The Beliefs

We read Rick Moody's This I Believe essay about reading today, preparing for our own essays of beliefs about literacy. One kid insisted that he had no beliefs about reading.
I asked, "Do you like to read?"
He answered, "No. It's stupid and pointless."
I said, "Well that's a belief. Write it down."
As I tried to lead a discussion of belief statements, another kid started singing the theme song from the MTV show, Sweet 16, which I have to admit is pretty catchy.
I happened to watch it last night instead of grading literature logs, so we talked about the show for awhile before I exercised my authority and tried to redirect. We didn't get far with the essay planning. We'll see how tomorrow goes. On a good note, I finished up a small section of dissertation and now can move on to a new, harder section. yay.

Comments

hr said…
Hey!

I used a section of that essay in my PowerPoint on my life as a literate being for Harste's class. I also included Blogging and emailed him later to let him know that you were my inspiration for the blogging project in my class -- as well as many other things. :-)
Anonymous said…
I of course have no idea what this essay even is. Damn!
judy
LH said…
here's the link judy:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4816313

it's gotten the kids all fired up about choice. not sure if that's a good thing or not.

hr, you are feeling better i trust??? your blogging project looks way cool. may have to copy you.
Undomestic said…
Talking about "their" TV shows really makes the kids see you as "real" in their eyes...not some adult who has no clue...I think your time was well spent and will pay off in the future. Can you believe that someone will actually RESPECT you for watching Sweet Sixteen!
LH said…
i posted a response to this earlier. wonder what happened to it? basically i talked about watching real world last night and wondered when Survivor begins. We talked about Nothing But the Truth today. They're all so clever in the way they talk about books. V. fun.

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