Merry Christmas from my writing happy place to yours!
If I had not written the 490 posts on this blog in the last 10 years, what difference would it make? In the final weeks of December, I make it a habit to reflect on my blogging for the year—to review my purpose and the year’s most popular posts. The release last month of ChatGPT (see last week’s post) adds a new dimension to this reflection: What does writing DO in my experience? Should I just quit and send ChatGPT my queries? Let my readers do the same?
Put like that, the question becomes nonsensical. If the primary purpose of my writing were providing others with information, it’s possible. However, my primary purpose in writing this blog has always been to consolidate, elaborate, and apply my own learning.If I had not gone through nearly every week of the last 10 years thinking, “What am I learning about learning and about life that I can reflect on in writing?” I would be a different person. Writing has made me a person who learns, reflects, grows, and shares that learning. I would be different teacher. Writing has made me a teacher of writing who is a writer, and who is continuously experimenting with best practice of both teaching and writing.
The biggest difference writing this blog has made is in me. I wonder how I can help students in an AI world experience and value writing for the difference it makes in them.
After I’ve wrestled my own learning into words, sentences, and paragraphs, then I find the possibility of sending it out into the world to see if there is a community of like-minded learners out there. Is there someone who will be encouraged by a reflection I offer as a reminder of joy, or a catalyst to action, or a personal example illuminating theory, or just an invitation to learn, unlearn, and relearn in company?
After I’ve wrestled my own learning into words, sentences, and paragraphs, then I find the possibility of sending it out into the world to see if there is a community of like-minded learners out there. Is there someone who will be encouraged by a reflection I offer as a reminder of joy, or a catalyst to action, or a personal example illuminating theory, or just an invitation to learn, unlearn, and relearn in company?
AI can’t offer that, either—the personal connection between author and audience. Whether it is me, the writer, offering specific examples of what a problem or an experiment or an epiphany looks like in my life, in my classroom. Or whether it is me, the writer, discerning and responding to the felt needs the audience has—the questions and circumstances they are facing. I wonder how I can help students in an AI world experience and value writing for the personal connection between reader and writer.
As I reflected on the 5 blog posts that garnered the most reads in 2022, I those were the two thoughts that came to mind as significant reasons for me to write: How writing these posts changed me, and how the personal reader-writer connection showed up. Here they are, starting with the #5 and building up to #1. See what you think:
Writing those 5 posts—as well as the 485 other posts I’ve written since July 2012—has changed me. Given the number of readers, they’ve also found some personal connection with an audience, which absolutely delights me—that the thoughts I labor over putting together find an echo and leave a blessing in another human. And those are two things writing does that AI-generated responses don’t: change the writer and create human connection. That is the question I will be carrying into my 2023 writing lessons—How can I help students experience and value the personal change and connection that writing creates?
What about you? Do you write? What difference does your writing make in an AI world? What about writing do you experience and value that you hope students continue to experience and value in an AI world? How will you help students do that?
As I reflected on the 5 blog posts that garnered the most reads in 2022, I those were the two thoughts that came to mind as significant reasons for me to write: How writing these posts changed me, and how the personal reader-writer connection showed up. Here they are, starting with the #5 and building up to #1. See what you think:
- What Type of Relationship with Staff Helps Students Flourish (23 Sep 2022): Students’ relationships with their teachers have a significant effect on their learning. As I desired my grandchildren to be welcomed into learning communities where they would flourish, I thought about what I could do to extend a welcome to every student who walks into my room. My deep hope is that students in my classroom and at my international Christian school are experiencing caring, collaborative, respectful Christ-centered staff. What might that look like for me? See the blog post for a list of specific examples.
- Looking for Books to Love My Ukrainian Neighbors (26 Feb 2022) When Russia invaded Ukraine, I realized my deplorable lack of knowledge about Ukraine’s history. I tackled that problem in the way I usually do: hunting for books. I searched for both fiction and nonfiction, both for myself and for my middle school students. Since then I discovered a wonderful middle grades jewel set in Ukraine and Russia, alternating between the time of the Chernobyl disaster and World War 2: The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman.
- What Do I Do with a Classroom Full of Immortals? (2 Sep 2022) What do I get when I combine a CS Lewis quote, a family photo, and the concept of people being made in the image of God? A memorable object lesson that I love to use at some point every year in every class.
- Sharing Joy, Sharing Life, Sharing Faith (30 Sep 2022) We added a grandchild this year as a daughter and her husband adopted a child they’d been fostering. Sharing this significant family event with my class was part of building relationships and providing real stories of the difference knowing Jesus and sharing his love makes in real people’s lives. The added delight: That using my blog post to reflect on sharing this with my class amplified the joy by sharing our news with many others! (I have learned that reflecting on big family events generates a large readership—reflections on my mother’s death and a daughter’s wedding are in my top 10 most read posts.)
- Independent Choice Reading Builds a Culture of Reading (1 Jan 2022) One year ago, my regular reflection on how independent choice reading for the trimester has gone turned into the year’s top post. It’s all about audience: I was involved in an online ed camp about independent choice reading, and I wrote the post with the questions in mind that were being asked by participants, with the purpose in mind of sharing the post in the group.
Writing those 5 posts—as well as the 485 other posts I’ve written since July 2012—has changed me. Given the number of readers, they’ve also found some personal connection with an audience, which absolutely delights me—that the thoughts I labor over putting together find an echo and leave a blessing in another human. And those are two things writing does that AI-generated responses don’t: change the writer and create human connection. That is the question I will be carrying into my 2023 writing lessons—How can I help students experience and value the personal change and connection that writing creates?
What about you? Do you write? What difference does your writing make in an AI world? What about writing do you experience and value that you hope students continue to experience and value in an AI world? How will you help students do that?
No comments:
Post a Comment