As a resource specialist teacher, I lead a 5th grade ELA group for struggling learners. Writing is their least favorite occupation, especially because it doesn’t come easily for these students. We’ve been running a gauntlet of weekly “performance tasks” (I’m a grown up who likes to write and that name makes my blood run cold).

But actually if left to think of it, my students typically balk more at this kind of open ended assignment. As I was getting them to open their Google docs and look at what we highlighted in the articles to use for their stories, I said, on the spur of the moment (though maybe my subconscious had worked it out in the night) “pick a name.” For some reason I pulled up a list of Italian boys’ names first instead of Egyptian. They got so excited about naming themselves–Tommaso, Riccardo, Dante–that they stayed motivated through the whole assignment, as we talked about how it was to sleep in rows with thousands of workers, eat bread under palm trees, and pull 2-15 ton stones. Just goes to show … there’s a personal place in all learning. You just have to find it.