Online Curriculum Development: BDS 7-22-13

Planning: Continue working on Unit 3. Make as much progress as time allows. Make notes as to where I am when time runs out. Continue there during my next BDS later today, 

Comfort Check: My jaw was clenched (blegh) and my legs were curled back under me putting unnecessary pressure on my right knee and ankle. 

Negative Energy from class discussion has carried over. I want to apologize, and I'm planning it for the end of class, but it's taking away the focus during this BDS. Get it back Max. 

More negative energy during this comfort break. I'm having serious doubts about the project as a whole. Not that it shouldn't/won't get done, but of the efficacy, pedagogical soundness, and student-centered-ness of the whole thing. Attempting to return to comfort and fluency in 3...2...1....

Notes for whence to begin again: FIgure out Journal numbering. Decide on Beatles sources. Find library exercise. Stay calm. 

Mindful Reading: Boice pp 129-138

Maintenance Problems: When I think about the end of this week and the parting of ways that always accompanies the end of the term, I start thinking about what it'll be like to strike out on my own, to be in control of my own writing-destiny, and to walk high on the wire without a net. I think of all the support and routine I've had and built over the past three weeks, and I wonder what it will be like when I'm forced to rejoin the 'real world'. Four weeks has taught me a lot, but I'm nervous. Imagine what Boice's writers were thinking after 9 months of support and community, only to be similarly forced out on their own: no wonder there're relapses.

Durability is the key here. To avoid the peaks and valleys that scuttle most regular-writing programs. It's not just an issue of avoiding the lows (brought on by depression), but also managing the highs as well (hypomania, binging, not stopping, etc). Holding one's self back is a very strange concept to me, and I suppose I've had trouble with it in the past. Some of my blocks create the necessity to binge, and while it's happening it feels okay, and then the project's done, so what's not to like. Well, it's hard to be a person, as we've talked about. But that's also a sure-fire way to not return to the writing and to really dread doing it in the first place.

A measured, steady pace of writing must be striven for. Boice's suggestions are helpful, too, for trying to get me to that place.

Mindful Reading: Boice pp 30-38

In this section, Boice was at his most practical. He provides many concrete practices for his readers to follow in order to get in the regular practice of daily writing.

To me, Boice really has one goal in mind: to establish a sense of confidence in his writers. At first I was a bit skeptical (like many of the people he cites in the book) about the effectivness of the rules and interventions he lays out. I wondered to myself, what are all these steps aimed at building confidence doing for writers at all levels? But then it dawned on me, people who are taking the time to read this book (or take A Mindful Writing seminar during the summer session) are probably already good writers or they have the mind, eye, and ear to become one. Whether it be a college student, an aspiring creative writer, or a grad student caught in the doldrums of comprehensive exams, these people have been writing a long time and have read a sufficient amount to understand what it takes to be a good writer.

Therein lies the importance of confidence. What stands in the way of these writers from realizing their potential, and I think Boice would agree, is the understanding that you ARE a writer (and probably a good one), and that with these mindful, regular, mildly-happy practices, you can see the fruits of your labor coming out. Regular productivity provides the concrete proof of you as a writer, and therefore can only lead to increased motivation to write.

The rules and practices in this section, along with the ones from the previous sections, all lead me to think that Boice is trying to get his writers to see for themselves that they have something to say.

Mindfulness ----------> Confidence -----------> Motivation -----------> Production

It can be done. We just need to feel like it can.