Field Notes: July 29, 2002

Spent some time over the weekend reading over Beth's notes and Doug's notes. I didn't really push anything, just did a light read, fingering a few ideas as I processed the words and wondering about where we might be going next. I've noticed, so far, two things. Beth talks a lot about community issues. Doug's early resistance to the social action notion ("I don't do social action" - or something to that effect) is gone. I believe he's discovered that he does a lot of social action, just never called it that. The thought just hit that I thought it might be fair and safe to say that anyone who asks questions about their teaching is a social action worker...an agent for change in their classroom. Doug certainly fits that bill...he asks questions about his teaching.

We began writing about the SA principles this morning. Apparently, Amy and I were the only ones who struggled with this activity. I couldn't seem to rope my thoughts in from roaming all around a pretty big prairie. Just when I would start to narrow in on something, I'd see an idea just out of the corner of my eye trying to escape and I"d have to veer off to the right or to the left to corner that idea. In the meantime, as you might expect, the first idea escapes while I'm trying to rope in the second idea. What I liked about these writings however, was that everyone had something quite different to say.

The other cool thing that happened today was during response groups. Beth, Doug and I met and I shared with them my "Kelly's Story" and attempt at pulling that article together. I'll need to do some work on that tomorrow night before my group meets again. After we met and had some individual writing time (but mostly I worked on the computer getting a few things ready for today) I began to think about my class and the multigenre research project they are doing. It hit me that this kind of classwork is social action. It works toward justice, fairness, and equity. Students have choices and when there are choices there is freedom. Now, I tell Doug about this realization as we're leaving the lab and gives me a pitying look. He thinks I'm working real hard to make things fit, and he feels sorry for me that I'm having to do this. Later in the day however, a turn of events makes me not so pathetic. As we are doing our dialectal writing on our double entry journals, I get one where Amy writes something about whether or not multigenre work is really a form of social action. Of course I pounce on that as confirmation of my earlier idea. I wonder what my students would say about this...do they see this kind of project/work as ultimately fair, just, and equitable?

p.s. I'm insanely jealous of Beth's ability to write beautifully for extended periods of time. I grab 5 minutes here; 5 minutes there and produce short bursts of potential genius that never goes anywhere. Sad.