Month: November 2012

Thanks to my RSS feed….

scm

I was reading Sonia Terborg’s post this morning, a review of a book about working with young writers. I’m always looking for new ideas, and Sonia’s detailed explanation sold me. Within minutes, I had paid for and downloaded Workshops Work by Patricia Zaballos.

Now, in typical fashion, I’ve spent far too much time on Patricia’s blog, too. A homeschooling mom, she offers so many wonderful examples for writing, project-based learning, and “unschooling.”

I am looking forward to a full day of reading:)

Teachers Who Love to Learn

scm

I’ve just spent the day at Collegiate School in Richmond, working with teachers on inquiry learning. I came away knowing the students at Collegiate are in good hands. Good hands.

And that’s such a good feeling. As I watch twitter, read blogs, and browse news headlines, it’s easy to get discouraged. About kids, teaching, school. Life. But today I was able to work with teachers who are digging deep to find ways to reach kids. It’s not so hard, is it? We know what matters. And it’s not the tests we give at the end of the year.

We spent some time talking about questions…and this popped up in my reader today:

“It is not that I’m so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.”
― Albert Einstein

Yes, the questions.

scm

Praying

by Mary Oliver

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Sharing/Learning/Gathering

scm

For too many reasons, I was exhausted yesterday. By the time my writing group rolled around, I was on fumes. So much I could hardly appreciate the poetry I’d worked so hard on the past few weeks.

Today, awake and refreshed, I started to write from a prompt I’d found on gathering/letting go. I assumed I’d focus on the letting go, the cleaning the cobwebs from the brain stuff.

Yet, in typical fashion, I began to read. One link took me to another, just as I stone-jumped over the stream in the mountains. I ended up here, on Mary Pierce Brosmer’s blog.

Stunned for a moment, I paused, letting her poetry wash over me. And then I read about her organization (founded in 1991 no less). In some ways, she has been in my head for such a long time. Her ideas resonate so clearly, so powerfully.

The gathering–of ideas, of thoughts, of possibilities–all sit here with me. So no poem today. But the gathering has been good.

 

 

Writing prompt