Research and More Research

Summer quarter is officially over, and I met with my professor today to discuss my research direction for the upcoming year. We had our meeting at the Pannikin coffee shop in Encinitas - I'd never been to this location before. What a cool place! I actually got there about a half-hour early and enjoyed a yummy piece of apple pie. But, back to the point....

My brilliant professor, who has crafted the most incredible summer introductory class, is holding these final individual meetings with everyone in my cohort in order to guide us during the six-week hiatus until we begin our fall classes.

I feel like I've been on Mulholland Drive since June, as I entered this program with a certain direction in mind and have hit curve after curve through encounters with existing research, conversations with classmates, writing assignments, and finally, today's meeting.

I emerged this afternoon with a pretty clear direction in mind: I will be creating a "toolbox" of writing strategies for my students and documenting which strategies my students select. The strategies I'll be presenting to students will be influenced by brain-based teaching, so I'll be using visual tools, graphic organizers, mnemonics, creating schemata, and socially-constructed learning. I'm curious about patterns that may emerge: what works well for English learners, for special education students, for proficient writers afraid to take risks, etc. This feels like a huge undertaking to me! I will be trying lots of new strategies and will have to do a lot of documenting. However, writing is an area I'm passionate about and I know that when all is said and done, I will have real data supporting why I teach the way I do.