She Got my Goat

I have a student who insists on re-reading books for her independent reading requirement. In theory, I don't have a problem with her practice, because I know that's what some readers do. An extremely able student, she reads far beyond the minimum requirement every week, but a lot of it is one Harry Potter book or another.  Despite the Potter fixation, she's read widely, and so it's rare she ever has a book that she's reading for the first time. I've worked hard to find other things she would like, but my suggestions hold no interest for her; they're like vagabonds asking for a handout-- she pretends not to hear them.
In fact, I think she likes to let me know that my opinion doesn't count, and so I've pretty much let it go, other than to gently tease her every now and then.

Last week, I was pushing her to engage a little more with a writing assignment that she was working on; I encouraged her to brainstorm several options before composing her draft, but she wanted to just write it and be done. In an uncharacteristically open show of defiance, she sighed in exasperation. "Why are we doing this anyway?" she snapped.

Despite myself, I felt irritated, but I kept my voice level. "If you go through the process, you might surprise yourself as a writer," I told her. "You may find an astonishing revelation." And then I made a mistake: "Trust me," I continued. "Do I usually give you just busy work?"

I had miscalculated the depth of her disaffection. "Yeah," she answered flatly, "sometimes."

"When?" I asked, a little less evenly.

She named an assignment and added, "We do that every week. It gets boring."

What she didn't mention was that the focus and the questions change every week, and the small groups they meet in are routinely re-shuffled as well. I took a deep breath and narrowed my eyes, ready to plunge in and defend my practice in a heated discussion with a disgruntled twelve-year-old, until I remembered who I was talking to.

"This from the kid who reads everything ten times," I shrugged. "You're going to have to dig a little deeper than that."