I’ve had a wonderful week getting back into the classroom. I have some new students as well as the ones I taught last year. I teach gifted ELA pull out for two elementary schools. The hardest part of the job is packing up the cart and moving to the next school. Once I am there, though, all is right with the world. I am meant to be a teacher!
On Wednesday I led my kids through “This Photo Wants to be a Poem.” We use Fanschool and I place the same photo from my blog post to Fanschool. The kids write their own poems in the comment section. Two of my students who signed into gifted this week had never written a poem before. I find joy in the process. I think I spread that passion to them. Their responses were amazing.
This week was Ethical ELA’s Open Write. I wrote about one of my students in response to Barb’s prompt here. A comment from Kim Johnson gave me an idea for the ending metaphor. This is a wonderful community of teacher-writers. Join us in October, 21st-25th.
Volleyball Team
Last year in fourth grade
she would skip recess
awkwardly reading in a corner
of my classroom.Fifth grade offered a volleyball team.
She arrived with a brightly colored volleyball,
tossed it with confidence,
leaning on it while writing.“I’m on the volleyball team this year.”
We talked about the serve I could never master.
She showed me how it’s done now–
from the palm-up wrist rather than the thumb.A flower blooming
Margaret Simon, draft
through a crack in the concrete,
hoping to find its way
to shine on the court.
Reflections on the Teche 