Freedom in routines

I am finding that imagining a series of routines for my class this semester is helping me to feel more innovative and creative and whole.  It gives me a fuller picture of how class time can be arranged to give students more ownership and voice in their language learning.  The key with the routines is to keep them fresh, keep them from becoming dead and, well, routine.  They can work as guideposts marking the way, helping me to think more critically and creatively about the learning environment.

I am particularly interested in how the writing and reading routines will be taken up by the students.  What can I do to make them accessible and interesting and enlivening, rather than just another boring activity that they have to do for Spanish class?  Is it in the prompts?  Is it in the readings I choose?  I think it might have something to do with pushing the boundaries and urging ourselves further and further out on the limb that I want us to step out upon.  In the beginning, the writing will be narrating the small moments of our days for the benefit of our own reflection and the development of our writing skills.  It will be of utmost importance that students feel they have the tools and supports to put something down on paper that is meaningful.  This will be the great challenge: giving the students the grammar tools without making the class all about grammar.  It seems something of a conundrum, and I have not seen many teachers do this well.  What is the ultimate goal for the learning?  That they know the preterite tense and can articulate its conjugations, or that they have just enough skill and confidence to narrate the past (albeit with mistakes) and without a primary focus on the structures?  I lean toward the latter.

And there is still this issue of choice.  By developing a highly structured syllabus and outline of the course, I automatically begin sending the message that I am in charge and the learning will be dictated by forces outside of the students' control.  How can I somehow create an environment in which organization and student choice and ownership can interact?  Is this possible, or do I have to choose camps?  The other difficulty here is that I have to prove myself to be super organized, ready to carry out my detailed lessons despite the interjections and various musings of the students.  This unfortunately does not seem to give any trust or autonomy to the students in their learning process.  I need to give them more chance to tell me what and how they want to learn, and I must provide the situations in which this can happen.