i'm baa-ack...

Even though I haven't been blogging in a while (geez...2-month hiatus), I've been reading a lot of other people's blogs. Does that count for something? If not, I'm a virtual slacker. I'm okay with that.

In reading those other blogs, though, one thing I've discovered is that confessionals are pretty dang common. A lot of people apologize because life gets in the way. I could do that, too, and it might actually be relatively interesting, but I'm going to resist.

Instead, I'm writing from the very first meeting of the very first CSU Writing Project (CSUWP) Advanced Institute. So while I may be a slacker, I also belong to a group of groundbreakers. Balance is the key to life.

As I write, everyone's setting up individual blogs. I'll add them to my links soon so you can check them out, too. In the meantime, let me tell you a little bit more about this really cool group of people and what we're doing in the basement of Mugs Coffee on a snowy Saturday morning. Ever since 2003, CSUWP folks have been wanting to have a summer institute part two. This year, though, we got a grant from those nice people at National Writing Project so we could actually do it. So eleven of us are going to spend a lot of time together (both virtually and F2F) over the next year exploring our own teacher research questions, reading other teacher research, and yes, consuming enormous quantities of food as always (betcha wanna see a group picture now, huh? Trust me, it's a writing project thing).

You can read about their teacher research as well as take a look at our "mother blog," as Bud's calling it. Everyone should be posting an entry today. Since I know this group, I know they'll be asking good questions and answering them in entertaining and insightful ways.

And because the AI co-director Jason Malone and I are asking all of them to post at least once a week for the next several months, I gotta--oops! I get to--do it, too. So if you're interested in my professional life, come back fairly often. I'll be here.