March Slice of Life Challenge Day 10: What Moves You?

For the month of March, each day I am writing and posting a slice of my life, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. 

March Slice of Life Challenge Day 10: 
What Moves You? 

I often return to Ralph Fletcher's classic text, Breathing In, Breathing Out: Keeping a Writer's Notebook (Heinemann 1996). In Chapter 2 Fletcher writes, "If I want to write movingly I must first pay attention to what moves me. I must be connected to it: I must be fused. That's what the notebook is for. It gives you a roomy space to record and explore what amazes, delights, disgusts, or appalls you."

 

Indeed, Ralph Fletcher. My notebook is truly a reservoir of what moves me - what captures my daily attention or feelings. For example, here's a snippet from a bit of Friday's notebook writing: 

Standing in the doorway of my classroom, I greeted seniors as they straggled in with their Starbucks coffee cups and earbuds dangling from their ears. Friday morning. 7:30. Many of them barely uttered a hey.

Just before the final attendance bell rang I heard, "Mrs. Haase! It's so glad to have you back!" Addie, a senior, brightly greeted me as she breezed into first hour.

"It's good to be back and see you, too, Addie." I replied. 

After being gone for two days of school, navigating notes from a collections of substitutes, it was great to be missed by a student. Her cheery greeting reminded me why I love teaching, even after being absent from school. 

March Slice of Life Challenge Day 1: Eleven Things About Me As a Blogger

For the month of March, each day I am writing and posting a slice of my life, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. 

March Slice of Life Challenge Day 1: 
Eleven Things About Me As a Blogger

In celebration of the first day of the 2019 Slice of Life Challenge, I decided to write eleven things about me as a blogger: 

1. My husband helped me come up with the name Trinarrative for my blog. This is a mash-up of my first name (Trina) and the word narrative. I wanted a name that had to do with writing with a bit of pizzazz. 
2. I began blogging in the summer of 2017; I am still learning what it means to be a good blogger. Click this link to read my first post. 
3. It is only my second year participating in the Slice of Life Challenge. After I heard Ralph Fletcher promote the Slice of Life Challenge at the Annual Wisconsin Reading Association Convention and read about it in his professional book Joy Write, I knew that I wanted to try it. 
4. My big brother, Brian, helped me set up this blog. My friend and colleague, Jeremy, has also helped me figure out blogging. 
5. I nearly always write my posts out by hand first in my writer's notebook before I type the post in Blogger. 
6. Last December I challenged myself to write a Haiku-A-Day and publish it on my blog. Among many other bloggers (including my friend Elisabeth), I accomplished this.  
7. Initially, I began this blog to reflect mainly about teaching and how I was learning as a teacher. To my surprise, I ended up writing a lot about myself as a writer, about my children, and even posting my own poetry.
8. I am often long-winded as a writer/blogger. I know that most people do not take the time to read anything long (like this post), especially in a digital platform. It is challenging for me to be a concise writer.
9. Blogging has helped me to be a more reflective person. It has made me notice more and when I look back on my published blog posts, I am almost always grateful that I took the time to write. 
10. I used to be incredibly self-conscious of every slice I posted on Blogger. I worried that someone would read my writing. I worried that no one would read my writing. Confession: I am still often uncomfortable with this. However, receiving and rereading comments has helped me keep going when I feel self-conscious about my writing (check out the gems writing pals left me in this post).  
11. Blogging has helped me have an authentic purpose and audience as a writer. I never knew how much I needed this.

I used Amy Krouse Rosenthal's brilliant The Book of Eleven: An Itemized Collection of Brain Lint as my mentor text.

Open this link to read my post from last year about my list of eleven things about me as a reader. 

Slice of Life Tuesday: Notebook Seeds

My last blog post was written nearly a month ago. 

A month. 

Back when I first started blogging, it was my goal to publish a post at least once a week. For the most part I succeeded in publishing a post each week. In fact, I surprised myself when I posted each day during the month of March for the Slice of Life Challenge. 

Following the March Slice of Life Challenge, I could seem to get my groove back into regularly blogging. I have published posts but not with as much confidence or fervor as I was when I was posting daily. 

Now I find that I keep wrestling with my inner writing critic. And I have not found passion in what I want to publish in a blog or publishing in another format. 

I am grateful that I didn't stop writing, at least in my notebook. A few weeks ago I came across a powerful quote from Ralph Fletcher's Breathing In, Breathing Out. I wrote it and taped it in the inside of my current Writer's Notebook as a reminder to myself to keep going: "Keeping a notebook is the single best way I know to survive as a writer. It encourages you to pay attention to your world, inside and out. It serves as a container to keep together all of the seeds you gather until you are ready to plant them. It gives you a quiet place to catch your breath and begin to write" (Heinemann, 1996). 

