I wrote an email yesterday that opened this way:
"I am currently reading up on the 6+1 Traits of Writing for my reading specialist course (please, try to contain your jealousy, as I am sure you are bogged down with some sort of ski trip or another midweek "get away" which keeps you from enjoying some professional development reading over vacation) AND I think I have a solution for our mutual, "What the F do I do tomorrow?" problem."
I'm on winter break. I am also weeks behind on my Reading Specialist certification course. These two facts, when put side by side, led to the obvious conclusion that I should not be off engaging in recreational activities as my students and colleagues may be. Rather, I have chosen to spend my week holed up in my fiance's basement apartment on Long Island with TWO milk crates full of material on literacy, educational theory, teaching strategies, specific programs and all the reading and writing instruction a soul could ask for. (While Nick is at school, I'm here with my work, then at night we get to hang out like a normal couple, imagine that....)
I have a hard time classifying my current use of time as either "super productive" or "barely productive". For the most part, this course only calls upon me to be reading and responding two text books. However, it does ask that I collect some outside sources occasionally, and every time I have met with my advisor, she has loaded me up with at least 3 additional books per meeting. Some of them I have glanced at, others I've read through quickly, and some I have gone out an bought so I can delight in the pleasure of underlining and adding my own running commentary in the margins. (writer shakes head at own overly gleeful admission of dorkiness)
Which brings us to the two milk crates which are accompanying me over this break. I have spent the majority of my "work day" reading about reading. Yet, the progress I have made on my actual portfolio for my course is limited.
This morning for example; I crack open one of my text books, take a few notes, see something that had reminded me of something else I've read, then go to go double check it. I'm now on book 2 of the day. Book 2 is an anthology, and I recognize one of the author's names, so I find the book I have from him or her and we're all the sudden on to book 3. OR, my original text book references a study or an article in an academic journal that I want to learn more about, so I look it up on the computer and maybe 40 minutes later I am signing up for a membership to the National Council of Teachers of English. OR, I am done with my lunch break and decided that I'm just going to relax for a bit by pawing through that Nancie Atwell book that has been on my "to-read" list for years. And maybe after all that, I decide I'm still not ready to work on the 1 page essay I could have finished in 90 minutes, and turn my attention instead to the blog I haven't looked at in 3 months and begin to write reflection on my own study habits, that ends up being chalked full of run on sentences.
Is there a moral here? No, sorry. Just ramblings. If I were hard pressed to draw out a few key lessons, they would be these:
1) I am still a horrible student when it comes to focusing.
2) Just because I am not answering the assigned questions, does not mean I am not thinking about the topic.
3) *
*(This is where I describe how this lesson lends itself to the way I should look at my own students. It's on the tip of my tongue. Unfortunately, I have a long-neglected text book I need to get back to)
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