Blog 7 I-Search

I'm not going to lie. When I first read about the I-Search article, I freaked out a little bit. Not so much for fear of the work, but I believe Christina said it best when she said that time was going to be an issue to set up interviews and finding the time to travel. 17 credits and working close to full time as well does not leave me much time or flexibility to do an interview. Also like Christina, I feel myself compelled to do something with teaching. Approaching my semester of student teaching, it would be in my best interest if I gathered as much information as possible that would make me more knowledgeable than my competition.

As for our texts, I agree with everyone else that I really enjoyed the readings this week. They seemed to be very uplifting and very motivational. (I think Smith just brings me down.) As I was reading Spandel, I realized that I had already read this chapter and found it very useful for my writing portfolio. I used this quote for my paper and find it extremely important:

When students say they have nothing to write about, they are really saying in effect, ‘I’m not a very interesting person. My life is dull. I’m dull.’ It isn’t true, but if they think it’s true, the result is the same. Students often think we read their writing only to see how good it is. The notion that we might read it to learn something or to appreciate the voice or the language never occurs to many of them. Our sincere interest in students’ lives and their opinions is one of the strongest motivators we have. Nothing on earth is so irresistible to a writer as the knowledge that her writing might actually influence someone else’s thoughts or feelings (Spandel 21).

Unfortunately, there are still many teachers out there who have students do papers so they can see how good their writing truly is. I would like to think that I have a more open approach to students' writings.