I AM A WRITER!I was hoping for this type of transformation, but I wasn’t sure I would get it. During the Writing Marathon, I thought I would take the whole day to work on my portfolio. That seemed to make sense. Why else would they schedule 3 hours out in the world to write? To the contrary, I did not even think about my portfolio. I was too busy exploring and writing.
I was amazed by the sights around me, intrigued by the line, “I am a writer” and what that would get me, and excited to see more on the “field trip”. The experience was a great one (even though I didn’t write as much as I probably should have). It gave me the confidence to explore somewhere I wouldn't normally go, see the sights that I wouldn’t normally see (the dome of the Capitol), and get my brave face on (I climbed those daunting steps with no fear at all... despite the height and angle). This change of attitude led to a great experience that inspired my writing. I will definitely take that lesson with me and explore ways to do Writing Marathons with my students. |
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Mentor Texts (and writing for me) . . .
One of my goals for the Summer Institute was to write mentor texts to use with my students. The following are pieces that I can use in the classroom or just keep for me.
I was very confused when I started this piece. I knew that I wanted to share this story, but I was conflicted because it is not my own. I used to work with a teacher who told the funniest story about perception. Since Renee's teaching demonstration urged us to use dialogue, I wanted to tell his story. However, I did not know if it was okay to tell someone else's account. My writing group urged me to write it. Right now it is a working draft, but maybe someday I'll finish it.
This was written after Shawn's teaching demonstration. She taught about point-of-view. I challenged myself by writing a story from a baby's point-of-view.
You can tell how close our cohort got to one another because I was able to write and share a memory I would normally keep inside. I'm still surprised that I wrote this down.
Janet prompted us to write about a window from our past. We were supposed to use as many senses as possible to describe our window.