The Sunrise Story

I've challenged myself to participate in the hundred day challenge. One hundred days! I started on April 1st (the actual challenge began on April 3rd). Today is day twenty-four for me and I'm plugging along.  I've decided to write a poem every day on my pink typewriter. These poems are short and simple. Sometimes they aren't very good and other days I'm really proud of them, but I'm showing up every day. I think that's the lesson...showing up every day... even when, especially when I don't have anything to say.  That's what writing is. That's what writers do. They show up to the page every single day and write and I'll continue to do so for seventy-six more days. (That's July 1st, for those who are counting.) Twenty-four days into the challenge, I wonder...do I regret starting this? Sometimes I wish I hadn't. Sometimes it feels like it's just one more thing until I sit down at my typewriter and I write. Big goals are ...

Summer is about time.  Time to think.  Time to renew.  Time to prepare.  Time to plan.  I celebrate the opportunity  for this time. This week I've read Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story  by the wonderful Nora Raleigh Baskin. This week I've written in my notebook.  This week I've read The Sketchnote Handbook . This week I've spent time with friends. This week I've prepared for the NVWP Invitational Summer Institute .  This week I've advertised for my evening writing retreats.  This week I've found poems for my writing notebook.  This week I've cleaned and rested. I celebrate all I've accomplished.  I celebrate the reading. I celebrate the writing. I celebrate the friendships. I celebrate the retreats. I celebrate the poetry. I celebrate the rest.  What have you been doing? Thank you to Ruth Ayres for providing this space to share our celebrations. Please join us and share your own!

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, Anna, Kathleen & Deb for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at Two Writing Teachers . It's over. March is ending today. When the month and this challenge approaches, I get nervous and worried...as the days progress, I get into a groove...as the month ends, I get sad and feel a loss. I wanted to find an appropriate way to end, so I am borrowing (and adapting) the form Alan Wright used on his blog Living Life Twice  yesterday and writing about who we are right now. Right now... We are writing our final slice for the month We are weary from pouring our hearts into our words We are peacocks...proud of overcoming our doubts We are owls...wiser from writing our story everyday We are buttresses...supporting each other every step of the way We have sistered each other through these days with our words We sh...

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, Anna, Kathleen & Deb for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at Two Writing Teachers . Dear Writing, I've missed you. Been gone too long All the excuses are there... Too busy, work, family, friends But it's not enough I haven't made time for you and I'm sorry. When I avoid you, I feel it. Less. Empty. Voiceless. Sad. I need you! Please forgive me. It's just that you ask, you demand EVERYTHING from me and my resistance comes from the fear that I didn't have enough to give I don't care anymore! Whether you're good or you're bad... I need you in my life. Recommitted. That's me: 4AM morning pages. Working on my book. Notebook writing. Blog writing. Card writing. Bullet journaling. I'm back. I'm here to stay. Ready t...

English Workshop Toolkit  Summer Camp 2014 Today we had our first day of camp.  Figuring out technology for camp. What is camp? It's a combination of curriculum development, planning, collaboration, and lots of fun! Each day starts off with getting to know you activity and it's followed by beautiful words.  We listened to "Shake the Dust" by Anis Mojgani and used that as inspiration to write. I tweeted about it and LOOK: He favorited my tweet! Yipppeee! We will write and read, just like our students, to help us find the most effective tools to add to our toolkit!  Each of the four days has a focus and today's focus was Interactive Read Aloud. Colleen Milligan and Bea Neukirk shared their experience and expertise in utilizing read aloud instructionally. They modeled with short story, picture book, and excerpt from a longer text. Once the teachers observed them, they were off creating their own plans to incorporate interactive rea...

Slice of Life Challenge Please join the challenge over at  Two Writing Teachers ! Today I start camp. Yes, I said camp. Four days of laughing and learning together. I am a counselor. We've been planning this for weeks and it all starts today! Camp is the theme for our four days of curriculum development for middle school English.  Twenty five teachers will gather together for four days of planning, collaborating, questioning, writing, reading and learning. Each day is lead by amazing teachers in the county who are experts at their task!  I am the constant...the counselor. I begin and end each day with activities to get the participants to open up, have fun, and reflect! We are going to share Beautiful Words everyday. Teachers will write and share their writing. The inspiration for our writing today will be an uplifting and powerful poem from Anis Mojgani called Shake the Dust. Here's my introduction to Beautiful Words...Take his ...

Each week on Saturday  bloggers celebrate at  Ruth Ayres Writes .  Won't you join us?  The end of the school year feels like it's fast approaching and out of reach simultaneously! I have adrenaline spurts and immediately feel like I need to sleep for a week. Being in the moment is almost impossible...but I'm trying. Stopping and reflecting and celebrating like this helps a lot! Personally I'm celebrating my endurance and follow through with getting the gas leak fixed in my house. Thing like this send a single girl like me for a loop! My usual response is to ignore the problem until I can't anymore. (I know, that's terrible...but it's the truth!) This time I called and called and insisted...I yelled a bit, I confess I cried out of frustration and exhaustion...but the bottom line: IT'S FIXED! Whew! I take that as a compliment. I'm celebrating sixth grade poets! Poet Palooza is a celebration of our poetry writing. Jessica O'Brien  ...

Slice of Life Challenge Please join the challenge over at  Two Writing Teachers ! In class, we have been writing poetry for weeks. Poems about our friends, our dogs, school, bullying, cooking, guinea pigs...everything! Hearing their thoughts pouring out through their poetry inspires me.  We decided that our poetry is too good to keep to ourselves, so this Friday we are celebrating our original poetry with a performance called Poet Palooza! My classes will combine with another sixth grade and perform our original poems. We have individual poets performing, and partners and groups. The rehearsals have been going on for days and the excitement and anticipation builds everyday. Parents are invited.  Poet Palooza will take place in the library. We are working on many different kinds of poetry to decorate our space too. We have a graffiti wall for poems we want to share, but don't want to perform. We have dozens of examples of black out poetry. We used ...

The opportunity to write and share poetry with amazing teachers and poets has truly inspired me. I wrote a poem and we workshopped it the second week of the workshop. I revised it and the revised poem is below. I'd love feedback. If you'd like to read the first draft of the poem, click here...   I spent some time with the notes and suggestions from other teacher poets and here's my revised poem...what do you think? At ten years old, I begged Please! Mom PLEASE! I want a pair of Dr. Scholl’s… just like everyone else! Gripping my red Dr. Scholl’s I carefully put them on all day….. blister my feet and cause me to trip. I return to my flip-flops, I’m not like everyone else… My brown-bagged lunch sits in front of me in the teacher’s room, reaching in I grab a vitamin water and my peanut butter sandwich. As I peel back the silvery foil I hear An innocent voice in a room, crowded with familiar Did your husband make your lunch? The fo...