#WhyIWrite | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘#WhyIWrite’

Slice of Life: National Day on Writing #WhyIWrite

Posted in nature, Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged #WhyIWrite, #writeout, National Day on Writing, National Writing Project, NCTE on October 20, 2026| 10 Comments »

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.

Today is the National Day on Writing sponsored by NCTE and the National Writing Project as part of Write Out. I wrote a quick tricube-image poem. Why do you write?

Photo is Devil’s Pond sunrise in City Park, New Iberia, LA.

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Poetry Friday: Why I Write

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged #WhyIWrite, #writeout, Ethical ELA, National Writing Project on October 22, 2022| 8 Comments »

Poetry Friday gathering is with Bridget at wee words for wee ones.

Every year around the date of October 20th, the National Writing Project announces the Day on Writing along with the prompt, “Why I Write.” I avoid this question, mostly because it intimidates me. Who am I to say I am a writer? If I make that claim, will I be magically transported to the land of authors? Do I belong? Will I meet the standard? I’d rather stay in the closet. It’s easier to claim to be a teacher, a profession that has degrees behind it, credibility, and many years of service.

The problem is I want to write. I want to share my words with you. I want to connect with you through writing. The value in that connection is gold.

In my email inbox, I receive endless blogs and poems to read. I hesitate to delete them, so they build up, and the whole thing becomes unmanageable. However, I never know what may inspire me to write. One reliable set of prompts for me are Ethical ELA’s monthly Open Write. Each month we write together for 5 days. The prompts are written by people like me who juggle teaching and writing every day.

This last week Carolina Lopez drew inspiration from Richard Blanco’s poem “Since Unfinished,” asking us to steal his first line and write. “I’ve been writing this since…”

When we get right down to it, writing makes us ultimately vulnerable. If we are true to ourselves, we put our feelings all out there. This poem structure led me to more memories of my father.

Since You’ve Been Gone

I’ve been writing this since
I learned to walk
holding onto your pointer finger
since driving the circular block
hearing you warn “turn signal”
“stop sign”
“slow down.”

I’ve been writing this since “slow down”
meant thinking, means remembering,
meant crying when I reach for the phone
to call you with the news.

I’ve been writing this since
you pointed to the clock
(after your stroke) to remind us
to get Mom back for lunch.

I’ve been writing this since
I held your dying hand
your pointer finger blue and bruised
no longer pointing me
in the right direction.
Margaret Simon, draft

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Fall Leaves

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged #NationalDayofWriting, #poemsofpresence, #WhyIWrite, Nature poems, small poems, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on October 20, 2021| 23 Comments »

After hurricanes and weeks and weeks of heat, things in the deep south are finally feeling like fall. Fall is one of my favorite seasons. Surprisingly not for the colorful foliage of today’s image, but for the scents in the air. Here in Louisiana, the sweet olive blooms. The satsuma ripens, and the sugarcane is harvested. A plethora of scent-sations. And don’t get me started on gumbo. If someone is making a roux, you can smell it for miles around.

This photo comes from the Northwest where my blogging friend Ramona Behnke lives and writes at Pleasures from the Page. We do not get this kind of color here. Most of our trees are live oaks and pines that stay green and cypress trees that drop brown fuzzies. But I do love a good photograph of fall leaves.

If the trees could play
a melody the wind
would sing, we’d know
the secrets of the song
and blend with
harmony.
Margaret Simon, draft

Write a small poem in the comments. Let the muse take you where it will. I have no idea where my little poem came from. Writing is like that, mysterious and magical in so many ways. Be sure to come back and write encouraging comments to each other. I love it when someone sees something in my poem in a new and different way than I did.

Today is the National Day on Writing, an initiative of NCTE and National Writing Project. Use the hashtag #WhyIWrite.

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Celebrate National Day of Writing

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Chalk-a-bration, Poetry, Teaching, Writing, tagged #WhyIWrite, National Day on Writing, NCTE on October 21, 2017| 8 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

I have to thank NCTE for the National Day on Writing as well as all the many posts on #WhyIWrite and my many teacher-writer friends who inspire me every day to make my class a safe place for writers to bloom.

