Reading is...

Last spring, during our poetry unit, inspired by Baseball Is... by Louise Borden, I asked my 7th graders to write a "Something Is..." poem.

After everyone shared in class, I was extremely glad I had done this poem with my students because I was impressed with what they came up with. An idea that allows them choice in topic so they can write about something they know + a strong mentor text = powerful results.

Of course, since they were doing it, I needed to also, so I wrote a "Something Is..." poem, too. When brainstorming my list of things to write about, the one that stuck with me the most was reading, so that's what I went with and let my thoughts and words take me where they would.

Reading is…

getting lost

in stories

finding an escape

from the everyday

Reading is…

having a fresh start

every time

I crack the spine

and turn to

the first page

with a held breath

of anticipation

Reading is…

finding myself

in the pages

of a book

discovering

who I am

who I want to be

Reading is…

getting my acceptance letter

to Hogwarts

jumping on the train

at Platform 9 ¾

finding friends

family

my truth

and bravery

in a world I didn’t know

I could dream up

that J.K. Rowling showed me

I can

Reading is…

gasping

laughing

crying

cheering

swooning

yelling at

rooting for

learning with

and from

the characters

I grow to love

Reading is…

fairy tale castles

summer at the beach

outer space

deep in the ocean

around the corner

far from home

on the other side of the world

mythical lands

adventures

I visit

through the worlds

found in

the pages of a book

and my imagination

Reading is…

writers who become

authors

with agents to push for them

editors to guide them

copyeditors to correct them

designers who create covers

publicists who tell everyone

marketing, printers, publishers

booksellers, librarians, teachers

friends all supporting

that book

and recommending others read it

Reading is…

going to a mall

The Exit 8 Big Top Mall & Video Arcade

open 365 days a year

meeting Ivan

and Stella

and Ruby

and Bob

and Julia

and George

hoping for the best

while fearing the worst

and holding back tears

of sorrow

and joy

having Katherine Applegate’s

words

touch my soul

and teach me more

about humanity

and kindness

and people

than I thought

a book could

Reading is…

the way I experience lives

hundreds

thousands of lives

beyond

the one I live

that I carry

with me

always

Reading is…

what I turn to

when I need

to be alone

to find hope

to get answers

to learn things

to take a break

to discover inspiration

to know

I am

not

alone

in this world

Reading is…

letters swarming

words swaggering

sentences slithering

paragraphs sailing

steadily across

the pages

Reading is…

late nights

when I

just

can’t

stop

turning the pages

until I can’t

keep my eyes open

any longer

struggling to

so I can know

what happens

next

Reading is…

covers and

jackets and

spines and

pages and

acknowledgements and

dedications and

titles and

blurbs and

stories

Reading is…

getting lost

being found

finding escape

discovering hope

opening eyes

seeing myself

experiencing others

knowing more

figuring out

Reading is…

what you make of it

when you embrace it

What would the topic of your "Something Is..." poem be?

Sometimes It's Best to Go With the Distraction

It was a dreary day in Southeastern Wisconsin today. I had lessons planned. After our Independent Daily Reading and choice quick write, we were moving on to looking at non-fiction books together to identify what types of things authors do to teach through their writing. You see, we're doing our big research unit right now, and I'm trying a new focus this year. But in my last (4th) class of the day doing this, after our quick write time, a student looked out our classroom windows and exclaimed about this.

How could I ignore that distraction? It was an eerie view outside those windows. My kids were totally distracted. So I made an on-the-spot decision to go a different direction and follow the distraction. Sometimes a teacher just has to do that. You see, I wasn't going to get them back and focused on the lesson at hand at that point. So we didn't even try.

Instead? I told them maybe we should work with the distraction and go with the nature at hand - let's write stories about it! We'd spend the last twenty minutes of class writing stories - the only stipulation was that the setting had to be what we were seeing outside those windows. We did a quick review of narrative structure and what elements should be included in a fiction short story, then we looked out the windows at our setting inspiration, and we started writing our stories. And, yes, I do mean we. I sat down to write a story of my own as my 8th graders were writing theirs. There were smiles, and engagement, and glances out the window, and giggling, and sharing of ideas, and the sound of pens scratching across paper...and every one of my students was writing for that whole 20 minutes. Sometimes it is best to go with the distraction. That other lesson? It can wait until tomorrow.

My last line at minute nineteen: As she tried to look beyond the edges of the white fog blanketing the woods, she heard the screaming start.

I Wasn't Going to Blog Today, But...

It was a long second day of school. My students were doing their reading MAP test all day, so as I monitored, I also worked on checking in beginning of the year paperwork, and read some picture books I'm considering using in class later this year so I could assess how they might fit in, and I got to know my students better by reading their responses to the first day of school questionnaire I gave them (thank you so much for sharing, Katherine!), and I started inputting data on my overview sheet so I could get a quick glance of summer growth or slide. That was pretty much my day. And then I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home to get a few items to get us through the rest of this week (this is what happens when I don't go on the weekend). Sidenote: It's really time for me to get back into the school year routine.

Anyhow...by the time I sat down and could look at my computer, I was exhausted. And I'd had a headache since I woke up. And I'm hungry. And I figured I'd just skip blogging today. I mean, it's not like I made a committed declaration to blog every day. It's not like I have to blog. It's not like anything major happened to write about. . . . . .and there's the crux of it. See, now that I started this teaching/writing blog thing, I realize throughout my day there are moments when I think I could blog about that tonight. There are times during the day when I think Hmmm, maybe I could figure out my thinking about this by "talking" it through in writing. And the fact that I didn't want to write? It probably meant that I should. Why? Because how many times will I have a student in my classroom who doesn't want to write? Spoiler alert: Every. Single. Day. So many times my students probably feel like I do tonight. They're tired. They don't want to write. They have other things on their mind. They don't feel great. They don't have any idea what to write about because nothing happened. And there it is again. That crux thing. If I can't figure out what to write about when I don't have anything to write about, how will I ever be able to help my students through the same thing?

And then I remembered that lesson on small moments and how easily they can be made into something to write about. So I opened up my blogger window and started to write. Because I know I need to model for my students. And I bet I'll come back to this post sometime as an example of what happens when you just start writing even if you think you have nothing to write about. And you know what? This post kind of wrote itself as I worked through my thinking. I was going to talk about how much better I got to know my students through the questionnaire (what a great use of testing time for me!) and that I have a book recommendation for each of my new students jotted down and ready to go. I was also thinking I could share with you the most joyful moment of my day - it was when...oh, wait, maybe I'll save that seed to write about another day when I feel like I have no idea what to write about because, you know what? Somehow in writing about why I didn't want to write today, I have a blog post written.

Lesson of the day: