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Starting with Reflection

9/3/2014

 
     A few very smart and accomplished kindergarten teachers came up to me recently and talked about the new thoughts they were having about teaching writing in their classrooms this year. One of the greatest joys of teaching is the opportunity we have to begin again each September. The academic calendar affords us the time to reflect and the space to plan anew for the journey that awaits us and the children we teach.


     I am quite passionate about working with students to help them uncover the writer that lives in each of them. And I am decidedly fortunate to work for an administration that not only supports that passion, but wholeheartedly applauds and celebrates it. Some of the teachers in my school have seen the work of student writers who have found their voices and developed their confidence, and this has led to a reflective instructional stance in many classrooms in our building. 


     Reflection is best considered a recursive endeavor, much like revision in the writing process. There really is no clear beginning or end to the reflective practice; hopefully, it hovers behind, around, and inside every instructional move we make. And when we, as teachers, begin our year by shining a full light on the reflections we've made and even consider bold pedagogical changes as a result, we are embracing what education can be at its best. And our students will reap the benefits. 


     Aren't those kindergarten students in for a wonderful year?



     As Robert Frost said, "I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn."  I believe this is true of great teachers as well as great writers.

Here We Go!

9/1/2014

 
     Tomorrow marks the beginning of the new school year! Students will come into our classrooms with freshly sharpened pencils and still pristine black and white marble notebooks, just waiting for the work ahead. They will be wearing new clothes and unscuffed shoes. And they will be so hopeful that this year's teacher will inspire them, encourage them, and lift them up to all of the possibilities the world has to offer. 

     As teachers we are charged with doing just that.

     And as teachers of writing, we need to get started right away.

     Here is the first thing I want you to do as you prepare to begin writing work with your students this year:

     Make yourself a writing notebook and do some writing. I am blogging about this first because it is the hardest thing to commit to and the one thing that will cause many teachers to throw up their hands and revert back to "tried and true" writing activities that in no way resemble authentic writing. 

     Listen, writing is hard. So very hard. And yet we are asking our students to write every day. We must be willing to dig deep and expose our thoughts and face that blank page ourselves if we are going to ask our students to do so. This is about the credibility and the empathy and the camaraderie that exists among a community of writers.

     Follow these steps to get started:

  • Choose a pretty or flashy or manly looking journal, whatever style reflects who you are. Decorate it with a picture of you and anyone or anything that means the world to you. Add a relevant quotation that speaks to your soul. Write your name on it in big, clear, important-looking letters.
  • Open it to the first page.
  • Pick up your pen or pencil and write the date on the top line.
  • Write. (For ideas of what to write about, think of people, places, things, that have meaning in your life. Pick one and jot two or three specific details that capture a story surrounding it. Then flesh it out. Try to write 5 or 6 sentences about the experience or person or thing. You may doodle or draw to help you remember details, but remember that this is a written entry. Pictures are ancillary.
  • Stop writing. You are done with your first entry. Congratulations!


     Now, you need to do this every day for a week or so. You may write a few entries each day. As the week progresses, you will find the writing process to be less frightening. You will begin to feel some measure of control over that blank page. Your entries may begin to lengthen as you find your voice.

     And then you need to commit to writing in your notebook every single day. Every. Single. Day. Just like you are going to require of your writing students. Only now, you will walk among them as a writer yourself.

     It will change everything you thought you knew about being a teacher of writing.

    Why write?

    I once heard the story of a writer who caught her own reflection in a window. She realized that once she moved past that window, the moment of her reflection would be lost to her forever.

    And so it is with all of our lives. 

    Writing is catching a life moment in words... keeping it visible to be remembered, to be cherished, to be learned from.

    Preserving it forever. 

    That is why I write.

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