skeleton.

word of the day: skeleton \ˈske-lə-tən\ something shameful or kept secret

I have some skeletons to clean out of my closet. 

I have been eating more Ramen Noodles than I care to admit in the past month.    Now, I'm fully aware of the fact that the Ramen should still be in the hot pot of my college dorm room, but when you have hours of schoolwork ahead of you and a husband-less house, sometimes it's just the most obvious option.   

It feels good to get that out in the open.  

I spent the last two days learning professionally about the close connection between reading and writing.  I spent the last two days feeling like a sponge; you could have wrung me out multiple times with all the information I was trying to soak in.  If only I had cared this much in my undergraduate and during my reading endorsement studies.

Skeleton. Closet. Taking my recently saturated sponge to the dusty remains.

I can vividly remember sitting in my Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum class as a sophomore in college with my fellow education majors.  I happened to be the minority as an English emphasis and most of my friends were math majors.  We had our Vacca and Vacca (names I recognize as experts anymore) textbooks out in front of us and were talking about what a pointless class it was.  I shudder at the comment I remember one of them making: "I'm a math major; My students are never going to be reading in my class." 

Fast forward four years to my work towards a reading endorsement.  I was serving as a substitute teacher at the time and had no real classroom experience to cling to.  So, the classes became something I did to push me toward a teaching job rather than something I actively engaged in to be a more dynamic educator.  Great information.  Lack of passion.  Bad combination.

So, it would seem that I've been given another chance to make the most about the learning before me, and let me tell you, it's hard to leave an experience with Emily Calhoun less than invigorated (at least if you're a part of the educational world).  

The take away point? Writing and reading can't exist in isolation from one another, and both are primarily internal processes that must be modeled out loud in order for student growth to take place.  

In layman's terms?  Looks like I've got some 'splainin to do.

I did some reflecting on my own journey as a writer today though, too, and I was reminded of the fact that I have less to say in writing when I'm involving myself in less reading..  So, it's my new goal to reintroduce reading into my life as a priority that takes precedence over the newest episodes of "Modern Family" (although that recent discovery is a good one).  

And, if you're a lover of anything related to English, education, writing, or think alouds.  Stay tuned for my next blog post: I'm envisioning a written example of my own process as a writer.  

But before, I get to that, there's one more skeleton you need to know about.

I just want to clarify that this is not a Halloween decoration. Clearly there is no better place to store something like this than right inside your front door.