An Experiment

So here we are together again for what I hope will be a wonderful year. The floors of Room 209 (and the whole school, for that matter) are freshly waxed and the walls, newly painted. Hard to believe it will feel "lived in" so soon when it's almost pristine right now. (I'm sure you guys will help take care of that with me :-) I was in our classroom yesterday, cleaning and bulletin-boarding and such, when I came across some of your old journals from last year. And, of course, I read through them again (because what else does a teacher do?). I smiled a little and laughed a little (can I say I frowned a little, too?) and wondered how to change journaling this year. (Side note: should those of you who had me last year pick up where you left off or would you like a brand new journal so you can start from scratch?) Well, this blog is part of my journal solution. The blogosphere has really piqued my interest and I hoping it's piqued yours too--or that it will, at any rate. It's a lot more organic than school essays, of course, and therefore a bit more risky, but I feel pretty convinced that it serves an important role. I'll be giving you all assignments to do on your blogs, but they're purposely pretty open-ended. Ultimately, they lead to one main goal, which is to get you to express yourselves independently--and, of course, to share those expressions with each other in an active way.

My (not-so) secret hope is that you will go beyond the general requirements of this course and use these blogs to your hearts' contents, posting to them whenever you so desire and allowing them to become your own launching pads. When the year is over, you may find that you've written some things you're proud of--and that this blog-posting thing actually works for you. And then, perhaps, you'll continue with your own blog (one to which I don't have a password :-).

The name of the blog is pretty random, but not entirely so. Books--well, that's obvious; I want you to respond to the books you're reading independently. Belching--that's for the random stuff that comes up that you just feel like talking about aloud in the hopes that maybe there's a soul out there in cyberspace--maybe even in room 209--who cares. And Blogging--that's because this whole thing is an experiment for me (maybe for you, too?) and, well, I've already written three paragraphs on the concept of blogging!

You see what I mean about this going anywhere you want.

Here's to a fabulous year of going wherever we want. Happy Blogging!

Ms. Schiller
p.s. Feel free to comment to my posts, too!