Working on a tiny part of a large project that someone other than me is running.  Mostly it involves editing historical documents and writing some (fairly substantial) introductory material.  Of course, my brain being empty for the day, I’m writing about the writing than actually doing the writing.  That’s probably because I’m not—deep down—a “writer’ as much as I am a teacher who likes to write; this stuff comes much harder than it probably does for more writerly writers.

So, this project (which has turned out to be a little more involved than I initially thought) has—regardless of anything else—provided me the opportunity to explore some additional sources to use in my classes.  This writing (and the other writing I did over the summer—not just the book, but more bureaucratic and procedural stuff) has done a few things for me that I didn’t expect.

First, I completely rewrote most of my writing assignments for my classes.  Nothing huge, just clarifying expectations and streamlining the words.  I’ll be interested to see if the changes result in different, improved work from students.

Second—and this was not unexpected—is that the connections between my teaching and my writing (including writing that doesn’t directly bear on the subjects I teach) improve my teaching and, especially, my creation assessment activities.

A ramble, this, but one that clarified some things in my mind.  Thanks for tagging along, if you have been.

Now, back to work.