The Reasons

I started to blog last year.  It was fun but it was a challenge to write each night.  I have two reasons that I think it is important to blog.

The first reason is to let you join the conversation.  I remember coming home from school each day.  My mother would ask how my day went and my response was always fine.  Then my mother would ask what we did and my response was always nothing.

We never did nothing.  We did a lot.  I want you to know as much of what we do as possible.  I want you to be able to talk about things that are going on in our class.  When you are able to have these conversations as parents and reinforce what we are doing in the classroom, it is only going to help our students.

Plus teachers have a language that is all their own.  You might hear the words schema or claims or hyphenated adjectives or a ton of teacher-jargon terms that we use.  I do not remember talking about these things when I was in school.  Hopefully these blog posts will introduce you to the language of our room.  Knowing this language is only going to help you have better conversations at home.

The second reason...I should be a writer.  I am going to ask our students to write.  I am going to ask our students to write a lot.  If I am going to teach writing, then I should write.  If I were going to sign Emerson (my daughter) up for piano, I would expect the piano teacher to play piano.  It only makes sense that a teacher know the topic they are going to teach.  I think to truly know a topic you must spend time in that topic.  So I am a writer.  I might not be Cynthia Rylant or Katie DiCamillo or Jack Gantos, but I am writing.  I struggle and find success with my writing and these experiences help me as a teacher.

I cannot wait for this year to begin and hope that this blog gives you a glimpse into our room.