A reminder from my notebook

I have lots of seeds in my notebooks. Fortunately, I never got out of the habit of writing every day. But I am not pushing myself as a writer like I yearn to. I know I need to cultivate my work, but I cannot help but feel a little lost.

Fellow bloggers and writer, what gives you purpose to fill your writing heart? 


Join the Two Writing Teachers Community. Share your Slice of Life today! 

Slice of Life Tuesday: When Writing Isn't Fun

Back in March I wrote about hearing author Ralph Fletcher speak about his grandson Solomon and how he observed him playing with a toy in the bathtub. Ralph watched his grandson examine how a toy worked by lifting it, tossing it, sharing it, and flipping it, etc. - similar to how writers play with ideas. 

There is joy in play. 

I'd like to think that writing always fills me with joy, especially when I am in the mood to write and it is low-stakes and playful. But what happens when writing isn't so fun, even when you are simply trying to play with an idea? 

This happened to me today. I had all sorts of ideas of what I could write a blog post about. First, I set a timer and wrote everything that came into my mind. I lifted lines from books I am currently reading. I jotted lists. I combed through my writer's notebook for past ideas. I talked to myself out loud. I even attempted some sketching. Yet, each time I put my ideas in writing, I despised what I wrote. Every idea I considered today sounded so much better in my mind. 

Today, writing was anything but fun for me. Even though I examined and played with ideas in a variety of ways and I wanted to write, I felt frustrated. I couldn't make my writing sound like I wanted it to.  

I did not think that I was going to publish a post tonight. Yet in the end, it was mostly about just showing up as a writer and reflecting about what was hard for me today. 

This reminds me that living a writerly life is sometimes like this. My ideas don't always come easy. Writing is not always fun or magical for me. I think that these kind of days are important to share as a teacher of writers, too. 

Everyone is welcome! Join the Two Writing Teachers Community and share a slice of your life today! 

Slice of Life 2018 Day 31: Joy Writing

"A central goal of school should be to engender a love of writing and reading."
Ralph Fletcher, WSRA Convention 2018 

In the beginning of February I was fortunate to hear Ralph Fletcher speak at the Wisconsin State Reading Association's annual convention. He was inspiring, and I found myself hanging on each word. Nearly two months later, I am still lingering over his insights and on a story he shared about observing his young grandson, Solomon, at play. Young Solomon was in bathtub enamored with a toy - lifting it, flipping it around, sharing it, dropping it, tossing it. Ralph noticed that this kind of play is not so different than what writers do. As writers we often lift, flip, share, drop, arrange writing. What a great analogy! 

If you are familiar with Ralph's Joy Write, you know that he advocates for teachers to create a space for writers to participate in what he calls greenbelt writing. This is when writers have the opportunity to write about they want. No grade. No particular genre. No prescribed topic. No one tries to fix it up. Fletcher says that when we allow students the space for greenbelt writing that teachers see:

• engagement
• collaboration
• playfulness
• humor
• pop culture references 

I thought of Ralph's analogy often as I participated in the blogging Slice of Life (SOL) challenge this month, finding that I played more as a writer than I have in a long time. I lifted lines. I shared my work. I dropped ideas I didn't like. I tossed my words around in different sentences and phrases. I tried out different genres of writing. I was inspired by other blog posts and paid more attention to what was around me. Blogging this month was satisfying play. I didn't expect to find as much joy in participating in SOL. 

This past week my tween son and daughter and I were on spring break. We stayed in town, and I tried to limit their screen time whenever I could. To my surprise, whenever I sat down to write this week, my daughter and son joined me. My daughter loves to write, so this didn't surprise me about her, but it shocked me that my son wrote with us. My twelve-year-old son is emphatic about how much he hates writing, especially in school. Yet, this week he spent hours creating intricate comic strips, full of humor and voice. 

From afar, I listened to my children help each other, rehearse dialogue, giggle together, and hide their sketches and words from me. None of this writing was for school or for any special purpose other than my children simply enjoyed it. 

Quickly, I realized that my children were doing exactly the kind writing that Ralph Fletcher is a strong champion of - greenbelt writing. 

Sketch. Write. Play. Repeat.

One of the comics my daughter created

Part of a comic my son created

I was delighted to see my children play in this way. With words. With dialogue. With voice. 

Joy writing. 

Observing my own children play with writing this past week and reflecting on myself as a writer through the SOL challenge makes me wonder more about my own teaching practice. I write with my students. I find mentor texts for students to emulate. I pay attention to what students are reading and writing to guide my instruction. I allow for as much choice as possible. I try to teach writers in manageable chunks. I try to teach instead of just assign. Yet, I nearly always dictate the genre or topic. I don't assess every piece of writing, but I don't provide a lot of time for just play in writing. I am not making any kind of time for greenbelt writing in my classroom. 

Last August I wrote a post about why I write and some lingering questions:

• How can I help to empower my students to see how they can write their way out?
• How do I help writers find joy in writing?

