I have students from the Kingdom for whom "writing" is synonymous with "finding"...they keep track of which teacher has seen which paper, and pass them around in such a way that no teacher sees the same one twice, and they don't have to actually write any. Their only weakness is that they have so little concept of what the papers say, that they often hand in one with a topic that is really inappropriate to the assignment, or a shallow mismatch.

Such it was with a reading reaction journal, meant to be about the student's field, but instead being about last term's topic. It had been grammatically corrected and was almost perfect; I recognized that teacher input also, though it wasn't mine. But here was the kicker. On top, in a different font, was the date: Spat, 11 .2007 (sic). This date alone gave a clearer picture of the student's true writing weaknesses- no command of vowels, bad punctuation, no spacing, etc. Of course the whole paper would have been like this, had he written it at that time.

I mention this, because it's a kind of late 9/11 post. Here I have these young guys- all men, all caught between worlds- all desperate, and, at this time of year, all fasting in the day, eating and staying up at night...and I feel like I know them well, to some degree. I know how much easier it is for them to "find" than to "write." It's also easier, by the way, to "see" the right answers on a reading test than to "read" them...to the point that, somehow they've gotten to the top of our program with almost no real reading or mastery of the visual aspect of the language. Which, you have to admit, is a skill in itself. Believe it or not, they feel some sense of pride and entitlement, for "working their way up," which, to some degree, they have.

And there are a few, a distinct minority, who actually do read and write. For them, it's painful. But their actual language progress eventually converges with that of every other learner...until they become fluent, which, in fact, believe it or not, virtually any of them could do...

This is where I was on that day. And, no, I did not forget those people in those towers.