Konrad Glogowski writes:

I don’t want my students to see writing as something one produces as a response to a question or a prompt. I don’t want them to see writing as production of answers. I want them to see writing as something one arrives at, something one produces after engaging with ideas, I want them to see it as an attempt to explore their views and opinions. I don’t want them to produce texts that present ideas as definitive and self-evident. I’m gradually beginning to realize that trying to fit all their thoughts into a five paragraph essay does injustice to both the ideas they engage with and their own cognitive abilities. I don’t want them to see their interpretations as something immutable and definitive. That is what essay-writing seems to do to their perception of intellectual engagement: Here is my thesis. Here is my evidence. I’m done, Mr. G. What are we reading next?

Yes. This is my issue with student writing, exactly, and expressed in a far more effective way than I ever could. Why is it that my students, my colleagues, and, I fear, myself continue to think of writing as a summative/culminating activity? Why is it that the essay is always a strong candidate for a final assessment, but is almost never assigned as a way of checking in with what students are thinking some time before they finish reading an assigned book?

Something struck me yesterday when I dropped a friend off at the airport for her trip. I apologized that she’d be getting there so early, but I was trying to make sure to be through NYC before rush hour hit. So she had an extra couple of hours to kill in the terminal in Newark. Anyway, and I don’t think she was just trying to make me feel better, when I asked her what she’d do to kill the time, she mentioned a few things: enjoying the feeling of checking in first for her flight, eating some of Newark Airport’s famous sushi, and breaking in her new travel journal. See, she’s a habitual journal writer and has been for years. She writes when she can, when she’s got something she needs to work out or just put on paper to see how it works, and has encouraged me to start keeping a journal too. I wish I had that kind of discipline–I’d love to get into the habit of writing whenever something strikes me.

I’m excited about using blogs in a classroom situation. I think it might, if everyone’s on board, work out like Konrad’s experience (that would be AWESOME). I would love for my students to see this as an opportunity to express themselves and, even more importantly, to learn by collaborating with each other asynchronously.