This week, the plan for completing my semester is to help my students initiate their own personal writing blogs.  I ask them to choose the six best pieces of writing they submitted in class to covert into blog posts.  The material might come from an essay.  A group project.  A discussion board.   We’ll combine imagery with text.  In the end, they’ll have something they are proud to share  online with friends and family.  More importantly,  they will be creating their own voice.

Below, I’m sharing my most recent blog post with them.  Each week, I try to write about my experience here in Mexicali.  Some ideas are easy; it’s like they hit me in the face.  Others are more difficult to write about (like this one) where you don’t know where you are going.  But, that’s how you get better.  You need to push on. Think about your fears and hopes and dreams.  You can write about EVERYTHING, or you can write about NOTHING, but write SOMETHING down.  Joyce Carol Oates once said, “Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a dirty floor.”  Life is not a sprint.  It’s a marathon.