What a conundrum

Teachers with more experience might not feel the same way, but Cindy's post, "What Does It Mean to Say Something Works" blew my mind. You'd think all us educators would have a good answer to that question, but after reading her post I was hemming and hawing trying to piece together something that made sense.

Too Much Writing?

In my last podcast, I talked about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and my participation in it. The good news (actually, it's bad news, but my younger, more spite-filled self wouldn't think so) is that my brother won't be able to finish his book this year. The bad news is, I doubt I'll be able to either.

I am so tired of writing right now. But I'm glad I tried this out before doing it with my future students. That's a new rule for me, that should be common sense, but it wasn't when I was doing my student teaching: try something yourself before you ask your students to do it. That goes right in line with another rule: don't assign homework thinking you're the only teacher the students have.

What is really cool about NaNoWriMo, however, is that it is basically a really long free write. The novel I thought I would be writing has taken on a life of it's own and headed in a different direction. The message is the same, but the plot and cast of characters is very different from what I originally planned. And I feel good about how much I've written, the 12,000 plus words.

On the flip side, I'm not sure that writing should be so strongly associated with a number - the 50,000 words you have to reach to be a NaNoWriMo "Winner." I agree that finishing a draft is a good idea before revising and rewriting. But a length requirement, I don't think, is the best idea.

But any way, long post short, I am very tired of writing, and even though I know where to go next in the novel, I don't want to write any more.

What Makes Blogging Important

Cindy has an awesome post about why blogging is important to education.