On Reading, Writing and Facebook..and Grading.

I squeezed in to a claustrophobic type space to sit down with my trusty companion (by that I mean my laptop..but Jake was there too) and sipped on a soy chai latte at Starbucks this morning to grade assignments so my students can go to Thanksgiving celebrations knowing they are in fact doing just fine in my course. I have the attention span of a flea while grading, so while slow, it is best for me to go from one thing to another (like Blackboard to Facebook). I concentrate on what I am reading better this way, or at least that is what I tell myself. In reality, paragraphs are very hard for me to read. The words blur a bit, and overlap and it takes a lot of focus for me to read an essay that should have been a short answer. On good days I can read forever, but on bad days I find myself on Facebook where things are written in short fragments most of the time. Easy to read. Then I can focus on the task at hand again. 

Maybe I should tell my students to answer questions like they were doing it on Facebook? 

Probably would be asking 4 trbl....

Anyway....

I was diagnosed with a learning disability when I was in elementary school. I spent time in what I called Special Ed (what most people these days call "Resource") learning how to read and write. Something I couldn't do hardly at all until 3rd grade. Remember those days when you were called upon to read out loud to the class? Not only was I horribly shy, but I couldn't read it anyway. I used to draw pictures for the story I was "writing" but when I stood up to read my story I just made one up. I couldn't write it out properly. My teacher never said a thing. One of my best days in life was the first day I managed to get a 100% on my spelling test in Mr. E's room. Mr. E was my Special Ed/Resource teacher. He's the reason I love to read, and write. And I can do it well.  Despite the fact reading an actual book is hard, I love listing to audiobooks. 

So to sum up this fragmented post, I'm on Facebook a lot. Part of it is because it is my social outlet and part of it is resting my eyes/brain for what I am working on. At least I am productive that way.