#Rhizo15 / Yup, Did It Again

Part of the problem with rhizo thinking and learning is that I always come across a few students every semester who needs to go on a rhizo learning experience. I have to say, at the beginning of the semester -- I didn't think I would have anyone to even consider this type of learning, thinking, and writing. As the semester made it to midterm, I found two people. Both future educators, both ambitious, both ready to take on something bigger than the class.

I am so excited to give them the opportunity to push and do something outside the traditional lines of the classroom. One will be doing a case study on a school system and investigate what it will take for the student to get on the local board of education. The other student will be working on a study that defines Native American access to local waterways including catch limits, licensing, and other issues with waterway usage for Native Americans.

I am very inspired by their ambitions - and I am very excited to see them move forward. It should be mentioned that a student who went rhizo on me last semester just emailed me sample chapters from a book of essays she is writing on ambitious in women. It was good. It was rhizo. And it was great.

It should be mentioned that a rhizo writer -- or in my case a rhizo writing teacher is someone who is able to see the moment when a student is ready to go rhizo. Not because they are the best students, or even the most ambitious, but because they need something more than what everyone else is doing. They need to go rhizo. This also ties into the Digitial Writing Month and how important it is to consider the right tools, the right mode to tell a story, write a book, or propose epic legislation. Part of the experience is listening to what the student wants to do and guiding them through some possible tools. They will have to find their way through digital writing like we all have - sometimes it is just typing on a word document, but sometimes, it is a collaborative - connective statement of who we are and what we can do as writers.