Advent of Love
What are the loves of your life? From food to pets to places to people, we all have many loves that make our lives worth living. Love (and not just romantic love) really does make the world go ’round. The many dimensions of love we experience as we move through life offer rich inspiration for…
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Kentucky Verses
I wrapped up my National Council of Teachers of English Conference experience with the magic of the writing marathon. The writing marathon is an important part of my life as a human and writer, teacher and National Writing Project site leader, and whenever I get to write in community with other writers whether it is…
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Was the journey worth taking?
Reflection is one of the most important things I do with my students, because my goal is to help them grow as writers, humans, and critical thinkers and reflecting about our journey (both the lessons learned from the past and goals we have set for the future) is essential. I know that reflecting on my…
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What If You Dreamed?
When you contemplate your future do you consider your dreams or your heartbreaks? This week as my students and I continued on our “What If” journey, I adapted our usual opening ritual to draw inspiration from Meditations in an Emergency by Cameron Awkward-Rich and asked my students these questions: We then dipped into Encanto with Surface Pressure…
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What If You Noticed?
What sounds and silence do you notice as you move about in the world? How do those sounds work upon you? This week as my students and I continued on our “What If” journey, we used I did not notice the birds by Michael Sun to guide our exploration of our world, or rather worlds,…
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What If You Remembered?
What does your past taste like? What important people represent the milestones of your life? What do you remember of your childhood lair and plans? What stars (real or metaphorical) were you born under? This week my students and I embarked on an exploration of our origin story and the twists and turns that describe…
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Transitions
When did you last contemplate the doors in your life? This week my students were concerned with revision of their rhetorical analysis essays and we used two poems to explore the transitions that our chosen stories have inspired in our lives and futures. I have always loved Doors opening, closing on us by Marge Piercy…
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West Virginia
The second stop of Write Across America‘s first ever school year marathon was in West Virginia where writers explored four different themes prevalent in West Virginia history, identity, culture, and life: nature and environment, work and community, outmigration, and rebellion. The rich layers of West Virginia voices and texts and music and images provided infinite…
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Ripples
Throughout this month my writing group has found our writing inspiration in photos (see Ripples and Perspective and Snapshots and Ingenuity and Ancestors) and I continue to be struck by not only the memories and knowledge of my past (and family) this journey has unlocked but also by the philosophical exploration our group undertaken. This image represents a formative…
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What Lens Do You Use?
I’m really torn about the date to put on this post as the photo is one that I shared with my writing group as we continue to find our writing inspiration in photos (see Perspective and Snapshots and Ingenuity and Ancestors) on Sept. 14, but I shared with my students on Sept. 28 when we wrote in response to…
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Perspective
As my writing group continues to find our writing inspiration in photos (see Snapshots and Ingenuity and Ancestors) I have moved away from ancestral photos to my own story and let me tell you that is a powerful exploration. Before choosing this photo I took a deep dive through my high school photo album and yearbooks. It is so curious that…
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Layers
As my students and I continue our rhetorical analysis work and study well-known (often beloved) stories, I shared Let Them Not Say by Jane Hirshfield. I asked my students to write about what the Story they are exploring tells us about the time/forces of its making. One of the reasons I want my students to engage in…
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