2019 Thursday — Whiteboard Moment

Next week is midterm; my students will write their in-class essay which is worth double points. I tell students that this is the top of the stack of all this semester’s projects.

The project is to write a 5-paragraph essay regurgitating the textbook’s instruction regarding writing. My students think this is almost impossible, so when they actually do it, the feeling of victory and accomplishment is really thrilling.

Today they worked in teams to write an outline of this future essay and then each team wrote one section of the outline on the whiteboard.

The second hour of each class today was my turn — I spent close to an hour talking to them about accomplishment, success, and the temptation to quit before starting a task. So I told them about several of the two week bicycle journeys that Mr. Fun and I have experienced on our two wheel tandem bicycle.

One time we put our bicycle and ourselves on an airplane to fly to San Francisco, meet-up with a group of bicycle riders and then spend the next two weeks pedaling home to Southern California.

Another time we put our bicycle on the Amtrak train from Southern California with a destination of Salem, Oregon. Then after spending the night in Salem, we pedaled the 60 miles west to the coastal city of Florence to join with a group of riders for the next two weeks to San Francisco.

Both times the urge to quit before we started was real. Both times the feeling of accomplishment and victory were nothing less than intoxicating. Those accomplishments were the fuel that convinced us we could master other challenges that looked impossible.

I want my students to believe they can write this in-class essay (because I know they can). The big hurdle, the high jump, is convincing them to prepare. I’ve told them they need to write a practice draft essay every single day until the day of the in-class writing arrives.

The clock is ticking. This coming Tuesday is the day. I hope they are practicing.

Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol