textoids. Video clips. Audio files. Voice threads. OMGs. What happened to the good ole fashioned book cracking and pencil sharpening? Seriously, throughout this entire program I swear the only thing I’ll ever remember is use technology! Please, I love technology, I am not opposed to it by any means. I remember how empowered I felt when my parents finally cracked and got call waiting…like two years ago. Better late than never right? Well..I’m a realist, God help me, and I truly believe that there is a time and place for everything. If one incorporates technology into their classroom because it truly is beneficial and lends itself to the learning process…fantastic! A+ But then again, since when is showing a movie in class really incorporating technology for learning’s sake? It’s not people, and many teachers use this excuse. Technology use should not replace anything, it should enhance. If you must default to showing a movie, you’re doing something wrong and a disservice to your students. Shame on you.

My experience? Glad you asked. Technology is too expensive, unavailable, inaccessible, and when it is available it’s not working…again making it unavailable. Okay, now what? What do you do when you’ve planned your whole lesson around using a mobile computer lab, or showing some YouTube clips in class but the server is down? Again, shame on you. A good teacher should know not to rely on this plan alone. You let your students down and then they hate whatever you must fall back on. What happens when your school just doesn’t have it? This is my school. 200+ students, 20 computers and a 30-minute time period allotted per class once a week. Awesome. As if this is even reasonable. You know what, it’s what we’ve got, and you gotta do what you can with what you’ve got right? Well, yeah, but when access is limited, so are your options. This is why we must not forget books, pencils and papers. These, among other things, need to be our backbone and we need to start thinking about technology as it really is: great when it works. There are multiple implications there.

My cooperating teacher has only fermented my apprehension with technology usage. Beware, he said. Many students do not have computer access at home, outside of school (during school for that matter), and the media center is almost always booked anytime of day. Now what? “Well lady, hoof it to the library.” I hope you’re faster than the daggers she just shot at you. Why would we set our students up to fail? I absolutely see the benefit of wiki and blog usage (ahem), and I love them both. But again, I think it’s a time and a place thing. Perhaps right now, is not the right time for some schools. Maybe when there is more money. Hahahaha. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m done. This proves my point. Incorporate when appropriate, but stick with what you know until the availability is there and is constant.

At times I feel as though we allow technology to do the work for us. Wait? Is that it’s purpose? We are looking for efficiency right, but sometimes doesn’t that take away the means to the end? Careful. It’s supposed to help us actually, not do the work for us. iRobot was just a movie. Do we use blogs as an excuse not to perform academic writing, or is blogging simply an alternative style/genre? Are wikis the new newsletter or syllabi? There are pros and cons folks. I’ve never found more pleasure and success with writing than I do right here, blogging. However, would I use this as an excuse not to be involved in class when I know I can just type it out here? Me? No. But someone else, maybe. As a teacher would I rather point my kid to the wiki than stop, take a minute and speak to them like a human being? I hope not. Of course this all goes back to whether or not it’s available and we have access naturally.

My point is, as with all things, the good comes with the bad. There are pros and cons and we as educated individuals educating individuals need to be smart about our choices. Technology is not to be solely relied on, and is not to replace, but to aid in our daily processes. I have found through my life experiences a love for English, language, literature, etc. This love developed with the help of passionate and talented teachers, without the use of blogs, wikis and textoids..whatever the hell those are anyway. Only now are these things becoming prevalent in my life and adding to my educational experience. We need to be aware of what it is that we are really teaching our children. What do we say when a student says, “but my printer ran out of ink?” Think about it.

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/

Over 35,000 free books listed on the web. Happy reading.

Speaking of Vernacular

Which American accent do you have?

Apparently for the first time in my life I'm:

Neutral

I'm not Northern, Southern, or Western, I'm just plain -American-whatever that means. My national identity is more important than my local identity, because I don`t really have a local identity...apparently.

Or...maybe I was an English major and have an appreciation for linguistics? Who knows.


Which American accent do you have?

http://www.youthink.com/quiz.cfm?action=go_detail&sub_action=take&obj_id=9827&take_again=yes

Making The Grade

Now maybe I’m a little bit bitter (noooo), but I seemed to find some contradictions within Dornan tonight. She states right off the bat that grading “is labor-intensive work without much of a payoff other than one more grade in a grade-book.” Now who’s the bitter one? If you ask me, although I know no one did, that means you’re doing it all wrong my friend. Now I can’t imagine that any teacher truly has a simply outstanding time grading papers, unless of course you’ve been hanging out with Jago at one of her grading parties, but I do think that once you’ve reached that final page you should have more than a grade to jot down; you should have a better understanding of your students as writers. You should be able to determine student strengths and weaknesses, you should be able to decipher a plan as to how to become a better writing instructor based upon what your students just taught you with that paper you just had an awesome time grading…at the very least. I thought it was our goal to help students become better writers Ms. Dornan? If you look at your job, your chosen profession, as labor-intensive work without much pay off…I bet the Gap down the street is hiring…there’s fulfillment. Are we going to like everything about our job? Absolutely not. But I also guarantee, with all my educational expertise (ha), that if you take on the grading task with that type of boourns attitude, your students are going to be the ones that take the fall..and then you’ll just be a jerk that no one likes. Ever. Jerk.

Whatever happened to the means to the end? What about the process, how ya got there? The long strange trip, if you will.

I am sincerely becoming a colossal fan of the writing workshop notion. While some people honestly like surprises, I on the other hand, enjoy that work shopping manipulates the “surprise ending” of our student’s writing. We know what we are getting for the most part. With a writing workshop we are there guiding, supporting, coaching, etc. the whole way through. Now for you party poopers…the surprise is still there, not to worry, it’s just not “this is it..this is your final paper? Ugh.” You’ve seen the progress, the hard work. Honestly, even if the final paper SUCKS (whatever that means), you at least know that growth, development, thought and God help us critical thinking has taken place.

Surprise!

Amen.

Rubrics. I have mixed feelings about rubrics. While I completely understand, acknowledge, and appreciate their helpfulness, I also cannot help but feel a little 5-4-3-2-1 boxed in. They are hard to create, their contents are tricky, they are difficult to master. However, I know I must also acknowledge that this is not essentially about me (damn), it’s about my students. They are potentially helpful to me because they are potentially helpful to my students. I know as a student I perform better at tasks when I know exactly what is at stake. Funny huh. Perhaps practice is not only how you get to Carnegie Hall, but it also makes perfect.


I heart portfolio assessment. I agree with Dornan here, the portfolio assessment can be a much more meaningful assessment of a student’s achievements than simply calculating the average of papers written. However, I can also see the downfall if simply anything and everything is contained in one’s portfolio. Then it’s less like a portfolio and more like a garbage can. This defeats the purpose. A portfolio should be a place for students to put their most prized work. Here’s your intrinsic motivation ladies and gentlemen. Not only do you as the teacher get to see your students evolve as writers, but so do your students. This could be a very powerful and undeniable tool. Who doesn’t like to see physical proof that they grew two inches over the summer? Who wouldn’t own that?

Prepositions

Another List

Teacher friends, here is a brief list of genres of the multi type.

http://writing.colostate.edu/gallery/multigenre/genrelist.html

Storyman

Just for fun. This is classic novels wheel of fortune style.


http://www.eastoftheweb.com/cgi-bin/go_daily_game.pl?game_id=Storyman&id=2