I began class a little behind, so, naturally, I was already a little nervous. English class and I go way back and it’s not always been good. In fact, I’d purposely avoided taking this class until there was no other alternative; my extreme anxiety over past indiscretions was overwhelming enough to make me overextend my stay at UNCC. And our first big assignment was to consider our writing history. Even thinking of it now makes me want to panic! Still, I was interested in getting the truth out there, because I figured if people could at least see me as an example of what not to do, I might help someone to keep from repeating my mistakes. I also took what Megan seemed to be saying to heart: all my writing experiences—good and bad—have made me the writer I am. I wrote in my daybook about several of my writing and schooling experiences and tried to balance the good with the bad.
Then, I tried to reflect on what makes me the reluctant writer, and I tried to give an accurate, albeit uncomfortably honest portrayal of what I’ve experienced with writing. Later, I reflected on what I thought about my experiences and realized that, even though I made huge mistakes in writing, I also had great teachers and an awesome mom that guided me nonetheless towards at least a modicum of academic achievement. This helped me to see that I wasn’t really a completely lost cause as a writer, for I didn’t write a really horrible Writing History Response. I just wrote a therapeutic one and tried, once again, to forgive myself. Having made myself both vulnerable and visible, it was time to begin working on how I was going to survive the semester and do all the other assignments, most of which resembled regular academic work.
Luckily for me, the class theme really intrigued me. With a mother and several friends being teachers, I’ve been surrounded by educators for, well, ever! This meant that I had a great deal to offer to the class as far as experience and opinion, being fascinated by all the differing opinions in class regarding creativity. I responded to the Friere quote about creativity and was very intrigued to see just how many differing opinions we had in class regarding whether schools were indeed quashing creativity by “teaching to the test.”
After reading and responding to Kaplan’s essay, I began to think about the good skills I gleaned from my early education, critical thinking skills being at the top of my list. I couldn’t help but think that my education was better than some others have received, due to my early love of reading, my mother’s influence and a wealth of good teachers. Though I would say I attended a middle-class elementary, middle and high school according to Anyon, I definitely received closer to an affluent professional level education. So, I asked myself: what was different between then and now? Looking back, I think my response to the “Blame Game” comic says it all.
So how can you teach students to think critically? I had no idea when I began the class, but writing the Exploratory Essay really helped me to understand that teaching methods played a huge role in how critical thinking might be taught. I also learned that I needed to revise my ideas about not planning my writing, because I found that the only way I could make sense of the Exploratory Essay was to do an extensive outline of the piece before writing it. I knew that Megan was testing all our limits with such a different kind of assignment, so I had to take some risks of my own and try something new, like planning, in order to properly complete the assignment. Moving out of my comfort zone with planning and procrastination really helped me write a better paper, and I think this outline also helped my inquiry question take early shape because of my choice to focus on teaching methods and critical thinking as my EE thesis.
From there, I began to listen around for hot-button issues in education so that I could find a suitable inquiry topic to research within my field of interest. Over lunch with a friend, I learned about Common Core and the issues associated with implementing it in North Carolina math classrooms. This led directly to my research proposal and, after being further narrowed down, became the question I asked of myself and others: how do you teach teachers to teach an old subject like Math in a completely new way? Can it even be done? After researching the subject and talking to my friend some more about the concept of professional development, I learned that critical thinking and Common Core were one and the same. I also learned that teachers were being taught in similar and different ways and resources were just now becoming available for the Common Core’s approaching implementation. Given the importance of the nationwide Common Core adoption and the emphasis placed on developing critical thinking skills, I knew I had a topic in which I might truly immerse myself. In this moment, I began to change the way I felt about my chances to perform well in this class; I had a captivating topic of inquiry and I believed I could write about it.
I will readily admit that, though helpful to my inquiry process, I found the Annotated Bibliography to be the most challenging piece of writing I did for the class, probably because of my documented anxiety with citations. Again I had to revise the way I approached this assignment, taking care to get the citations just right, and to take care not to add my first-person opinions to the analysis. Once again, planning and outlining helped me a great deal with this paper, and I got a lot out of the Active Reading activities we did in class. This and some good, old-fashioned perseverance eventually helped me to revise the majority of my mistakes on the rough draft and submit a fairly decent second draft, even with “Mom-workshopping” behind me!
With the entire process leading up to the Joining the Conversation pieces, I was probably the most confident of my inquiry group in regards to this assignment. I know I was certainly thrilled to write the Step #1 Dialogue because it allowed me to indulge in a little creativity and fun, while sticking to the facts in my research. I believe the confidence I received from my group during workshopping helped me make the decision to revise Step #1 rather than Step #2 for my inquiry paper. I wanted to put a little bit of my personality and humor—what I knew to be a skill from my “good writer” days—into the class at some point. I believe I made my inquiry topic more engaging by including the “voices” of my sources in the paper and by making my friend Ms. Teresa Beck larger than life, and my decision to revise the stage directions and slang for my characters was some of the best advice I received from my inquiry group.
All in all, I believe it has been quite a journey from the awkwardly honest confession of my Writing History to the fun, engaging voices of my sources in the Step #3 Inquiry paper. I learned the value of revision, planning, and drafting, though I still need to work on time management and procrastination. I guess I can’t fix everything at once. This class experience has allowed me to practice writing way more than I wanted to, and yet, in the end, I actually found myself eager to write and have my writing read. I believe at some point, I remembered I liked writing and that I could actually make it happen; I am grateful to everyone in the class for being with me on this journey of re-vision and (in a way) rebirth.
