Slice of Life Challenge - March 1

This past weekend was the Dublin Literacy Conference, and it was time for the last session of the day.  I had the opportunity to spend time with Ruth Ayres, one-half of The Two Writing Teachers blog, as she talked about making writing mini-lessons meaningful.

Ruth had so many important things to say, but the one thing she said that I kept coming back to in my own head was the idea that to be a writing teacher, we need to live a writing life.  My apologies to Ruth, but my mind started drifting off from her presentation as I thought about this past year, and how much writing I did NOT do.

About ten months ago, I had knee replacement surgery, and to say my recovery was a much different experience than I expected, would be a major understatement!  I thought I would have all this time to read, write, and catch up on life in general.  Truth be told, while on pain medications and even a little after that, my mind was a sieve and unable to hold attention on any one thing for longer than five minutes (and that was a good day).  Then, there were all the exercises and rehabilitation -- all that took time and often left me exhausted.  Not much writing happening in my life.

At the point when my energy and focus finally started to come back, it was time to start getting my classroom ready for new groups of students, and start the marathon of the first months of fall.  Beginning of the year assessments, getting to know my students, my own parents' illnesses and traveling often to see them, parent-teacher conferences, progress reports, getting ready to present at NCTE in Chicago, holiday festivities.  Wow!  More time had flown by and still no writing.

So, on this Saturday of the Dublin Literacy Conference 2012, I realized I needed to step up my game.  It was time to become a writer again.  I was going to start writing and doing it on a regular basis.  And then, as karma would have it, Ruth was sharing in her session how one way to lead a more full writing life would be to participate in the Slice of Life Challenge that they host at Two Writing Teachers for the month of March.  Aha!  What better way to practice being a writer than doing it each and every day?!

So there you have it - my reason for starting this challenge today.  Life can get in the way of our best intentions sometimes, as my life this past year amply demonstrates.  But there comes that moment in time when we need to grab the reins, and get back in control of the situation ourselves.  This is my moment.  Let March and the Slice of Life Challenge begin as I test who I am as a writer! 

Thanks to those of you who have agreed to be my online writing support group, and for anyone else who stops by to check on my progress as a writer this month, thank you as well.

Dear Toni a Lesson in Journal Writing

Attention teachers early in your career! Dear Toni presents an intriguing lesson idea for journal writing. When Gene Tuck moves to a new school, one of the first assignments she is is given, is to write a journal to another sixth grader. The intriguing part is that the students are writing to sixth grade students, 40 YEARS IN THE FUTURE! Cool, right?

The problem is that Gene is unhappy in her new school and this "lame" journal assignment just adds to the frustration. Gene's family is forced to move away from the only home she has ever known due to her father losing his job. When they move, they live in a small, run down apartment until her father finds a job. When her teacher assigns the journal project, writing for exactly 100 consecutive days, to a future sixth grader, Gene nearly loses it. Her writings start out very negative and petty, but as she goes on, she finds that the journal allows her a release for her new school stress and doodling creativity. At first she addresses her entries to Dear Nobody because, as Gene says, "you have no body!" As her attitude changes the recipient of the journal gets the name Toni and the entries begin to get more positive. As the reader you get to go through a lot of Gene teen angst from trying to fit in with the popular kids to losing a new best friend.

Now I know that none of you can have your kids write to a class 40 years in the future, but what about 10 or 15? If I was earlier in my career I would be all over this concept. I'm not sure I would put the 100 days on it or if it would be an entire year project. Include newspaper headlines of the day, prices of common items, reflections on class and extracurriculars. When the year is over, stick them away, I would probably have to write a note to remind myself where I put them, and pull them out in 10 or 15 years. I would think that the number of years needs to be long enough that the class that writes them is well out of high school for a better impact. Somehow, giving the journal a sense of purpose, seems like it might make the writing more real to the students. In Dear Toni, the teacher doesn't grade the journals, but keeps tabs to make sure the kids are keeping up, I could go either way on this, maybe making some of the entries for grades and others not, either way, I think this could be a pretty awesome experience for kids, especially if it was possible to contact them in the future and invite them back when the journals are distributed.

I liked this book pretty well and think kids will too, it's written in a very kid friendly voice.