Reflections from Tuesday, June 19

I want to reflect on several things from class today:

Martha's Teaching Demo: Wonderful--after watching Ann's presentation yesterday, I knew anyone following would feel great pressure. I thought the presentation was great. Martha knew her material and was so passionate about it. I really felt like one of her first graders. The activity was fun, and I think for some of us who teach older students, a great reminder that coloring, art, and creativity still have a place in our classrooms too.

Elbow's Illiteracy and Oxford and Harvard: I wrote lots of notes in the margin of my text on this section. On the one hand, I became very frustrated with Elbow--he seemed to vacillate back and forth on what is good writing and the criteria for writing. There were places where I got confused, particularly when he was talking about resistance. There were times I wondered, was he really resisting or was this resistance and way to cover for a lack of ideas. I've seen my own students do this: what they think is "I don't understand"; what they say is "I won't do it." On the other hand, when Elbow wrote about the compliant student, I could find so many similarities to what I see in school. In the margins, I wrote about how many of our valedictorians at Belpre are what I call procedural students (Elbow would call them compliant): these student do everything the teacher says, they follow directions, have a great work ethic, but haven't had an original or creative thought in years. When he compared these compliant students to the resistant ones, I pictured many students I've had in class who were so intelligent and insightful, but who resisted any form of compliance. I've often said to my colleagues that some of our troubled students, if given the right environment, should be the valedictorian because they are better thinkers.

Writing the Narrative: I know many are fretting this one, but I'm not. I felt very comfortable writing this narrative. The trick is I was writing about something I feel strongly about. I enjoyed listening to the other rough draft narratives. Question--will we be sharing the final drafts of the narratives? I think that would be cool if people feel comfortable with it.