Sermon Prep/Curriculum Prep

This past week-end, my thoughts were mostly about sermon writing, which in many ways is the least interesting writing process of mine.  It's mostly read the Gospel, read my past meditations on it, consult some commentaries (my favorites are the Feasting on the Word/Gospel ones and the Wisdom series, which isn't ready for Matthew yet, alas), and write a sermon.  But yesterday, my spouse said that the morning's sermon was one of my strongest.  So I loaded it to a blog post on my theology blog.

My teaching/curriculum prep process has been intriguing me.  So I tried to capture a bit of it:

--I am watching my teacher brain in action--so many ideas for so many ways to teach literature.  I'm requesting lots of books from the North Carolina public library system.  This morning, I had an idea about Dorothy Wordsworth, her journals, and her brother's poems.  So I did a search in the library system and was delighted to see all the books that came up.  I did place a request for the journals, but not all the other books that mentioned her.  

--Apparently, she's seen as one of the early nature writers now--let me research this a bit further.  Dorothy Wordsworth as one of our first environmentalists!  

--I do realize that an environmentalist and a nature writer might be very different creatures.

--There is a joy that comes from thinking about all the literature I've loved and all the ways it can be combined for a teaching module.  I'm thinking of Dorothy Wordsworth and William and the journal entry about daffodils that became William's poem.  I'm thinking about Amy Nezhukumathil's World of Wonders and Ross Gay's work.  What a day that will be!

--It's cool to think about ways to talk about the literature I've loved and ways to expand the canon, to make sure that students get to experience a wide range of authors writing in English.

--I had my students write some initial thoughts that included what subjects they'd like to read about and what subjects they absolutely would not like to read about.  I need to read those today. 

--I am not a plan way far ahead teacher when it comes to this class.  I have some general ideas, but I want to leave room for inspirations, for the piece I come across and want to share.  It's a bit nervewracking to leave so much open, so I understand why people want to plan the whole thing in advance.  Some day, I might too; I do remember many teaching years when I just relied on what I had already done--but that's because I had a very heavy teaching load and/or a non-supportive space for innovation and/or lots of other stuff going on.