I was told last Friday, before we left for Spring Break, that should I choose to return to Wharton Elementary School next year that I would teach Fourth Grade Writing. I was pretty "Switzerland" on the announcement as I have always had a strong liking of writing. I also love Math, and Reading. My love of Reading first showed up just shortly before my love of writing and I don't think that is very unusual. My affinity for Math, though, took at least four more years to develop.
Journals, blogs, diaries, and posts of any sort are my passion. Actually, in a perfect world, I would be in the booming field of hand lettering. Sorry, I am sarcastic in nature but I really do enjoy handwriting, all things paper and words and quite frankly I would love to be a professional calligrapher. The artistry aside, though, I also seem to have a real affinity for composition. I really didn't know this was my knack until my senior year in high school, when my English teacher gave me a zero on paper because she had never seen such a high quality paper come out of a student. After perusing my standardized test scores, she warned me that she would "give me" a grade but I would have to prove it from then on out. (Giving grades is a whole other blog post.)
I still have all of my journals and diaries beginning in 1977. People, that is 38 years of writing. I have moved a lot of times in 38 years and done a lot of big things. I don't write often however, some of my words can have a real impact. My first entries at the ripe age of 10 were one to two sentence statements about what I did for the day. My students, who are 10 now, can write so much more effectively than I did then. Jump forward a few years and I begin to document my substantial reading: adult chapter books.
In 1989, my first year teaching out of Texas A&M, the Katy I.S.D. school in which I worked had a bookfair. Of course book fairs are just heavenly to me and while there I found a beautiful paperback journal. I thought it might be a sign for me to pick up my pen and start fresh (again) now that I had a grown up job. I did write some. I wrote out of loneliness and a lot of other reasons, but I wrote.
The other day, I ran across this incomplete journal and reread some of my entries and I think one or two are really good. I guess I am just not sure where to put them. This blog is primarily for reflections of my teaching of fourth grade and this post in and of itself is only loosely tied to my students. Where do I go from here?
So now I come full circle. My students have a standardized writing test coming up in exactly two weeks. I am amazed at what fourth graders can do with a pencil. Who knew that fourth graders could express themselves with such artistry and abandonment? I know that I have fallen short with my instruction of my students (I always think I should do more) but I truly think that in my little nest of 21 students there is some real insightful writing. Will it be enough? Can my love of words be transmitted like some sort of osmosis to my fourth graders?
(And what the heck should I do with that great journal entry that I have from 1993? Your opinions and advice mean a world to me, feel encouraged to comment.)
