Writing from Teachers

Summer 2019 Flashback: Oh, the Places You’ll Go With Writers’ Workshop

/ Sarah M. Zerwin / Leave a comment

Note from Karen Hartman: Melissa Tobin, a 3rd grade teacher at University Hill Elementary School in the Boulder Valley School District shared her Connections Project to the Boulder CWP at our celebration. We laughed until we cried!

Congratulations! Today is your day. 

You’re off to Great Places! 

You’re off and away!

 

You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes.

You can teach Writers’ Workshop

Any way that YOU choose.

You’re on your own. And you know what you know.

And YOU are the teacher who’ll decide where to go. Continue reading →

Different Students, Different Needs: How Teachers Differentiate by Abby Mallett

/ Colorado Writing Project / Leave a comment

A fourth grade teacher sits at her desk, the first rays of morning sunshine cutting through the blinds and striping the stained carpet. Her eyes move swiftly across the screen of her computer, open to a student’s writing from yesterday.  The only sounds are the click of keys and scribble of a pen as she types comments into the document and makes notes on a chart next to her.

The bell rings, jolting her out of concentration.  She quickly switches the document to a morning message to display on the screen for her students.  The teacher proceeds to the door, opening it with a smile.  She greets her students with a “Good morning” in a cheery voice.  The quiet room becomes a hubbub of children’s voices and movements as they unpack backpacks, sharpen pencils, and recount stories of yesterday’s adventures to their friends.

The teacher joins the hubbub, moving quickly, but unhurried around the room.  She stops at a student’s desk and discreetly gives him a graphic organizer to help with his morning spelling assignment.  “I hope your sentences make me laugh again today,” she tells another student with a wink.  A student struggling to hang up a backpack gets a hand from the teacher and a gentle point to remind him to read the morning message.  An energetic girl runs up to her, eyes lit with excitement.

“Guess what!” she exclaims. Continue reading →

Aliens by Holly Hughes

/ Colorado Writing Project / Leave a comment

I live with Aliens.
They’ve been with us for millennium,
but they are not like you and me.
With me they walk around on their
five,
six,
seven toed feet.
You know,
Hemingway loved them.
These aliens come from that Hemingway line.
Perhaps there’s something of Ernest in them.
They are dramatic after all.
Crying out at odd times.
Not too clear about what they’re trying to communicate.
Saying it regardless.
Staggering there and then here
on those
five,
six,
seven toed feet.
Willing to do anything to remain, the
Center of Attention.
Hacking sounds.
Piles left in hidden places
to be found
when others are present,
visiting,
or stepped on in the middle of the night.
Perhaps Hemingway was an Alien.
I can see him flicking his tail,
Certainty in his Being.
I provide for my aliens and they ignore me.
I put treats in their food to help their
skin,
digestion,
teeth
and they stare me down.
Really?
I’m not necessarily afraid of them, mind you,
even though I wake to see them sitting above me,
but it’s not like they’re my friends either.
They’re nothing like you and me.
They’re aliens.
That’s really all there is to say about it.

 

Holly Hughes teaches at Community Montessori in Boulder and completed CWP 1 in June of 2015.

“CWP has ignited a passion for writing in me that I wasn’t aware of before.”

/ Sarah M. Zerwin / Leave a comment

On Thursday afternoon, I invited participants to share some golden lines, their favorite lines of writing that they’ve produced so far this week:

For months, dogs chirruped about the sheer fact that Max had survived the situation at all, let alone that it would forever launch him into a sort of notorious fame. Max was considered one of the baddest prairie dogs in the history of of Rabbitbrush.

 

We are so good at circling each other / avoiding what needs to be said / that we come together like an explosion of startled birds / wings flapping, feathers ruffled / startled and angry.

 

There is only this loud memory that needed to be written. Needed out.

 

I clumsily grasped the reins with the hand already filled with the bit and the bridle. “Easy girl. Easy.”

 

Ultimately we travel alone and need to know the world through the eyes of our souls.

 

Perhaps Hemingway was an Alien. / I can see him flicking his tail.

 

The din of kids yelling and screaming around me contrasted with the silent shame that began to overtake me like a dark cloud.