Matt's Blog

So next year I'll be teaching freshman English. At least that's what I think is going to happen. So in thinking about what I'm going to teach next year, and how I'm going to teach it, I began to think about why I'm going to teach it. This is generally dangerous ground for a teacher to tread. But I want to share some of what I came up with. (I wanted to include some diagrams, but all I had to work with was mspaint, and it seemed more trouble than it was worth. I'll use paretheses instead.)

Class consists of (assignments, discussion, and writing practice). The hope is that this leads to (good writing). To many good English teachers, this is where it ends. We feel good if we turn out good writers. Administrators would like us to focus on the next step in the process, (good writing) leading to (good test scores). This is the end they have in mind. Of course I want my kids to do well on "the test". But I don't think it's as important as many in my building. So that's where I've been. Work = Good Writing = Good Test Scores.

But as I was thinking about how to use technology in my class room, I moved beyond this a bit. The point, the pundants say, of blogs, podcasts, the variety of ways that technology lets us hook-up with one another (flickr, stumbleupon, delicious, etc.) is to create community. And from that community comes a better world.

It's fun to help students become better writers. But some days that's not enough. Now how about making the world a better place. That might be worth getting up for. And I'm not talking about some general feel good kind of "make the world a better place." I'm thinking something more concrete here.

So from (good writing) we can go a variety of directions all at once. Good Writing = Good Test Scores, but Good Writing = Good Grades. Good Writing = Self Realization/Actualization. And the one I want to focus on is Good Writing = Sharing Information/Ideas/Experiences Effectively = Building Community = Better World. Yeah there may be a missing step or two in there. Maybe someone who sees what I'm talking about can help me fill in the blanks.

That's where I'm going to stop for now. Comments welcome. More to come hopefully.