This is my work station right now. It was the perfect area for me to relax and write in. Recently, I decided to start writing again. I am taking the National Writing Project workshop for teachers this summer and I decided that in order for me to start my writing again, I needed to start blogging again.
Although it is so true that during the school year I never have time for anything that I want to do for fun, such as reading and writing, because there are always other things I should be reading or writing – like SMART goals, or essay revisions, or correcting tests, grading homework, emailing parents, literally anything! However, I am giving myself this whole summer to get in all of the reading and writing that I possibly can before school starts so i am already in the habit of doing it so that it will just be apart of my day.
I used to blog on blogspot a long time ago and I was blogging a lot, had a lot of followers, actually made some real friends that I have met throughout the United States and I was writing pieces for people and getting paid for it.
Then life happened, as it usually does and I stopped, and it all fell apart. I tried to pick it all back up but my posts were being spammed to death and I just don’t think that I am that same person who was blogging with that pen name. Therefore, I decided between a few different blog apps and essentially I narrowed it down to the blog site that had the easiest app for my iPhone.
I had a hard time choosing a site that did not have a app. I feel like that is sort of snobby, however, I can do almost anything on my cell phone, and if I can’t blog on it, then what is the point.
Wordpress just happened to have an extremely easy app, although it was very frustrating at first, but now that I have taken some time to get to know it, we are now friends.
Getting my writing back – I am hoping to be able to teach myself how to write again for meaning and then be able to teach my students the same thing. I realized that for the past couple of years teaching writing, I did not practice it at all. Same with reading. I was not reading and I was not writing and I was not teaching them with passion. I was totally wiped out from the challenging students that I taught and I had no energy to even teach passion with my skills. That is so unfortunate but it happens to all teachers at some point.
I am praying that next year in 3rd grade, I will be able to teach the kids something that I love and in a different way. I am starting with having them keep a writer’s notebook that they will only use for some awesome writing prompts that we will be doing every single day and for their own free journal writing. I will also be keeping one along with them and doing it together. I realize that I need to model a lot more for my kids than I did last year. In NYC we used the workshop model, and it’s a great model, when the kids don’t have serious behavior issues. Then I came to Spokane, and they did not use that in 6th grade. I am excited to go back to that model because I believe with my class, I will be able to accomplish great things with them.
As this being my fourth year in teaching – so hard to believe- but this is going to be my best year yet and I am beyond excited.
How do you get your writing groove back after taking a hiatus?