Michelle Haseltine told me she was writing quotes on pencils to give to her students as inspired by Malala’s Magic Pencil. (Her post is here.) So early Friday morning, I grabbed some fresh pencils and Googled writing quotes. Each student received a pencil with a quote. This was such a simple, yet positive way to garner enthusiasm for a special writing day.

Betsy Hubbard posted last minute ideas on the Two Writing Teachers blog early yesterday. I grabbed the idea of chalkabration! Years ago, Betsy led a monthly roundup of Chalkabration posts. The basic idea is writing poetry with sidewalk chalk. My students were so excited to be able to go outside and chalk their poems. I made an Animoto video to share.

https://animoto.com/play/LgQw4GWfJegD2qg9AnSsPA

Here are some of the wonderful fall themed poems my students and I created.

–Margaret Simon Fall Haiku

Fall The holy winter is waiting. Why keep it away when you could bring it in. Winter comes. –Trace, 5th grade

Fall Mysterious Admiring Happening Turning Winter Every Night Fall –Austin, 6th grade

Autumn Summer breeze turned cold. Bright sun into dim moon. Emerald leaves turn amber. Blue skies now dark. –Madison, 4th grade

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DigiLitSunday: Patience, Practice, and Persistence

Posted in Creativity, Digital Learning, tagged #WhyIWrite, Mary Oliver, Word Swag on October 23, 2016| 5 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

On Thursday, NCTE hosted a Twitter frenzy on #WhyIWrite to celebrate National Day on Writing. I gave myself an assignment spurred on by the many posts I read about Why I Write. I collected quotes and added them to images. I posted a few here. I also tweeted them out throughout the day on Thursday.

I asked my students to write on this topic and tweeted out their responses using Word Swag, an iPhone app.

Jacob’s #WhyIWrite quote on Word Swag

Any time you use a new application, you have to commit yourself to patience, practice, and persistence. Even my mother is learning about the three Ps as she switches my dad to Mac from PC.

Kids are so much more adept at this than we are as adults. They know right off that anything new will take patience. Two of my 6th grade boys have decided to do a project that uses animation. I was amazed at the concentrated time they spent to get a stick figure to move his arm up and down.

Digital literacies motivate us to put in the practice it takes to learn something new. We all know this, so we seem to have more patience when it comes to learning a new app. Don’t you hate it when your phone updates and something you have become accustomed to changes? I still swipe when I want to access my iPhone, but some genius thought it would be easier to hit the Home button. Persistence. I keep missing it, and by the time it becomes a habit, something else will change.

Face it, we are stuck with a constantly evolving universe of technology. But thanks to Word Swag, my iPhone, and a beautiful sunrise on the bayou today, I can create this quote from Mary Oliver.

Link your digital literacy posts below. Click to read more posts.

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Why I Write: Collection of Quotes

Posted in Photography, Writing, tagged #WhyIWrite, National Day on Writing, NCTE on October 20, 2016| 4 Comments »

Today is the National Day on Writing! On Sunday, I wrote my top ten list and collected posts from bloggers on this topic here.

As I read blog posts, I was inspired to collect quotes and make them into images. You can use these images for Twitter posts or on your own blog posts. Spread the love of writing today!

Image by Margaret Simon. Quote by Ruth Ayres.

Image and quote by Catherine Flynn

Image by Pixabay
Quote by Michelle Haseltine

Image enhanced by Picmonkey. Photo and quote by Kim Douillard

Image by Pixabay. Quote by Julieanne Harmatz.

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DigiLitSunday: #WhyIWrite

Posted in Digital Learning, Writing, tagged #WhyIWrite, National Day on Writing, NCTE on October 16, 2016| 10 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Excitement is building in cyberspace for the National Day on Writing scheduled for this Thursday, Oct. 20th. This is a day when everyone is asked to think about why we write. NCTE created the hashtag #WhyIWrite for Twitter. The day is a collaboration among NCTE, National Writing Project, The New York Times Learning Network, and Teaching Channel.

Here are my top ten JOYS for writing: