SOL 2016 Day 18: Tiny of Slice of 17 Syllables

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

great gallops of fog

rides roughshod over hillsides

luring ocean scent

SOL 2016 Day 17: Stop and Look Around You

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

When I was in Rome last summer, I wondered if Romans paid attention to the beautiful monuments and ruins they lived among. Or, with the pressures of daily life, did the Coliseum or Forum start blend in to the background for them? Could the Italians ignore the beauty surrounding them?

Today I had a doctor's appointment in San Francisco, and got there early. After parking my car, I decided to take a walk for a few blocks - actually the few level blocks before the street plunged down one of San Francisco's famous hills to the Bay.  

In that respect, San Francisco is like Rome: lots of walking up and down steep hills, although I think San Francisco's hills are steeper. The sidewalk I was walking on actually turns to steps to walk down. 



It was a glorious, sunny day, and for once I didn't ignore the beauty around me. Maybe it's the Slice of Life Challenge, but today I stopped and took in the view. There before me spread the water of the bay dotted with sailboats. The hills of Marin County rose in the distance. Who couldn't love living here?




So, I've decided that Romans must have those moments as well. There must be a day when a woman walking to her doctor's office comes up short when she rounds a corner, and the Coliseum rises up in all its majesty before her. How could she not?

SOL 2016 Day 16: Today I Was Not Inspired

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

Today I Was Not Inspired

not by the bumblebee rolling in shaggy blooms

or  flowers orange as little suns

not by the stone dog guarding a neighbor's house 

or the purple burst of irises

No, today I was not inspired

SOL 2016 Day 15: Sometimes Writing Time Turns into Reading Time

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

There are days when the 5:40 a.m. alarm seems crueler than other times. On those days, when I sit down to write, I can tell right away that I won't get much writing out of my sleepy brain. Today was one of those days.

When this happens, I know what to do: read. I have a pile of poetry books next to my chair. All I have to do is choose one, and then spend a half hour immersed in words, even if they aren't my own. 

Today I chose a literary journal I received in the mail a few weeks ago. I hadn't made time to read it, but this morning was the right time. Reading poems by several different poets kept me on my toes, having to pay attention to diverse voices and styles. 

By the time I was done, I was wide awake. And I had an idea for a new poem of my own. Yes, sometimes writers just need to read.

SOL 2016 Day 14: What Writers Need

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

Today two of my coaching meetings got cancelled at the last minute, and I was the only one in the ELA Department office for much of the day.  So I spent time doing more research on writing workshop, finding information and advice for my coachee teachers. Some of that research included reading  What A Writer Needs by Ralph Fletcher.  The introduction to one chapter leapt out from the page: 

“Too often in classrooms we give children little squirts of language,” Bill Martin says, “We squirt at them, and they squirt back.”

This is precisely the problem. For too long, we have not been willing to give children the time they need to develop their skills. We expect that squirting copious amounts of information in their general direction will give us the results we desire. Too often we think that equals teaching.  

Those squirts won't help our students become better readers, better communicators and better writers. Why are the powers that be in this country's educational system so afraid to slow down and give children time to grow and learn?

Reading this today made me think of all the times I was guilty of "teaching" like that. It made me more determined than ever to coach teachers to grow beyond that. It made me want to repeat over and over "mea culpa, mea culpa" as I watch students in the classrooms I visit scribble long and hard in their writer's notebooks.

SOL 2016 Day 13 - For Poetry: A Day in Poetry Workshop

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

For Poetry

Driving flooded streets,

windshield wipers whooshing,

Waiting on train platforms,  

boots shushing in pouring rain,

umbrella fighting winds.

All to meet with poets,

drenched in line breaks,

sonnets, imagery,

talk of metaphor.

Refreshed, reverse. 

Remember.

SOL 2016 Day 12: Dinner Party Tonight

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

Tonight we are having a French dinner party. My sister is cooking up a storm: duck with prunes in wine sauce, homemade goat cheese, tarte tatin.  My brother-in-law has chosen the wine pairings for all courses. 

