Anna Smith, PhD, educational researcher & teacher educator blogging about composition in the digital age, contexts for learning, theories of development, and global youth.
In both of our courses, we’ve been blogging, podcasting, and otherwise creating media as we’ve worked through our courses as a way to learn and connect, and importantly learn through connecting!
Here I am again. It’s nearing the end of the year and I have a moment to catch my breath between semesters. (Yes, my life is measured in semesters. Such it is with a school-for-life type.) I’ve had this site now for seven years, and for the first couple of years it was such a hotspot for thinking, reflecting, and connecting. And then, for some … Continue reading jumpstart
I’ll say it. My 2014 Year in Review from WordPress is sad, just sad. And though the graphics are fun (thanks, WP), my work on this site has not been fireworks worthy. Let’s just take my 2014 Posting Patterns as an example…
Click image to see the complete pitiful, sorry excuse for a report.
Posting patterns? Pretty pitiful. I didn’t have a “posting pattern.” I was in an avoidance holding pattern. Sure there was a lot going on this year, but I don’t need excuses. To be blunt: The sustained intensity of the dissertation processes in concert with the massive amount of other critical and creative…and really exciting…scholarly work I had been engaged in for the last couple of years had left me a little tired, a little wrung out to dry, and thus, a little hesitant to engage in any kind of writing, creating or making that was not absolutely, utterly necessary. And yet, I’ve missed it, and I’ve missed the rush, the spark, the energy I get while writing, creating, and making in order to keep writing, creating and making.
So, what am I going to do about it?
Write. Create. Make.: A solution. Not a resolution.
“Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.”
“It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power.”
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“All of these stories make me who I am, but to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed me.”
“Stories matter. Many stories matter.”
(Again, I have nothing to add. She’s said it all. And said it beautifully. I happened to watch this while working on my syllabus for the Literature and the Adolescent Experience course next semester. It was perfect timing for me. I hope it is perfect timing for you, too.)
