In the pursuit of knowledge, I am working diligently and daily to craft my writing teacher’s “toolbox”. This semester, I have fashioned lists and notes, and more lists and more notes, of writing teacher mantras and strategies, carefully archived and ready for referencing and/or sharing when and if I get another go at it. The problem is, after 14 years of teaching writing (as well as all the other standard elementary classroom disciplines), I am suddenly not a writing teacher. That is, this year I made a choice to try my talents as a reading specialist in order to try to do one thing well. I can say with certainty that I was not teaching writing well during these classroom years, as I was not trying to do one thing. It is natural to be inspired, fired up even, about all the ways you will facilitate stronger writers when you have all this failure to reflect on. I would choose experience and failure any day over naivety, yet I find I envy my professional colleagues who are fresh and idealistic and ready to take their toolbox to work!
Write Like, Draw Like, Teach Like: I look forward to continuing my journey this week as a student of writing. Revision ideas on deck: find spots to add just a splash of dialogue, use repetition to emphasize mood, and experiment with powerful leads and satisfying endings.
“That is what writers do. They take small moments in time and put them under a magnifying lens, examining every small detail for its worth, its importance to the whole. Each time we ‘explode a moment,’ we write small to write big.” (Dorfman, Cappelli, & Hoyt, 2017, p. 99)
Dorfman, L. R., Cappelli, R., & Hoyt, L. (2017). Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children’s literature, k-6 (2nd ed.). Portland, ME: Stenhouse.
Shubitz, S. (2016). Craft moves: Lesson sets for teaching writing with mentor texts. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.
Words Matter 
I have tried to accomplish the same revision ideas as well! I think finding “spots to add just a splash of dialogue” has already enhanced some of my writing because it makes it sound more like a real event and less of a memory. Using “repetition to emphasize mood” is something that takes a lot more careful thought then I had first anticipated, so I am definitely still working on that. And experimenting with powerful leads is something I never thought about doing as a student of writing until this past week. It should be interesting to see if all my leads end up sort of sounding the same!
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I love your blog and how personal it is. I really like the quote you began with; I think it is important for all of us to grow our writing toolboxes! I like how you are able to look back and reflect on your past teaching experiences and think of ways you could have done things differently, you may not be able to go back in time and change your teaching or your specific focuses, but reflection helps us grow so much!!
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I do not have anywhere near the teaching experience you do but I too feel like I am still learning to write and still very much a student in that regard. But in a way, it’s a good thing to be continually learning and not being an expert. Often when one becomes an expert they stop learning and as teachers that’s the LAST thing we want to do! I hope that I can build up a toolbox so that even though I’m not an expert I can use those tools and share them with my future students.
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