Celebrating A Milestone

Celebrating with Ruth Ayres at Discover, Play, Build, and linking with others who share, too. I'm always grateful to Ruth for our weekly celebrations together.

            It's been a great week; granddaughters, bookstore work, indie bookstore shopping, library time, coffee with a former colleague, book group, car repairs that are good, car cleaning, gardening clean up of spent flowers, writing several poems, writing for another project -- all good. 

            This ending and amazing celebration is that this is post number 1500. Like my words yesterday on Poetry Friday, I have lived a good bit of my life writing this blog, met online and personally some wonderful people. I have both needed and been grateful for the company through the years filled with joy and sorrow. You've listened and laughed and supported and through your own posts, you've enriched my life. Thanks for the journey. 

Words of wisdom: WRITE ON!

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        If you are so inclined, you may read my first post. I haven't changed much except I'm no longer writing with students, but I am still using mentor texts for me, and I think I'll probably never stop thinking about the questioning of what "is" the important thing. (FYI-this year I had just moved from the classroom to be the school's literacy coach, working with all teachers.) You might notice if you actually go to the post that Ruth is one of my first commenters! Thanks to Ruth and others, I have carried on!

March 1, 2011 My school just returned from a week's break. Just as I was moving into a good rhythm of work and play at home-no out-of-town trip this time- I have jumped back into work, beginning new goals of teaching, & learning, with our students. I have been welcomed into many classrooms this year, & this time, one colleague & I are beginning a 3 week intensive to write personal essays with her class. As I begin with the group, students are so attentive, laughing when I think they might laugh, thinking about the topics under discussion, & answering some of my questions rather tentatively, but they do try to respond. These upper elementary students are just on the edge of adulthood, & now I am working hard to motivate them to consider choices, to decide some things they believe are important, & then to write to tell others what they think about them. It's easy to write down one's opinion, but crafting personal essays that then broaden one's outlook by doing some further research is the more difficult part. This is the goal, that students begin to gather the beliefs, but then strengthen them by finding out what others' think. The group again asks questions. One of the first of course is 'how long?', & another is 'how about this?'. These first hours together we are all a little nervous, but when I respond to the topics of important things, I am reminded of Margaret Wise Brown's The Important Book, when she starts with "The important thing about ____________ is _______________, & I remind students of these lines, empower them to tell what they believe is important, & why. I share a bit of my own writing; students seem ready to write, & the rest of the time until lunch, we do.