BLOG BLOCK!

This has never happened before: it is SOOOOOO time for a new blog post on healigan's home, and I know it it will be about Frankenstein for the juniors and maybe Marquez for the seniors, but I can't write it! Here is the sticker: it is hard work to write a good blog post--and it should not be harder than writing an assignment, should it? But it is, because 1) I have been assigning writing the old way for a thousand years,so it is tempting to retreat into familiarity and 2) I am not asking them to report to me with a blog, I want them to consider an idea, live with it for a day or two, and then release it into the world. And they almost never want to do that for me. So I always feel like I am a circus performer, and I do not want the audience to leave for popcorn just before the best trick. And there is, of course, the fact that I am a writer who feels the same things they feel when I write....it is a scary, vulnerable jumble of emotions, and it never gets easier. They judge themselves by their grades, but I judge myself by their written responses and the look on their faces when they come into class to update me.
Well, Spring Break has started, so I am not in a time crunch, and as I reread this, I remind myself that I should not be doing all the work. Reframing the problem usually solves it. More to come as I work through this.