Just Keep Thinking

Two blessed weeks.  Two.  To read.  To rest.  To think of lesson plans for the next semester.

There won't be any turning my mind off in the next two weeks.  Every book I read, every movie I watch, every conversation I have and every life circumstance I face is going to help feed the ideas for the lessons I need to teach. 

I'd like to say those lessons will be compelling.  I'd like to say they'll change students' lives and they'll see the world in an entirely new light.

But I'm not unrealistic.

I know things don't change over night.  And I know it will be difficult to find a way to make Shakespeare's background a little more interactive.  But I'm still hopeful.

And I'm also open to input.  I would like to utilize the idea of a forum, and even though I've asked the same question a hundred times on Twitter, no one will answer my questions.  So much for changing my teaching life.  Yet that doesn't change the fact that I'm really interested in giving my students the opportunity to do some authentic writing.  Sometimes I get tired of reading the academic mumbo-jumbo students call papers.  I just want something real--an opinion, a thought, a few ideas.  Not every English paper requires research.  In fact, most of them require a real ability to unpack information.

And I need to find a new way to help them unpack those thoughts and opinions...while I keep thinking.