This week has been one of thinking and writing and learning. I love the summers when I can stop and think about what I have done in my classes and what I want to do in my classes. Reflection is good for the soul and I have always found that it is through reflection that I come to find new avenues to explore. I am excited to take back so many ideas for reaching my students on so many different levels. Understanding how students learn to read, what reading looks like to the beginning reader gives me a place to start thinking about how writing might look to a student who isn't a writer--the confusion that occurs when pen meets blank paper and the mind goes into confused mode as it tries to think of what would please the teacher or not make the writer look like an idiot or just get something down and get out of this horrible situation. I will certainly think about this. I also am contemplating the plethora of systems that are in place (as schools complete their summer work and idea shopping) to squelch the last juice of creativity out of the students. I am talking about formula writing that has invaded many of the classrooms in various forms. Some of the purveyors of these formulas have received grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others to broadcast this punishment of the student much further than their own confines. And I am concerned that the most well-meaning folks fall into the traps of not trusting students to make their own decisions about their writing. I am shivering in the July heat just thinking about how this will play out for future writers.
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