Category: Professional

Again and Again

This summer I picked up Time for Meaning: Crafting Literate Lives in Middle & High School by Randy Bomer. I have successfully carried this book to and from work many days, it has been on vacations, it has even sat with me in waiting rooms. I would love to tell you that it has been with me all these places because of how dearly I loved the book, but that’s simply not true. I wanted to love it, but maybe I just wasn’t ready.

I think I had to walk the journey on my own for a bit. Fail and succeed. Be really frustrated and really proud. And I’ve certainly been there this year, taking risks in my classroom, doing my best to figure out how to grow a community of readers and writers. Maybe if I had picked up this book sooner I might have missed out of some of the frustration, but sometimes frustration is a key part of the journey.

As I was reading this morning, I was reminded of how I felt in the beginning of this year, introducing the concept of journal writing to my class. It was labor intensive, it required me to be at full brainpower—all the time. It took me awhile to learn that I couldn’t possibly teach them every skill I wanted them to know by the end of September.

“For now, I had to let go of my hyperactive concern with the excellence of the writing and be satisfied teaching a process. Learning the new technology of using a notebook to work on a piece of writing took up the writer’s energy and attention—and mine. Later, there would be time to pay the proper attention to learning from literature to write well. As I would again and again, I was learning to ask, What’s my exact purpose here? And then teach in a more focused way.”

So, now as we move into the last marking period, I’m not worried about the process; the kids get it. I’m not reading every word they write anymore, but I am relishing in the moments that they run to me with their words begging me to hear a line they have crafted just like their favorite author.

They don’t know it all. I’m still overwhelmed with the magnitude of what I want to teach them. But again and again, I am learning to ask, What’s my exact purpose here? And then teach in a more focused way.

Tags Quotes

Classroom Professional

Teacher Love

Post author By Stacy
Post date March 9, 2011

The past week there has not been a lot of love passing around the halls, classrooms, and offices of the school. The countdown to PSSA is on and as lists are being made, tests are being labeled, and pencils are being counted I haven’t felt like I had a lot of love to pass around.

Then, as I was feeling completely loveless three things happened that brought the teacher love pouring back into my heart…

First, my fifth grader came home and when asked what they did in language arts today she replied, “well, we worked on some generating strategies for persuasive writing in our writer’s notebooks.” The look of delight on my previously drab face must have given her a cue to continue…” Yeah, we made lists of things that make us mad, things that make us happy, and things we talk to our friends about a lot. I have a lot of great ideas that I want to try now, it was awesome!” I have always loved her language arts teacher but this brought the love flowing out!

The next also involves my fifth grader and her great teachers. Her parent letter for student-led conferences, usually a rather drab piece of writing, brought tears to my eyes. Obviously her class worked on not just writing letters but crafting letters. Her voice came shining through and we learned things about her experiences in school that we didn’t know. To top it off, she pointed out in the letter where she “played with” using short sentences like the ones in the mentor text her teacher shared with them. The love was overflowing!!

Finally, as I was walking the halls with a brighter smile on my face due to the love of the past 24 hours, a teacher said to me “we are working on snap shots today if you want to come in and watch.” I rearranged plans in my head and ran to the room. What I saw made me forget all about PSSA pencils, calculators, and highlighters. The teachers used a short paragraph from Little House on the Prairie as a mentor text and then actually used a picture to demonstrate taking a close up snap shot. The kids were captivated and the images in the picture, being brought closer and closer helped them make the connection. When I heard a boy say, “It’s like making an inference in reading” I knew the love was back to stay.

Teacher love…it feels good!

Professional Writerly Life

Curriculum Writing

I am writing this at 7am, just before I rush my kids to the babysitter race into school, with a rejuvenated spirit and a positive outlook on kids writing. Why? Because of the day I spent with an amazing team of teachers writing curriculum…Spending 8 hours in a windowless conference room could be miserable, but surrounding yourself with teachers who have a passion to help all kids grow into writers with their own voice made the sun shine into that dull room.

Writing curriculum is hard…The time spent on revising sentences so that they express exactly what we intended, the consideration of our audience, brainstorming for the right word. We were entrenched in the same experience we want for our students, and we want their results to feel as good as ours do to us.

Writing curriculum is hard…That is why it is so crucial that we do it, and why I am so thankful to have such talented people to work with. If you have a passion for teaching writing, share it, it will grow…maybe into some great curriculum…

Professional Writerly Life

stopping to pause

I took a sick day today; it takes a lot to get to me to the point where I recognize that staying home is a better option than staying with my kids. Needless to say, other than dragging my lifeless body to the doctor to pick up my yearly prescription for a Z-Pack, I did little else today.

While I was waiting in the doctor’s office I picked up Ralph Fletcher’s new book, Pyrotechnics on the Page, and attempted to break through the fever that was plaguing me, long enough to focus on the book. I didn’t get very far but I did come across this quote,

Like a sly crow who stashed tidbits in his nest, I pay homage to these writers by copying their words into my notebook. In this regard, my notebook becomes a pit stop where I can refuel and replenish my energy.

I love that Ralph Feltcher, children’s book author and word-man extraordinaire, admits to writing other’s words in his notebook. While I encourage my students to do this in the classroom, I don’t do it enough on my own. That is I don’t stop when I’m reading a good novel and copy down words I love into my journal. Thanks to Ralph Fletcher I’ve moved my journal and placed it right next to my Kindle in hopes that I’ll be more inclined to capture writing I love.

To loving words and how they move and speak in our lives; to stopping to pause to stash them away.

Tags journaling