It looks like it is going to snow this coming weekend and I’ll be hoping for a snow day. Whenever I call the University’s Snow Line and I hear those magical words, “The University is closed today,” I start dancing around the kitchen with my dogs yelling, “Snow Day! Snow Day!” I immediately become that 4th grader at Hollis Elementary when a snow day meant playing a marathon game of Monopoly with my sister and sledding all afternoon. But if the snow day happens to fall on one of my teaching days, my 4th grade self quickly fades as my teacher self kicks in. This snow day means I’m missing class, which means, now, we are getting behind.
After I shovel off my porch (something my 4th grade self wouldn’t have done), I go to my study and begin the process of re-arranging the class calendar in order to make-up what we are missing today. This process is not always easy. Let’s face it, our College Writing class is already packed, already fast paced and getting one day off from the calendar can really throw the whole semester off. A snow day, also leaves me no flexibility to spend (if needed) extra time during the “Interacting with Texts” unit or with the “Adding to the Conversation” unit. Missing this one day could even cut into my plans for the TBA unit.
As I go through the process of re-arranging dates, I find myself getting anxious. How am I going to get everything done? How am I going to cover everything I need to cover? How am I going to do everything that I planned on doing? What is with all these holidays? Why do we have to have spring break? This will put us even further behind. DAMN SNOW DAY! When I start thinking this, I need to take a step back.
I think, as teachers, once we have planned out what we are going to be doing for the entire semester we become committed to our own plans. This isn’t a bad thing—we should be committed to what we have decided to do. But sometimes I think we become too committed. We begin to see everything we have planned as things that MUST be done, MUST be covered and if these things are not, the students will leave our classrooms not having everything they need to be successful college writers. But we need to put things in perspective. Rather than seeing the calendar as something chiseled in granite, in may be useful to see the semester as something more fluid, more flexible. Things can be re-arranged and some things can be let go—yes, let go.
Let’s face it; not getting to an essay in the Student Anthology, not doing one peer workshop, not doing one revision activity is not really going to prevent the students from expanding, developing, and revising their essays. We need to remember that College Writing is about the process of writing. It is also about repetition. With each unit we discuss the importance of audience and purpose; we show them the importance of drafting, of reflecting, of getting feedback. If a snow day prevents us from doing one thing, during one unit we know they will get it later in the semester.
So rather than looking at my schedule in terms of how to cram everything in, I try to look at it in terms of what needs to be done and what can be let go. It could be that the peer review workshop my students are missing because of this snow day is crucial in helping them revise their initial drafts. But the great audience exercise I had planned for the next class meeting isn’t as crucial and can be cut out. It becomes a matter of prioritizing what is needed to move the students through the writing process. And it also becomes a matter of accepting that the weather is out of our control.