In the opening letter to my portfolio, I wrote a short passage about my experience with the Ozarks Writing Project Summer Invitational 2007 that I think serves as a strong introduction to my plan of action:
For the past three weeks, I’ve been a part of an amazing group of people who participated in the Ozarks Writing Project Summer Invitational 2007. The “summer invitational” part makes it sound like a sporting event. Perhaps it was. It was certainly a test of teamwork, patience, and endurance. And like a sporting event, when you end the game feeling like a winner, you are one.
How does one “win” at writing? I don’t think you ever do. Everything I write is a game in progress, even after I’ve finally stopped picking at it and left it a blinking file in the “my documents” folder on my laptop. I enjoy the tearing apart, reformulating (as Ms. Franklin would undoubtedly put it), and finding new, interesting ways to say the thing.
I do feel like a winner. However, the game I won was an exhibition; the season starts this fall. I will teach three classes...one-hundred and twenty students...this first half of the season. That means one-hundred and twenty games. I will lose some, undoubtedly, but I will strive to win them all. Thus, I study the plays I learned this summer that awoke something the writer in me.
Did you notice I said writer and not teacher? The OWP reminded me what it felt like to create. I realized that I had been focusing on the product a bit more than the process in my classrooms and ignoring that in my full-time job, directing the campus writing center, I work with clients on their process. I guess I was focusing on the grading in my classroom and ignoring the steps I knew to be important in favor of the successful outcome. If participating in the OWP this summer taught me anything, it reminded me that I love the process. Thus, my normal game-plan has changed. I think I will win more games by making my students excited as they learn to enjoy the process, too.
So...I'll take a chance. Every day, I will leave the comfort zone of the familiar, product-driven college course and move more toward process.
Stay tuned for Part 2 where I share the inside-track on the plans I've created stealing my Fellow's ideas...
That's what teaching is, right? 90% courage and 10% wholesale theft of ideas.
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1 comment:
haha. Most definitely theft. That last comment humored me. :)
I really like the change in perspective. I think you will enjoy teaching writing as a process...and sometimes I think it's hard because we buy into this idea that "okay, I've got to help this student get a good grade..." and then it becomes not about the writing anymore...and that's specifically when the writing has lost something.
I cannot wait to see how all your games go this season...I love the sports analogy. I bet The Writing Center is going to undergo a transformation. Awesome!!
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