My jobs in this endeavor?  I create flower arrangements, arrange the furniture, set the table. Aside from partaking in the delicious food and wine, those are my talents.  

So this post must be short and sweet. Only a few hours until guests arrive, and I still have much to do.  I hope everyone enjoys their weekend. Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead tonight. 

SOL 2016 Day 11: Rainbow - a Lesson in Student (Dis)engagement

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

Today was another day of professional development in reading and writing workshop with Amanda Hartman of Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. I was not as enamored with learning as I was yesterday. Two days of leaving the house at 6:30 a.m. to get a ride to the train station and then a shuttle after the train. Two days of drenching rain and winds. Two days of listening to so many ideas that by the time lunch rolled around, my brain was full. I admit it. I was done. I couldn't concentrate anymore. Now I know how my students sometimes felt.

Our sessions were held on the 14th floor of a hotel with sweeping views. In the afternoon, we were in the middle of a reading activity when I turned into the proverbial bad kid who got everyone off task. Completely disengaged, I turned around just as a horizontal rainbow appeared over Berkeley. I'd never seen such a phenomena before.  I turned to my work partners who were still trying to make sense of the story we had read, calling for them to stop and look. They jumped up as well. Soon I  had half the room of teachers up out of their seats looking out the window. 

Amanda handled it with grace. After all, she's been a primary teacher so she must be used to such a flighty behavior. Since I'm not a five-year old (well, not physically), I felt pretty embarrassed. I was going to apologize to her in my evaluation at the end, but then (more child behavior) I forgot. 

So, Amanda, if you ever find this blog, I'm I hope you'll accept this apology. I've had it happen to me so I know how you felt. 

I'm sorry I disrupted your lesson.

SOL 2016 Day 10: Tales of Teachers College Reading and Writing Project Groupie

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

 One more reason I love my job: today I got to attend a workshop led by Lucy Calkins and Amanda Hartman of Teachers College Reading and Writing Project fame. Never mind that I was one of about 250 people in a hotel conference room or that I had to get up at 5:30 a.m. so I could take public transportation instead of battling Bay Area commuter traffic. Never mind that I got drenched while waiting in pouring rain for the bus this afternoon. All day I was in the same room with two of my education heroes.


Those two women are amazing, speaking eloquently for over five hours without any notes. As a coach I have to present at professional development sessions all the time, and I live by my notes.  I was impressed by their ability to keep a large audience engaged for hours. 

Really, though, what impressed me most was what they said, talking about reading and writing instruction in a deep, intelligent way. Right now my brain is tumbling around from everything I heard today. I have 12 pages of notes to go over, and many discussions to have with my colleagues. 

Right now, however, I want to dry out in front of the fire before getting ready for tomorrow, because I get to go back again for another session. 

SOL 2016 Day 9: The Joy of Technology

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

I just ended a Zoom call with two of my friends. The amazing thing is that one of them lives in Southern California and one of them in Australia. Since I live in Northern California, this call was the only way we could see each other's lovely faces. How fun! 

I've Zoomed several times now, once with nine people. With each of us in our little square, we looked like we were on Hollywood Squares or the beginning of The Brady Bunch (I'm dating myself here. Those of you too young to know these, Google them!) 

Many teachers and parents bemoan the fact that young people seem to be glued to their phones or text each other while sitting right next to each other. I worry about that too. I also worry about all the parents I see walking with their small children while talking on their cell phones. What about talking to the kids, pointing out things around them? I wonder what will happen to those children without that kind of interaction.

Because we humans can be a gloomy lot when it comes to change, every new technological innovation seems to portend doom for "civilization as we've known it." And of course many technological "advances" have been horrific: the atom bomb, nerve gas just to name a couple. 

But then there is the technology that lets me Zoom call with my friends from far away. Then this blog post going out to hundreds of people I've never met. And the blog posts I will read and respond to tonight. These advances I am happy I've got.

