Because January is the beginning of a new year, it seems an appropriate time to set goals for the new semester. Spiritually, I will become closer to God. I plan to do this by having a daily devotional time, even if it is only 5 minutes, to think about what God wants me to do. Socially, I plan to focus on people when I am with them. I want other people to feel that they are the most important person at the time I am talking to them. Professionally, my goal is to find new ways to help my students with writing. I plan to read a variety of resources in search of good ideas with writing instruction. These goals will help me to be a better person and teacher.

Literacy as defined in the past is no longer enough in 2009. Traditionally, people defined literacy as the ability to read or write. With the multiple sources of information that we enjoy today, we need to be able to assess, evaluate, analyze and synthesize information. Anyone can put a blog post up, so we need to read things with discerning eyes. Do we agree with what the author said? Can we validate the information using other sources? In the article, Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century, the need for critical thinking skills is discussed, "Literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media (text, sound, images), to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new knowledge gained from digital environments." Our world has grown with complexities and navigating these new complexities takes a higher skill-set. Let's embrace these skills and grow to be literate for the 21st Century.