It's been a while since I've posted on this blog, mostly because last year's school visit schedule fell apart and too many of those visits, quite frankly, simply didn't happen. I remain committed, however, to the goal of chronicling those visits I make to schools and this year it looks like I may get more chances to get into schools than ever before. One exciting reason for my school visit upswing-to-come is that I'll be teaching EKU's English Teaching Methods in the fall. This will be the first time I'll teach that class and I'm definitely looking forward to it. Part of my responsibility with the class is to supervise my students' Applied Learning experiences - those hours they'll spend in classrooms and schools throughout the fall. I definitely intend to be hands-on with that responsibility. And I'm committed to doing in that situation the same thing that drives my Writing Project-related school visits: promoting the great things that happen in this region's classrooms and thinking about how the practices I observe can work in other classrooms, other grade levels, and other content areas.
The other reason my blogging, and the school visits that prompt those posts, will likely increase, is this new crop of EKU Writing Project Fellows. Not that they're better than previous groups, but I can tell they're strong. And that strength is exciting. We're trying some new things with this year's Summer Institute, partly in response to previous experiences, partly because the relentless winter this part of the country suffered through forced us to reconsider our "standard" schedule. One of the changes we made was to start earlier than we have in past years and with a slightly different focus, a focus that makes perfect sense, though, when you think about it. We kicked things off today with a Writing Retreat. We gathered this year's Fellows together, led them through a wide range of creative nonfiction exercises, and introduced them to the practice of thinking about themselves as writers, including by sharing pieces as they began them. We got them started on Twitter, gave them each a copy of Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, and had each of them set up a blog on Wordpress. We'll all be reading, we'll be talking to each other (and the world) through Twitter, and we'll be trying out some of the writing exercises Goldberg introduces. Since I'm working with a small group of this year's Fellows while we read, I'll blog with them. And since this is my blog, I'll use it. I'm looking forward to reading what they write, and I'm ready to share what I write with them. And I'm really glad to kick off this year's blogging so early. I can't wait to see where it leads, through my own creative capacities and into each of their schools. Stay tuned. We all have a lot to learn.
The other reason my blogging, and the school visits that prompt those posts, will likely increase, is this new crop of EKU Writing Project Fellows. Not that they're better than previous groups, but I can tell they're strong. And that strength is exciting. We're trying some new things with this year's Summer Institute, partly in response to previous experiences, partly because the relentless winter this part of the country suffered through forced us to reconsider our "standard" schedule. One of the changes we made was to start earlier than we have in past years and with a slightly different focus, a focus that makes perfect sense, though, when you think about it. We kicked things off today with a Writing Retreat. We gathered this year's Fellows together, led them through a wide range of creative nonfiction exercises, and introduced them to the practice of thinking about themselves as writers, including by sharing pieces as they began them. We got them started on Twitter, gave them each a copy of Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, and had each of them set up a blog on Wordpress. We'll all be reading, we'll be talking to each other (and the world) through Twitter, and we'll be trying out some of the writing exercises Goldberg introduces. Since I'm working with a small group of this year's Fellows while we read, I'll blog with them. And since this is my blog, I'll use it. I'm looking forward to reading what they write, and I'm ready to share what I write with them. And I'm really glad to kick off this year's blogging so early. I can't wait to see where it leads, through my own creative capacities and into each of their schools. Stay tuned. We all have a lot to learn.
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