I am not a good writer. I am not a bad writer. I fall somewhere in the middle. So, I guess I am a middle writer.
As we have been reading F-451 as a class, I have had the distinct thought that I need to start writing again. I have multiple (10+) journals and an old poetry blog, as well as random writings on Livejournal that I may never be able to retrieve. The issue is time. I think this is everybody’s issue. I have known this for a long time, but we make time for things we “want” to do, and things we “have” to do. This is something I want to do.
Coming into this weekend, I had 186 messages in my inbox. Mostly from student’s sharing their F-451 projects, or Informational Papers on “How to Write an Informational Paper” . The kids are calling the paper “Infoception”, because it is a paper within a paper. I came up with the idea a couple of weeks ago and we have been essentially writing the paper in class. (more on this later)
Anyway, back to the projects. The Fahrenheit 451 project assignment was a huge success (in my eyes). Some of the students procrastinated, some of them didn’t do it, others gave me 50%, and others gave me 100%. The students had to give me ten hours of planning, creating, working, practicing, writing, singing or a variety of other verbs that have to deal with project management. The project had to connect with F-451 and show something that they learned or what stuck out to them in the book.
It’s amazing what 14-15-year-olds will do and produce when given the choice. Even more than what they produced is what I learned about each one of them, even the students who didn’t complete the project. I learned that I have students who are talented at so many things that really have nothing to do with school or academics. I realized that for most of them, they are working on things they have to do, and things they want to do (Just like me). This project allowed them to do both at the same time. This made me happy.