Reflections on the Teche

Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Now that school is in full swing, I am writing my Slice of Life story with the purpose of modeling for my students. We talked about what a Slice of Life story is by analyzing my post last week about the snake. The board was full of things they noticed, such as having a climax and resolution (Whoa, high five!) A few of you wrote great comments that I could use to teach about making connections in your comments.

Yesterday I read a comment on my Poetry Friday post from Bridget Magee, “Margaret, this poem and the animation are both amazing! I love the lines:’an ornament hanging on a tree,
a bronze clasp pen for my lapel.’ It reminds me of when my oldest daughter was about 5 or 6 (she’s 17 now) and she used to love to walk the neighborhood collecting cicada exoskeletons until one day she pulled one of the tree and the fella was still in there! SHE just about jumped out of her own skin!” This comment models specific feedback and also making a personal connection. I explained to my students that writers like to know people are connecting to what they write. Thank you all for helping me teach valuable lessons about writing and blogging.

You can read some of my students’ SOL stories on our kidblog site. Feel free to leave comments.

This week’s Slice of Life:

My hair has become a problem. This summer (I can’t even remember exactly why) I grew out my bangs. For years I have had short bangs. As they grew out some, I was drying them off to the side, and my husband said to me, “I like your hair. It makes you look younger.” Exactly what any woman loves to hear, right?

On my next scheduled haircut, I told my stylist, “Jeff likes it, so we need to keep growing it out.”

Then the next visit (I schedule my haircuts six weeks apart), I had had enough of the headbands, so I told her to cut it. Keep the bangs long. In fact, I texted a friend to send a picture of her hair, cut in a cute short pixie style. “That’s what I want.”

“Your hair is not going to be straight unless you use a straight iron,” said Gale. Other than using a blow dryer, I do not own or use any other tools on my hair. Gale cut and styled it with the straight iron, knowing full well I would not do this.

My husband goes to the same hair salon. He walked in the next week and announced that he loved my hair. That was a first for Gale, so she was thrilled.

This weekend my husband and I went out dancing which is one of our favorite things to do together. In August the heat is such that no AC can keep up with it, much less when there are warm bodies dancing. The dance hall had placed huge fans around the dance floor. Every time we danced past one of these fans, Woosh! my hair blew across my face. My husband could tell I was getting really annoyed by this.

When we were riding home, he said, “I like your hair even when it’s flying in your face.” I guess I’m stuck with these annoying bangs for a little while longer.

Selfies: old hair style on the left, new on the right.

For this Slice, I am modeling how you can write a story about anything. Some of my students have a hard time thinking of something to write about. Using my own writing to model, I can share stories of my life and teach them that anything, even your hair style, can become a Slice of Life story.

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