When I was still teaching, I was one of several district instructors trained in the AVID strategies.
AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination, and it is a national organization that designs in-school support curriculum and strategies aiming to prepare all interested students in becoming “college and career” ready. (Though, what that means now in a rapidly changing world with AI, who knows?)
AVID offers electives for high schoolers, for example, that teach study methods like Cornell Note-taking, which students then apply in all their core classes. AVID also provides extensive professional development for educators in all content areas, where it stresses the importance of writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading (known as WICOR, in AVID-speak). We teachers were trained to include these WICOR elements in all our units or lessons. That was a no-brainer for me, an English teacher, but it was often a revelation for the math, science, and elective instructors.
In fact, those WICOR elements are the five key skills AVID emphasizes. They are the core of their mission, so to speak. It is AVID’s belief that these skills are what truly develop learning and success, no matter the subject area or challenge.
It’s odd, but I’ve been thinking a lot about AVID strategies lately, and even teaching and learning in general.
My curiosities and concerns about AI have provided a lot of that context.
My daughter’s own educational experience has also prompted much of that musing. Being nonspeaking, she cannot write, ask questions, discuss, or even read about things the way her peers can, at least not yet.
So much of how we learn derives from these activities. They are how we think, how we actively process the world. It worries me that she cannot yet engage this way. I often wonder how we, her family, teachers, and friends, can better help her develop an inquiring literacy. That’s her right as a person, and I’m not sure how best to achieve it, but that’s a topic for another post.
I’ve also been thinking, more specifically, about AVID’s emphasis on writing to learn, because last week was a personal milestone for me.
I hit my one-year anniversary writing this blog.
It’s not a huge deal, but I published my first post on June 4th, 2024 (rereading it now makes me cringe a little). Since then, my casual, once-a-week blogging has proven so beneficial.
It’s kept me in a solid writing routine, requiring me to compose at least a thousand coherent (hopefully!) words a week. That’s not nothing for someone who wouldn’t have to write much beyond a grocery list or a business message for Mythic Moose, if I didn’t have this WordPress.
More importantly, this blog has clarified my experiences and goals for my fiction-writing life.
It’s also allowed me to reflect on both the wonderful and difficult aspects of my daughter’s journey.
It’s helped me see how much I’ve learned and changed as a person, as someone who chose to uproot her suburban professional existence and start over, as a forty-something homesteader, stay-at-home parent, and newbie creative.
By maintaining this blog, I have, indeed, written to learn.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this. I wasn’t sure I’d feel any benefit. I wasn’t sure I’d even have enough to say to post once a week.
It was my longtime-blogger husband’s gentle encouragement, however, plus the advice I kept seeing about the importance of starting an author platform (even before you’re really an author), that convinced me to give it a try.
I’m so glad I did.
I don’t have many subscribers. I don’t get many views. I hear mostly crickets, but it has still been a lovely, valuable endeavor. Maybe even more so because of the silence.
I didn’t intend to set the internet on fire. Rather, by sharing the things that are important to me, I’d hoped to gain clarity from these posts and perhaps make some human connections, and that’s exactly what’s happened.
While this WordPress is technically my baby author platform, it’s really more like my diary, albeit a public one, and I love that aspect of it. It’s my little cozy corner of the internet, and I would keep writing here even if I lost all my readers tomorrow.
But I do have readers, and I appreciate all of you.
Thank you for making your way here, even if it’s only occasionally. Your time means so much, and I hope you find these posts interesting, amusing, sympathetic, clarifying, or even hopeful, depending on who you are. I do my best to be honest about where my family and I are in our various journeys, and if it helps you connect, or makes you feel a little less alone, then I’m thrilled.
It’s been fun updating this site. I’m going to start a Favorites page, where I will list the authors, bloggers (including my husband’s hilarious Vermontism blog), podcasters, and artists I currently love. Some are well established; others are newer and deserve as much attention as possible.
I hope you’ll check out that new page. A link for it will appear on my home page, and I’ll get it under construction as soon as possible. Daphne’s on summer break, so now my time is more limited, but hopefully I’ll get it up over the course of this week.
On a quick, final note, I’m off to a great start increasing my seasonal reading. I dove into the Adult Summer Reading Program at our local library, the St. Johnsbury Atheneum, where I collected my bingo card and chose my free book from the second-hand bookshop affiliated with the Atheneum (a donation-to-purchase program staffed by volunteers, with all proceeds funding the library’s children’s programming).
I also finished my first novel this week, Complications in Paris by Melinda Copp, which I adored.
My plan is to read a book a week all summer, and I should be able to do that if I can get up early enough each day to read my pages.
That’s it for now. I hope your summer is going well and you’re already enjoying your own reading and special plans.
And, happy Father’s Day to all the wonderful, various dads out there! You are so important, and so loved!
Always feel free to let me know what you’re up to! I love updates.
XOXO,
Jenn
Jennifer Shaw 