One idea I’ve been working around as I complete 10 days of writing 700+ words a day of [roughly edited but intended to be legible] ideas is that writing isn’t actually that hard, but generating novel, interesting or worthwhile ideas is a big part of the challenge. Journaling for myself is focused more on debriefing ideas or processing, but the pressure for coherence is different when writing “for an audience.”
Once I have a topic or premise that I’ve judged ‘worth writing about,’ the writing itself happens pretty quickly. I’d originally only intended in writing 500+ words a day, but most of the time I’m ending up closer to 700-800 as I’m finding it quite difficult to communicate anything of substance in a clear and legible way with less than that. Of course, if I had an editor, perhaps this and everything else would be much tighter and more concise, but actually, once I get going it’s not too hard to string together a bunch of ideas (some more interesting than others).
So the question then is, what I am generating ideas from, and how am I developing them? If part of the point of writing this blog, is to generate, develop, and work through my thoughts as I flesh out ideas in legible ways, then I could write about literally anything. At the same time, I’m trying to avoid this becoming my own “hot take” blog where I comment on whatever is in the news as though I have something interesting to say about everything or some level of expertise on everything. And to be honest, that sort of writing – researching and developing arguments, and responding to other perspectives – necessarily requires more time than I have to devote to this practice on top of my full-time teaching job.
So I’m thinking I will try to keep this teaching and learning focused as an overall theme, reflecting on what I am teaching, how I am teaching, and also specifically engaging some of the content I am teaching and learning about. Most of what I’ve written so far is, if not directly engaged in my teaching, implicitly related, so it seems reasonable to focus on that and specifically – as this post is doing – try to make visible and legible some of the metacognitive thinking I am already doing around teaching and learning.
How interesting and worthwhile is that to others? Probably of limited interest, but as I mentioned in the first post, most of this being public-facing is intended to keep me honest and disciplined. Already I’ve mentioned the practice to some students, and a few – looking down the work they have ahead of them before they finish the school year – have mentioned feeling a little inspired. Although I am finding this valuable and rewarding simply for myself, the added benefit of inspiring even a handful of students is something I can take some pride in.