Blog 4

Chapter 1, 9R: "...we fear silence. In the quiet, we are left with ourselves. And in our culture, there is deep fear of being alone" (4). I can relate. Some nights, I think myself to sleep in no time. Other nights, I eventually have to turn the TV on in order to turn my mind off. I also agreed with the idea of teachers modeling their own need for quiet time to write. If students see their teacher participating in an activity along with them, it automatically becomes more important than an assignment that's good enough for the students but not for the teacher. I also think it's important for teachers to read aloud, not just to younger students and not just in English class. My eighth-grade algebra teacher read us Lois Lowry's "The Giver" whenever we had extra time at the end of class, and most days, we worked hard enough to make sure we'd have extra time. I think it does allow students "to mentally stretch out" (8).

Chapter 4, WW: Was it just me, or did Smith take eight pages to make a point, and not a very interesting one, at that? If I didn't have to read this for class, there's no way I would have made it that far.

Nelson, WTL: It's so true that the English teacher, or any teacher for that matter, always gets blamed. "...Jane and Johnny are not our offspring - they are the children of an entire culture in the process of change" (321). Can we just pass this out to parents? I thought the image of words as pollution was a strong one. The idea of the personal journal (324) goes along with the idea that students must care about what they write first before it becomes a piece of public writing. I liked the idea of encouraging students to "write small" (325) to keep them from being too intimidated or overwhelmed by writing. I also liked the thank-you note suggestion (326). I think students would appreciate the feedback, and I think they would find themselves connected to their classmates on a more personal level, especially classmates they might not interact with outside of class.