For this week’s DigiLit Sunday topic,
Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche
asked us to reflect on the idea of “intent.”
Intentions differ based on interest and need, but it’s an essential part of being a human. And, intent or purpose is what our schools need to nurture in every child. That’s the challenge.
Amid the day to day, we forget that school is a place to grow each child’s purpose: to set young people up for intention. For some students, this comes readily. For others, they just can’t get it. These are the students that would rather not be there. They don’t fit as traditional learners. Their intent is to get out of school as soon as possible.
As educators, we take this on. This is our job, our purpose, our intent. To help students find their fit. Their intent.
It is my intention to give my students opportunities to find “books” that they can and want to read. To get students to spaces like EPIC and graphic novels and Wonderopolis to find “reads” that suck them in, where they can understand the power of being a reader.
It is my intention to give my students time and a way to write joyfully. Beyond the workshop that defines the genre and the content to a place where writing is a way to think and feel and sometimes share with people who matter to them.
It is my intention to make school a place where students come to find intent. To find books they want to read, to write something for a classmate, to teach something they learned, to learn from their classmates, to feel they have a place in a community of learners, to wonder, to play and figure out how to get along. To know that their ideas, and their intentions are valued.
To Read To Write To Be 