Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Writing again

I'm lucky enough to attend Teachers As Scholars this year (do follow the link, it's quite an amazing professional development opportunity) and I'm taking a writing seminar (H36 - Creating Truths: Memoir and Personal Narrative). One of the best parts of Teachers As Scholars is that they acknowledge that not all of your professional development needs to be in your narrow area of specialty--they believe in the teacher as a multi-faceted learner.

I used to journal regularly, and while I willingly admit that many times it broke down into a list of the daily minutae a person could drown in, I have missed taking that time to write down my thoughts and reflections. During our seminar yesterday we had three free writing periods and about 95% of that time I was able to just dump my thoughts and words onto a page. The tricky part, of course, is that it's a writing course on memoir and personal narrative, so it includes a lot about real people and events. Here's the title of one of the things I was working on yesterday: "Can a youngest child and an eldest son have a successful marriage? A case study." I know everyone out there has some feelings on birth order and personality...let 'er rip! (of course I know we have a successful marriage, but it's funny to think of us just as our personality types and how they work together)

Here's a not-so-minutae tidbit: my principal and school secretary have both announced that they're retiring at the end of the year. Craziness shall ensue, I'm sure.

2 comments:

maryse said...

a few years ago, i took a creative non-fiction writing class that i really enjoyed. i haven't really kept up with it, but it was good to do something that was totally out of my comfort zone.

i'm the oldest and joe is 4th out of 5. i think we're a success.

Suzy said...

One of my professors loves having us do free writes almost every week. Admittedly, it is the only time I sit and write - you know, other than the papers I have due every week (not the same).

ADP and I are both middle children...although ADP's sister is only 1 min older than ADP.