This might be controversial, but my favorite characters on Dawson’s Creek were Jen and Jack. I just couldn’t get excited about the Dawson-Pacey-Joey drama.
Ultimately, I think Jen and Jack had the friendship that felt the most authentic to me, and Jen was brave in a way I still admire.
At the end of the day, I don’t revisit Dawson’s Creek very often, but Jen Lindley must have made an impression because I do watch pretty much every Michelle Williams movie.
Around the time Brokeback Mountain premiered, I read this article in Elle magazine. In describing how she wants to act in a scene, Williams says: “I want to be like water. I want to slip through fingers, but hold up a ship.” Over the years, that quotation has stuck with me. (It’s actually part of a simile lesson I use at the start of the year!)
All of that is a roundabout way of saying that my word for 2022 is water.
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On the surface, water may seem like an unusual word of the year, and in some ways it is. The first time I chose a word of the year was in 2019 when I chose “gratitude.” In 2020, I chose “sustainable,” and last year I built on that momentum with “sustain.” So this is the first time I’ve chosen a noun!
When we teach parts of speech, we often start with nouns because they are the building blocks of English. Nouns are basic, but they are touchstones. So much of our life is focused on nouns: goals, dreams, love, war, courage.
In other words, there’s a simplicity to nouns that I hope to bring with me into 2022. I tend to overdo things (I mean, I just waxed poetic about nouns). Sometimes I overcomplicate, sometimes I overplan, and sometimes I overextend. So focusing on getting back to basics will be good for me in 2022.
Because I tend to overdo it, I sometimes get frustrated when things don’t go as planned, so my hope is that water will be a good mantra to help me be more flexible. The fluidity of water is part of its strength, and that’s something I could use going into the new year!
To invite students into the process of setting goals and intentions, I’ve put together this collection of 132 Word of the Year Coloring Pages!
What is your 2022 word of the year?