SOL 2016 Day 8: Applause Please - Yesterday in Writing Workshop

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

 Sometimes while coaching, I feel like a proud mama bear. There is nothing like observing a teacher coachee, and see her progress as she strives to improve her craft. Yesterday, I got that burst of pride moment.

My coachee has been working on getting writing workshop mini lessons down, making sure to include all the important parts, using the language, making the teaching point clear. All while trying to keep the lesson to 10 minutes in length.In front of 30 seventh graders (twice in the day).

This time she nailed it. She taught with gusto, and her students were engaged and thrilled they understood the lesson. When I walked around asking questions later, I could see that many of the kids were already busy incorporating the new strategy into their writing. 

I can’t take credit for that teacher’s dedication to being the best she can be. Sure I’ve tried to advise her, but she’s done the hard part. 

Still, can’t help myself: proud mama bear.

SOL 2016 Day 7: Practicing Mindfulness Everywhere

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

When I became ELA coach, I really had no idea how I would structure my day. In fact, in my interview before getting the job, I turned to the coach who was part of the  panel and asked her, "What do you do all day?" 

I had been in the classroom so long (23 years) that I couldn't imagine my day without the bells telling me where to be with whom at what time. When I think of it, it's rather like the army or a convent in its rigid adherence to a daily schedule. 

It didn't take long before I got that hang of it: making my own schedule, keeping a daily calendar of meetings and observations, observing different teachers at different times throughout the week. I even  have to pay a little attention to school bell schedules just so I know when I can meet with my teachers. It has turned out to be a satisfying change.

However, one thing I didn't count on was having to drive more. As my family will attest, I've never been that fond of driving. I will always let someone else take the wheel if they are willing. Commuting back and forth to work is fine, but on the weekend or vacation I would be perfectly content to never drive. As a coach who travels to different schools all over my district, that had to change. 

What I've noticed: I'm getting more and more short tempered about my fellow drivers. I have found myself barking at people who didn't use a turn signal or barely tapped their brakes at a stop sign to make the infamous "California stop". It doesn't matter that they can't hear me, I still yell at them as if I really thought it would do any good.

Today I was particularly cranky. After all, it was Monday.  I fretted and fumed over some idiotic traffic move when I realized that this can't go on. So I tried to think of how to practice mindfulness while driving. 

I know the term "mindfulness" is rather over-used these days, but I do think the theory is a positive one. I've been trying some centering or meditation exercises in my daily writing practice, and they do work. Of course, it wouldn't be a good idea to close my eyes to concentrate on my breathing while in control of a car, but there had to be something I could do.

Just at that moment, I rounded a corner and the coastline of California spread out before me. Because of all the rain we've gotten recently, the hillsides are bright green. Clouds like great animals galloped across the sky. I started breathing slowly, I started counting with my inhalations and exhalations, keeping my eyes on that lovely green before me.  I serenely watched as the driver in front of me made a U-turn without signaling. 

SOL 2016 Day 6: The Solace of Daily Life

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

Today still trying to cope with the news of my friend's illness, I have found myself relishing today's round of household chores. Washing dishes, grocery shopping, changing my sheets, doing laundry: these mundane tasks I often resent seem important to me today. 

They sooth me with their assurance that there is still some part of life not rocked by fear. 

I'm sure my friend would welcome the chance to choose the perfect apple or smell sheets fresh from the dryer. So I will do all these things for her, hoping that soon she will be at home again lying in her own bed. So this poem is for her:

The  Promise

Slide crisp sheets fresh from the wash,

snap the wrinkles out and let

the top one float gently to rest.

Smooth over corners,

tuck them in taut, clean folds.

Slap and fluff the pillows,

slip them into their cases

still unwrinkled from a sleeping head.

Dare to take a new journey.

Traverse the map of night

to descend streets of dreams,

as you lie on sheets

sweet smelling,

cool and soft as longing.

SOL 2016 Day 5: And Sometimes Life Gets in the Way

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even students), visit: twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

Like many posts from others I've read this week during this challenge, this one was supposed to be about something else. But then life got in the way, throwing off my best-laid plans. 

