“Language is a fabric that changes from one week to another…"

Some of my new peeps!
We are well into a new school year--this week will be week number four.  It is still new, but my new crew and I know each others names and some traits, and I have really started to enjoy some of my new students.  This year I am teaching the same schedule as last year, three sections of AP Language and Composition and three sections of 11th Grade English.  Of course, this group is very different from my crew last year.  This morning, as I was logging into my blog, I found myself reading some of last year's blog posts from my seniors.  Oh my goodness, I felt a rush of love and ran to my phone to text some of them to find out how things are going for them.  But at the same time, I started wondering what my new students will have to say. I was so surprised that many of my past students have continued to write on their blogs.  There were entries as recently as two weeks ago.  When I introduced the blogs, students were pretty unenthusiastic.  We write a lot in my classroom (every single day)--and a blog--more writing.  But there was something about the blogs that made a lot of my students take ownership. I am not sure why, but I really loved reading them, and I believe that many students actually enjoyed writing them.  The writing was some of the clearest, most interesting, well constructed writing I read all year.  The blog posts were a place for us to write creatively.  Students were given 25 creative prompts, but were allowed to essentially write for themselves on their blogs.  Most blogs began with the prompts, but the last entries were often reflections or personal entries.

A student who has recently started college sent me a message asking me what I think about the current literacy crisis in our country.  Wow!  As a teacher of literacy, every moment of my day, I was sort of impressed with the word "crisis".  She also asked me what good writing is.  Again, all I could think when I first read that text was WOW!  I responded that good writing is writing in which the writer clearly communicates his desired message to his intended audience.  I also balk at the word crisis.  My students are certainly struggling with conventional literacy this year.  Each year, after our first writing assessment, I have to remind myself, as Troy and Gabriella remind me in the prolific High School Musical, "We are all in this together."  However, despite the flaws in their writing, many of them have expressed, in many ways, deep, complex ideas and thoughts.  I am a teacher.  It is my job to help them learn how to translate that into writing.  It is my job to help them consider the audience they desire to reach and learn how to craft writing that allows them to achieve their desired effect.  They should not be writing perfectly produced pieces of writing at the beginning.  I value the ideas they have expressed to me because that is the heart of why I love my job.  This is literacy.  Now, I have the challenge of helping them write for one specific, academic audience.  Some of them will exceed this expectation.  Some students will continue to struggle.  All of us will get better.  To describe the current state of affairs as a crisis is to belittle and undervalue all the literacy these young people are amazing at.  Maybe that is why the blogs were so great.  They were writing for a different audience, in a way that was authentic for them.  They shared with an audience they defined.  The idea that we, teachers and professors, have any idea what literacy will be demanded of them in the future is short-sighted and wrong.

I am not sure where I am going with this, except to say this-it is a privilege when my students share with me their ridiculously brilliant ideas.  The fact is that many of them struggle to translate those ideas into conventional writing. I am thankful that I get the opportunity each day to help them learn how to get those ideas into the world.  This is a valuable skill, and they recognize that and they work hard for the most part.  But, for me (or anyone) to undervalue the literacy that they are bringing is to undervalue the future.  So, if you have it in ya, say a little prayer for us, but know that the future is bright, and that in C-203 we will be working every day to make sure our valuable ideas can be communicated so that they can continue to amaze me and exceed all the limits that have been put upon them.

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