Well, it’s Friday again. We have spent the last week of school online and I can see some serious fatigue from my students in regard to what we’re doing. I’m trying to give them projects to work on, so I don’t spend a lot of time with them in class, face to face, because that’s depressing, not only to me, but I feel to the students as well. I keep trying to come up with projects that will get them up and about, to get them to be creative, and most of all to get them THINKING. Clearly, considering the events in the United States in the last few days, critical thinking is one of the most important things that I can have my students engage in.

But it seems that thinking is hard for some…especially students. A lot of you who are on this list are my former students and a lot of you rebelled against simple things. One of the questions I got most often as an English teacher was, “How many words does this have to be?” I always answer that question the exact same way: “As many as you need in order to get your point across.”

This used to drive my students batty, because the translation to that question is: “What is the least amount of work I have to do in order to get a good grade?” That’s really all anyone wants to know. My method drives students insane because they have to be their own self-critic. They have to think about what they’re doing and engage with the material. They want an outline given to them so they don’t have to THINK.