Yesterday I got word that someone I've come to care for deeply is very ill. This illness came on suddenly, so all who know her are reeling from the news. And of course, then feeling guilty that we worry about how this effects us instead of concentrating on her.

I haven't known D. for very long, a little over a year, so the depth of my feelings surprise me. I hadn't realized how much I had grown to love her, how deep our friendship had grown until presented with the possibility of losing her. 

Right now, D. doesn't want people around her. She has to come to terms with this for herself. I know that I can't do anything for her at them moment. However, I also realize I need to take care of myself. I have to acknowledge that my feelings do matter, that I'm not being selfish in worrying about what this means for my life.  

How to do this? Sometimes just taking care of mundane tasks can help. They help us feel like life can return to normal someday.

Last night, I had to go to the grocery store after work to pick up basic supplies. As I walked past the flower display, there were buckets filled with two of my favorite flowers: freesias and lilac. I knew what I needed to do for myself: buy them.

So today, every time I walk past my dining table, I stop to take in their lovely aroma, reminding me that there can sill be joy in life.

SOL 2016 Day 4: The Magic of Writing Workshop

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

This March, more than 300 teachers have committed to daily writing. If you’d like to read more “slices” (from other teachers and even some students), visit twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/challenges.

“Writers, off you go.” These are my favorite words of writing workshop, the signal for young writers to leave the meeting area and return to their own notebooks. When a class is going well, and students excited about what they are writing, it is just magic. Yesterday Mr. Hagen’s sixth grade class was just such a moment.

As soon as he said those words, every student – and I mean every one – rushed back to their desks and bent low over their notebooks, pencils flying. I walked around, asking“What are you going to work on today?” Some wanted to start a new piece, others to finish up what they had already started.  But everyone was writing, writing, writing.

As an instructional coach, I’m privileged to observe in many different classrooms. This year our district is rolling out writing workshop for all grades, kindergarten through eighth grade. Coaching teachers to help them improve their writing instruction is pure joy for me. What an exciting time in my job. 

Most teachers in our district have jumped at this opportunity to change their practice, but not all. In one of our district training sessions, a teacher, skeptical that writing workshop would be better than her usual writing instruction asked, “So, you’re saying the fact that kids get a choice in what to write makes workshop so motivating?”

I wanted to exclaim, “Well, good lord, yes!” Of course, I gave her a more professional response, but was emphatic. Choice is exactly what her students would love, what they need.  It seems so obvious: let kids write about what is important to them, not to us. How can something so human and simple be so revolutionary? 

I wish that doubting teacher had been in Mr. Hagen’s sixth grade class yesterday. I’m glad I was.

SOL 2016 Day 3: Another Day of (Writing) Drought

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

Here I am on day three, already wondering what I can write about today. I think of these days as drought days.

So today I will write about the grey day that has dawned. The ground is damp so perhaps the rain we were promised came in the night. Not a good soaking rain like we desperately need, but any rain is welcome right now. Here in Northern California we are in our 4th (or is it 5th?) year of drought. Not just a little drought, but bone-dry, terrifying drought with trees dying and grass not just brown but dull grey. 

This year El Niño was promised us, and we started December and January off well. But then in February the rains dried up. Almost none for the whole month, the month that should be our wettest time of year. 

I've experienced these droughts before, having lived in California for the last 35 years. But this one is different. This one makes us worry about climate change, wonder if we can live here anymore. My brother up in Portland says people are heading north to Oregon because of it. I'm not sure I believe that, but sometimes when I visit my family up there I'm tempted to stay. But really what good will a mass exodus do if the whole world is heating up?

Now March has come, and the predictions are for more rain. We need what they call a Miracle March. We've had those before, where we make up for our low totals. This year I won't hold my breath. I'm afraid to hope. 

Perhaps writing about it today will make the rains come. Last year I wrote a rain poem, and it rained the day after I read it to my poetry group. Maybe this post will work as well. 

Oh, rain, come! 

