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Letting Go

6/30/2013

 
After finishing the wonderful Every Day After by Laura Golden, my thoughts kept going back to Erin, the character who torments Lizzie relentlessly. She just wouldn't stop. She was so unlikable. I wanted to step in the story and give her a comeuppance of my own. Erin needed to not only to win at all cost but had to have everyone acknowledge her achievements.

Reading about Erin made me think about how some people require external validation. They, I m thinking of adults here, need the award, the high test score from students, the credit. Different perspectives are construed as a personal challenge. 

With such a fixed mindset, it is hard to bend. It is hard to let go. Erin reminded me that, sometimes, yielding is difficult.  It can be as hard as accepting yourself.

Following Through

6/29/2013

 
I know to teach writing you have to write. To teach writing well, you have to write. Yet. I stumble on this yet all the time. I make time to read the latest professional books on writing. I follow writing blogs. Yet my follow through is weak.

I carefully choose a writer's notebook--a journal that I want to write in.  We are good friends in the beginning. But then, I misplace it. Or somehow the spine breaks. Or I realize I can barely read my own scribbly handwriting. And then I get distracted by a new something. Did I mention I am incredibly slow, too? It can take hours to write a paragraph. A single paragraph.

It bothers me. I want to follow through. So, I am beginning again. Once more, I tell myself what I tell my students: readers and writers are brave. 

"Be bold, be bold and everywhere be bold"  Herbert Spencer
(as quoted in "Roxie and the Hooligans")
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Before Being Brave

    About

    An Elementary Literacy Specialist, Reader, Quiet Follower of Teacher/ Education Blogs.

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    2018 Reading Challenge

    2018 Reading Challenge
    Nora has read 90 books toward her goal of 156 books.
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    2017 Reading Challenge

    2017 Reading Challenge
    Nora has read 75 books toward her goal of 150 books.
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    2016 Reading Challenge

    2016 Reading Challenge
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    2014 Reading Challenge

    2014 Reading Challenge
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