teaching writing

In the morning, we had a training on how to teach writing to our kindergarteners.  I found it helpful but especially like the curriculum we're now using.  This lady name Lucy Caulkins has written a series of books to help with the writing process for elementary students that are fantastic.  A coworker has come in and done several lessons with my students and I do a few with them here and there as well.  It can be a lot of work, particularly at first, but the kids are loving writing and that's really saying something since a lot of them came in not knowing how to hold a pencil.

This curriculum is so good that even I don't panic when I'm about to teach writing.  Writing has to be up there as one of my least favorite subjects to teach in the past.  Apparently, it was simply because I didn't have a good guide to go by.  Now that I do have a good guide to go by, I'm really enjoying it.  

Today when I was teaching writing later in the afternoon after our training was over, I showed my students this blog and showed them that even as an adult I still love to write and express my ideas.  We talked about how some authors even make money from their writing; this of course perked their ears up.  Whenever I ask who likes money you can rest assured that every hand will go up at once.

Also today, I got them all these really nice folders for their writings to keep them in one place.  They really loved them and I told them how a blank folder represented endless possibilities for their writings.  "Just think of how many cool stories you're going to fill this with?!"  It's funny how a simple blank folder can really get them fired up for some reason.  Plus it was raining cats and dogs today and we had a sub in the morning so they were pretty wound for sound anyway.

A high school English teacher told me that somewhere between kindergarten and high school a lot of students lose their love of writing.  I wonder why that is.  Is it simply seen as uncool all of a sudden?  I know of at least one middle school that has a creative writing course that looked like it garnered some interest in the writing process and like the kids really loved it.

I've always enjoyed writing personally, and do it fairly frequently, both with this blog as well as journal entries to God that are essentially prayers that I pray.  It has always helped me to focus my prayers for some reason.  It helps me focus for other things too as mentioned in a previous blog entry.  It's such a great vehicle to express my thoughts and explore some things worth considering.  It really helps me process some things that I'm currently reading, or process through feelings or whatever else I may be going through.  

A friend of mine recently told me I should write a book, and it's something that I've thought about before.  She said it could really be an encouragement to a lot of people.  Sometimes I forget that I live a fairly unique life with the bipolar stuff as well as all the travel experiences I've had.  We'll see, maybe someday, right?