SOL 2016 Day 2: Daily Writing Practice

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

The alarm rings at 5:40 a.m. dragging me from deep sleep. It is always a shock, an unwelcome call to get up. I hate it and yet every morning I make myself leap out of bed into the dark of predawn. 

I have my rituals: light a candle, wrap myself into a blanket before sitting in my chair, drink from the thermos of tea I made the night before. Even the brand of tea is ritual, the same kind every day. Its name is Ready, Set, Go, symbolic of what I need each morning.

Today I can hear a train roll by sending people who are also early risers off to work. A bird trills somewhere in my backyard. I have not heard many birds all winter, so this is one is welcome. Perhaps it means the spring migration is beginning.  With the blinds closed, I rely on sound to tell

my how the morning is progressing outside my window. It helps keep me centered on the task at hand: writing.

I began this writing practice on August 19, 2013. 926 days ago, 926 days of rising to meet my notebook, putting pen to paper. It is the only way I know to do this, the only way I know to keep going. For years I wrote sporadically, trying to harness writer-energy after hard days of working the teacher life. Sometimes I could make myself write, but mostly I couldn't refocus inward after a day of giving to my students. I felt so drained I had no words to give myself.

The teacher-writer tug of war. What I hear from so many teacher-writers. How do we keep the writer alive when we give so much for our teaching? Of course, there are always weekends and vacations when there is ample time to write. But I always found it difficult to get going again after times of not-writing, my mind refusing to cooperate. Always feeling like I was starting over again. 

So in August of 2013, in the airport on my way back from a summer writing retreat where I had regenerated my writer self, I resolved to make this change.  I had thought about it for years but fought the idea. I am not naturally a morning person. I hate going to bed early. But I want to write. And I want to teach. How to reconcile those conflicting desires? Something had to give.  

I made this promise to myself, fearing I wouldn't be able to go through with it. I've tried so many other regimens before but always stopped. Somehow this time I was ready. And so each morning I write.

My alarm has sounded once again, telling me I must put down my pen and get in the shower. It's time to put on my teacher self and go out into the world.  My writer self has been fed for the day. I can let her rest until tomorrow.

SOL 2016 Day 1 - Poem for Tania: Piazza della Rotunda

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life March Challenge 2016

Today I begin the Slice of Life March Challenge, writing and posting every day this month. Wish me luck.

During the summer of 2015, my poet friend Tania Pryputniewicz of Feral Mom, Feral Writer began a poetry challenge with me. She began with giving me the task of writing a poem using the letter Z, one of my favorite letters for obvious reasons. Then I sent her a prompt of my own: write about a resting place. At the time, I was at rest on an Italian vacation, so relaxation was on my mind. It took a few months but, as requested, she finally wrote a poem. Tania's lovely poem, Meditation Garden, Encinitas inspired me, but in a way I didn't expect. Somehow it made my thoughts turn to Italy again.

One of my favorite places in the whole world (or at least the parts I've been to) is the Piazza della Rotunda in Rome.  On every visit to that city, no matter how short, I always make my way there to sit at a table at the same cafe and dream I'm Roman. Here's poem about a slice of the life in that beautiful place.

Tania, now it's your turn to send me another challenge. You said you had a good idea for me. Send it my way.

Piazza della Rotunda

Pantheon cool, serene,

oldest of the buildings 

cradling the body
of this small piazza.

Tourists stream past
my café table under 

its orange umbrella,

orange drink in my hand.

We have all emerged

from our heat-addled naps.

Stroller wheels rattle

over cobblestones,

nuns in white habits

eat gelato scooped

from the corner stand.

Sunburned shoulders

peeking from skimpy tank tops,

girls huddle on fountain steps,

giggle and bubble

like the water behind them.

Their friend snaps photos,

Egyptian obelisk

their solemn backdrop.

Small brown men,

from the Phillipines

or Indonesia perhaps,

shoot shiny

toys into the air,

hoping one will land

near a child’s foot.

She might pick it up

and beg to keep it.

