“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” –Zora Neale Hurston in Their Eyes Were Watching God

Dear wonderful readers,

You may have noticed that over the past couple years I’ve been up and down with the consistency of my posting. Some of this was undoubtedly due to the demands of being a father/teacher/writer and the overall vicissitudes of life. But much of the inconsistency came from another, highly frustrating source: Shortly after publishing Good Grammar, much of my writing, in my estimation, began to grow more scattered. 

At first I was perplexed and annoyed. I often sat down at the keyboard with a sense of having something to say, only to find my mind and prose feeling hazy, like I was trying to view my idea through the sickly red wildfire smoke that sat upon my home state of Michigan last week.

Eventually I came to understand that, to paraphrase Hurston, I had stumbled upon years that asked more questions than they provided clear answers. I also think that I probably wasn’t alone in that because this decade has really been too much, hasn’t it? 

If, on New Year’s Eve 2020, someone had told me even half of the twists and turns we’ve seen in both the education world and the wider world, I doubt I would have believed them. 

Of course, the tsunami of change and disruption hasn’t been all bad. Times of change open doors for new ideas and perspectives, and big existential problems prompt important existential questions. Even still, all of the new ideas and big questions only contributed to the same issue: It has simply been too much. As someone teaching and writing through this decade, it has often felt less like trying to drink from a firehose than trying to drink from a large volcanic geyser.

And for my part, I see now that I needed time. Time to try out, think on, and translate everything that has happened—everything that I’ve heard, read, and experienced—into my teaching and writing. To quote one of my favorite essays from Anne Lamott, I needed some “shitty first draft” time to work through it all.

This summer I feel like I’ve made my way through those early drafts to a year that does more answering. My mind feels suddenly abuzz with new thoughts about what I want my classroom to look, feel, and be like as we get into the second half of this tumultuous decade, and I can’t wait to share it all with you and compare notes with you when I start my 11th year of the Re-Write Newsletter with a new post and lesson tomorrow!

Until then, thanks for reading and yours in teaching,

Matt