I Can Do It!

I say this with surprise in my voice. I stuck to it. I did it. I wrote for 31 days straight! Woot! Woot! I found that I really enjoyed the writing aspect of my day. It was a part of the day when I could sit and think. I also thought about it during the day as I was teaching or working with students.

I tried to put myself in my students’ shoes today, in fact. I wanted them to write 10 sentences. Four of the sentences had to have action verbs, 3 sentences had to have linking verbs and 3 had to have helping verbs. I asked myself, “Could I do this? Could I write 10 sentences after my lesson today?” My answer was “Yes! I could.” I could write so much more! Why do fourth graders have such a difficult time getting ideas sometimes? Do they lose some of their imagination? Are they too worried about what their peers think?

We write every day so their writing brains should not be lax. Every experience is a potential writing experience. I tell them that all of the time.

This whole writing experience is totally something I can use in my classroom. When my students ask, “Mrs. Roeck, do you write?” I will say, “Yes, I do!” I don’t plan on showing them my blog because it’s something I want to keep personal. I will explain this to them. I do not read everything in their writing notebooks either. Some of it is just for them.

Maybe next year I will be brave and try the Slice of Life for the classroom. It would be a great experience for all of us!