We all long 
for bright tidings

to soar over our heads

like birds, like stars

into Rome’s

blue-falling night.

Related Links:
Respective poems from the first challenge: 
Write a poem using the letter Z:
Firenze Poem, For Tania from Italy by Lisa Rizzo
21 Zs for Lisa: Omen Hunting in Yo El Rey Roasting by Tania Pryputniewicz

The Power of the Internet Part III

Only one week to go before the monthly challenge begins!

Back on March 27, 2012 I wrote a post about writing odes with my eighth grade students:

Writing Odes with Eighth Graders

Just when I start dreaming of early retirement, the sun shines through the dirty, cracked windows of my classroom, and I forget all the bureaucratic and political hoo-ha to fall in love with teaching all over again. That’s what happened when I spent the day writing odes à la Pablo Neruda with my 8th graders.  (read more here)

In the last two years, my classroom website,   http://www.msrizzo.org   has just languished in the cloud without me. I'd even forgotten I had that website at all. Then today I got an email from Karin Warzybok, an 8th grade teacher at Sussman Middle School in Downey California telling me how much her students had enjoyed one of the odes written by one of my students. She even posted the poem on her blog: Warzyblog. And she wants the assignment I used to teach those wonderful poem. What an honor for my former student (I wish I could remember his name! Since I had to remove it before posting his poem, all I have are his initials: S.S.), and what an honor for good teaching. 

Once again I have been pleasantly surprised at the power of blogging. I've written before about hearing from people who had found my blog, and reached out to me. I even had one of my photographs I wind up in an art exhibit in Germany. (The Power of the Internet or How I Wound Up in an Art Exhibit in Germany)

When we blog, we can reach so many lives in ways we don't even realize. How encouraging it was to get that email the week before the Slice of Life Challenge begins. Just when I was starting to get cold feet. 

Can I do this? -- Taking up the Slice of Life Story Challenge

It's been over three months since I last posted to this blog, and even that post was just a "hey, look at me" short notice of publications. No real writing, no real effort. That's been the issue with this blog ever since I took my new job.

When I started blogging, I knew who I was, I knew what this blog would be about.  I was a poet and middle school language arts teacher who loved to travel.

Four years later, I'm still a poet and still love to travel. What has changed? My job. After 23 years teaching 7th and 8th graders, I left the classroom to become an instructional coach for language arts teachers. I'm still an educator and I'm in classrooms all the time. But teacher? I no longer grade papers or create lesson plans. I don't go to parent-teacher conferences or bus duty. I'm no longer responsible for 90 or more 12 and 13-year-olds on a daily basis. It's hard for me to say "teacher" when I realize that all the things that make teaching so complicated are no longer part of my working life. It almost seems like it would be an insult to all the teachers I know who are still in the trenches.

I never expected these feelings to stop my blog dead in its tracks, but they have.




Then in the course of doing some research on how to help teachers implement writing workshop in their classrooms, I stumbled across the Two Writing Teachers website. What a wealth of information!   For weeks I've been reading posts on tips about writing workshop and sharing it with teachers I work with.

Inevitably, all this led me to the Slice of Life Story Challenge. According to their website, "the individual challenge began on Two Writing Teachers in 2008 and has grown each year. Adults, classroom teachers and their students across six continents participate in this weekly challenge as well as in the month-long challenge in March."

Basically, this challenge is designed to get teachers and students to write their own "slice of life" stories and share them with the world, to get them to embrace their own identities as writers. This is exactly what I'd like to inspire in the teachers I coach, hoping they will then bring this passion for writing to their students.

Since finding out about the challenge, I've been toying with the idea of contributing for months, but the idea of a daily challenge for an entire month sounded too daunting. Finally today I decided that I'd just go for it. After all, what better way to inspire others than by modeling it myself. Isn't that what teachers do? Maybe there is some teacher left in me after all.

So here is my first post. I have one more Slice of Life Tuesday to go before the March challenge begins, so I can see how it feels. All I know is, it's the first excitement I've felt about my blog in a long time.