What the Blog?

"I am just a writer in search of metaphors."

~ Terry Tempest Williams

I always seem to be slightly behind the technological curve. I was the last person I knew to succumb to buying CDs. I was late to get email, late to get a cell phone, late to get an iPod. I can’t figure out “Twitter.” Honest to blog, I burned my first CD just last week. I only recently caught on to what the whole blogging thing is all about. I follow a couple of them and certainly never planned to have one. So what is this one all about? It’s all about providing students with opportunities to write for authentic purposes. So what’s more authentic than a good old-fashioned blog with a real-live audience?

This year I will be asking my students, all English Language Learners, to be taking huge risks with their writing. Specifically, to put their writing out into the world to be read, judged, rejected, and maybe occasionally accepted and published. I’ve always believed that if you give your students an assignment, you’d better be willing to do it yourself. So, this year, as they take risks with their writing, I’ll be taking risks with my own. I will maintain this blog, I will attempt to publish some articles about student writing, and I will pursue my life-long dream of publishing a novel.

Last year, after announcing the second essay contest I required my students to enter, one student groaned, “How come we always gotta do contests?”

(I love adolescents. Twice becomes always.)

This was my response: “Well, this is Language Arts class and we have to write essays. You could write essays to me for a grade, or you could write essays for a contest, get a grade, and possibly win fabulous prizes. Which would you rather do?”

His half-hearted response was, “Write for fabulous prizes, I guess.”