"What was big was not the trout, but the chance. What was full was not my creel, but my memory."-Aldo Leopold
This Saturday is opening day of Trout Season. It's the time of year where I can look forward to cuts, scrapes, sunburns, and smiles. I think having a hobby allows you to understand people a little better. It allows you to step back and say "just because I don't enjoy it doesn't mean it is wrong." I look forward to hours of time spent casting and retrieving with a glorious chance that I can entice a fish to strike. That may sound dumb to others, but that is what a hobby is all about, finding yourself in something that may not make sense to everyone. And because I can see that, I try to stay with the mentality that if something makes that person happy and I don't get it, who is the fool?
I mention this not only because I'm excited in getting a line wet again, but because all of our students will bring in something that defines them. I am an outdoorsman, and I cannot divorce that part of me. I know students will come in with hobbies that literally have helped them define who they are and what they believe. That may lead to great interpretations and perspectives in the literature we teach. This may be a way for us to reach a student and leave a lasting impression and reason to read. We had Hatchet and Where the Red Fern Grows that stuck out to me in 7th grade. I found many independent reading on my own based on nature writing. I think that if we can find what interests our students, we can get them to actively participate in reading.
As illegitimate of an English benefit as it may seem, I value video games and media technology such as movies and music highly in my life. These are still literacies to me, and I frequently read movie, music, and game reviews through various mediums like magazines and the internet. It still involves reading, but requires a unique vocabulary for each category of review because each has its own technicalities and requirements to be a highly valued piece in its genre. GameInformer is perhaps my favorite magazine of all time, and I have learned quite a few new words from them alone, not even from a piece of literature, plus it's more entertaining for me. While not necessarily capable of being incorporated into a class lecture or activity as easily, it is still something that I feel the next generation will be even more fluently versed in than me.
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