The Milk and Eggs

While rummaging through a grocery store cooler this week for a carton of eggs with the best expiration date, I spied a former student of mine gripping on to a gallon of milk. We both said, “Hi!” He said, “How have you been?” I said, “How are your classes going?” I thought back on this chance encounter and reflected on the tenets of individual, authentic assessment. In what contexts do we know our students? The composition we ask our students to create lives throughout their written words, the classroom, and the grocery store. It is a manifestation of their lifestyle, identity, culture, perceptions, experiences with writing, and maybe whether they drink whole or skim milk. It is interesting. When I ask students whom I see in a context outside of class, “How are your classes going?” they almost always answer with how their life is going. Is this where the writing lives that students drag into the writing classroom? Literacy seems far more amiable to our everyday moments. We read narratives, tell stories, remember childhood folklore, and build literacy initiatives within our communities where we buy our milk and eggs. On this particular day, with this particular student, in this particular context, student and teacher were interacting differently. I wasn't my teacherly, inspiring self. I was exhausted, worn-out, and unhappy that I couldn't find a dozen eggs that weren't expiring in three days. He wasn't talking as a student about his classes. He was venting about everything around him that was affecting his writing and his classes. As a writing teacher, I realize that there isn't one single context that determines how I assess, read, and understand my students and their writing. It is the glimpses of knowledge in between the contexts (the milk and eggs) and how milk and eggs make their way into student writing that is worth exploring.