Writing

Spring Break is finally here...well after Thursday it will be. I have been hard at work on my National Boards. While the process of it can be quite grueling, the teaching it requires of you is amazing. I have had some powerful writing lessons with my students these last several weeks. The things I have seen in my classroom from both my students and myself remind me of the things I was taught in my teacher credentialing program, but didn't fully get to see in my "scripted" classroom. I will say openly that in order to teach writing they way best practices suggest, to teach writing in a way to support, encourage, and strengthen student voices and communication, I have made our mandated Language Arts curriculum second to teaching writing. I was worried about this at first, but once I saw my students responding, and writing, I found it thrilling and worth whatever risk it might carry. So with one teaching day left before break, my class remains a writing room, where my students enjoy expressing their creativity and discussing their work not only with me, but with their peers. I will be compiling their work into a class book and am thinking on making it virtual as well so it can reach a broader audience.

Over the break I must finish the bulk of my write up on this experience for my National Boards. I have hoped to write the entire thing up over break, but a bit more teaching remains to be done after the break. Teaching writing cannot be rushed.

I realized yesterday when I spoke to my colleagues about my writing project and eventually to my principal, that so much of what we do in teaching is regulated or monitored in some way that it is easy to go on auto-pilot and not think outside the box. For the first time in a log time I felt passion for something...passion for teaching my students to create art...in writing.

[This blog post was posted from my phone.]