Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Perseverance

"It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act. It starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more."

It's a powerful political poem but this stanza has me thinking about a lot of things.  Here - on this writing blog - my thoughts turn to writing.
I have always thought that we need to empower students to view themselves as writers.  To say "I am a writer" the same way I also expected them to say "I am a historian" in my social studies class.  School needs to be more than just going through the motions and getting something done - it needs to be about learning, growing, doing and sometimes not doing it well.  There needs to be forward movement.

At first, they resist.  No middle schools student wants to identify themselves as a writer.  Few elementary, high school, college, graduate school  or life students do either.  It is daunting.  It is public.  But it is doable.  Only if WE believe with certainty that is what we want for our students.

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