As the end of the school year approaches, I find myself still grappling with these same questions, and I find myself with more questions to grapple with: 

• How can I infuse what I learned about the importance of play in writing with my high school students?
• Many of my students have not experienced a lot of success in school yet. How can I help them find success with greenbelt writing?
• How can I teach writers in an engaging way and still follow the curriculum?

One of the last things Ralph Fletcher ended his keynote with was this powerful sentence: "We may cover all of the standards, but if kids hate writing, it's not worth it." 

I still hold onto this sentence, too. It is curiosity that propels me to grow. 

Writing My Way Out

Writing My Way Out

“Nobody likes you. Go back to where you came from.” A popular boy from my class whispered this to me as I clutched my dime in my sweaty hand, waiting to buy a carton of milk. I’ll call him Tyler. It was my first day of fifth grade and just a few weeks earlier my family had moved to a new city on the opposite side of the state.

Based on what I remember, Tyler was unkind to me for most of fifth grade and his hurtful comments continued throughout my experience in middle school. Many of my classmates followed Tyler’s lead of how he treated me, like lemmings. I am not sure why Tyler selected me as his target, and I often wonder what kind of pain he experienced to make him disperse hurt to others.

That year I felt like I didn’t belong. I felt like I didn’t matter. I felt powerless to do anything to change my identity at school.

I was a mess.

As I look back now on my tween and teen years, I realize that fifth grade was when I began to struggle with the tension of desperately wanting to be visible-worthy of having friends who wanted to talk to me, while also feeling the need to be invisible-to hide the shame of being picked on and not having friends.

I believed the messages that Tyler told me.

I convinced myself that I did something to deserve his treatment.

Fifth grade was also the year that I started writing. As a going away gift, someone gave me a red diary, complete with a tiny metal lock. Although the lock could be easily picked and ripped off of the small diary, it made me feel like my ideas were private and protected. That diary was never far from my reach, often tucked into my Esprit tote bag or carefully concealed under my Lisa Frank stickered folder so no one would see me deviate from the standard “hamburger” essay about the American Civil War. At home my diary could be found wedged between the box spring and mattress of my bunk bed, out of sight from my mom or nosey big brother.

A glimpse into Trina's adolescent writing 

In fifth grade I couldn’t articulate the words that I needed to. I was ashamed that I was being picked on. I was embarrassed that I didn’t have any friends. I couldn’t talk about it out loud. Yet somehow I could muster the words to write about it. Writing helped me feel like I could talk about how I was feeling, even if it was only on paper. For me, writing helped me cope with my loneliness and bruised feelings and shame. What I didn’t realize then was that this experience helped me learn a great coping skill - how to write my way out. I am convinced that no one escapes from pain. Not really. Feelings of disappointment and sadness are inevitable. I believe that how we deal with challenges is what makes the difference.

Often, as an adult, I find myself dealing with much more heavy topics than unkind classmates. Although I usually write for myself, I craft paragraphs and stanzas about what makes me angry, what leaves me feeling perplexed, and what I’m grappling with in relationships, in teaching, in politics, and in parenting. Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within  (Shambhala, 2016), contends that writing is not the same as therapy. I agree, but I also believe that writing can have therapeutic effects. For me, taking the time to write helps me to show up as a better human being, especially when I am sad or angry. It allows me to name what I am feeling and to dig into my emotions in a safe way. I have found that when I have taken the time to write first that I am not as quick to make accusations and act without thinking.

I believe that writing is an important tool that can help us deal with how messy and painful and unfair that life can be.

I read Ralph Fletcher’s Joy Write (Heinemann, 2017) at the beginning of this summer. Ralph’s ideas have continued to loop in my mind ever since. It is a resource that I know I will come back to again and again. He encourages teachers to provide writers with consistent opportunities for what he calls greenbelt writing. In an incredibly simplified explanation (I apologize, Ralph Fletcher), greenbelt writing is low-stakes writing (not graded or as part of an assignment), providing opportunities for students to simply play with writing. This is writing where students have autonomy. He believes that in many cases we have taken the joy out of writing for students. Ralph Fletcher, I couldn’t agree more with you. In helping my adolescent writers to reach proficiency in the writing standards, I know that I have sometimes forgotten that writing is much more than simply meeting standards. I have probably given students the wrong kind of impression in my writing instruction - that writing is only about meeting standards. Reading Joy Write makes me think about how I can give my high school writers more opportunities for greenbelt writing. I want them to experience joy in the act of writing and playing with words.

Yet, I also wonder how I can provide writers with opportunities for using writing like I did as a kid (and as I still do now) - writing for processing and healing.

As a teacher of high school writers, these are two questions that I am currently grappling with: How can I help to empower my students to see how they can write their way out? How do I help writers find joy in writing?