Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.
Recently I have connected with Jennifer Laffin of Teach Write. She invited me to be a part of a team encouraging teachers to write. Our monthly Twitter chats occur on the first Monday at 7:30 PM EST with the hashtag #TeachWrite. (Our next chat is Oct. 2, 2017.) I subscribed to her personal blog as well as her professional one at Sweet Writing Life. She wanted to commit herself to a more disciplined daily writing routine, so she started a daily word prompt. She tweets the word at #DWHabit. This was today’s tweet:
I am not sure I will have the time to respond every day, but today, I took the word explain for a walk. My students teach me over and over again that sometimes I need to stop, take a breath, and backtrack before moving on. Sometimes more words just muddy the waters. This is a first draft poem.
Explanation
I don’t want to explain again
and again. Words hit the air,
make waves that dissipate,
fall
before your ears
catch them.I’d rather you look
into my eyes
to understand,
feel in your heart
a knowing.My breath is tired
of moving
so fast, so I stop.
Pause.
Fingers to my lips
forbid me to move on.When I hit the reset button,
I can hear your confusion.
I am the one
who needs to retrace my steps,
start over,and listen.
Thanks for this prompt, Jennifer.
If you choose to join Jennifer and me practicing our daily writing muscles, tune in to #DWHabit or follow Jennifer on Facebook.
Reflections on the Teche 
Your words touch my heart! I love your poem today. I’m so glad you wrote along with me. ❤️
I love that you’ve joined that challenge. I may step in and out. Your poem really touched me. Thank you for sharing!
I read somewhere that a classroom teacher answers hundreds of “needs” every day in some form or another, perhaps a question. Your poem says much about the tough parts of teaching, but then again, how to slow down and just listen, too. That’s why teaching is an art! Fun to hear about Jennifer’s daily words!
What a fun challenge! Most of my writing occurs for my blog entries, and not much else anymore. Maybe I should give this a try. I love your poem, especially these words:
“Words hit the air,
make waves that dissipate,
fall
before your ears
catch them.”
That’s a lovely, heart felt poem, Margaret.
Your poem is making me smile, Margaret–when we listed our hopes and dreams for the year, mine was the same as my goal for the Responsive Classroom training that I took this summer: to gain time for learning by talking less! I did fne in Week 1 but in Week 2 I could hear myself falling into old habits: lots of cluttertalk. Thanks for helping me remember my aim with your quiet, important poem!
Writing daily maybe a stretch for me right now. Or maybe this is exactly what I need.
Thank you for sharing that wonderful poem. Talking less in class and listening more is something I want to keep as a focus. I know I tried last year and it had many benefits.