Bittersweet: Childhood Reflection

A word that always had a lot of power for me and my sister as kids was “bittersweet.” We threw that word around with wild abandon. Everything we liked the most seemed to be poignantly sad yet beautifully joyful at the same time. “Bittersweet” has been coming up a lot for me lately as I deal with grief for my Grandpa.

Piece of Me Identity Reflection: I Am A Writer (among other things)

I love the paradoxes of writing, the quiet chaos of writing, the energized calm of writing; I am silent and still and yet my mind is noisy and active.

A Break in the Hedge: Childhood Reflection

A girl bears a sturdy stick which she uses to chop at the branches, heavy with leaves, drooping around her. She is trying to cut a path into the clearing between two forsythia bushes.

The Blue Truck

1980s nostalgia, dirt roads, and John Cougar Mellencamp. This is a piece about my dad. The Blue Truck “Ouch!” Dad says sharply as we start rolling the car over the gravel road. “Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Do you hear all those rocks jumping up and biting the bottom of the car? They’re saying ‘Stop driving over…

Christmas Eve: or Yes, I AM Continuing My Experiment

I don’t have a class with ISU this semester, but I decided that I’m going to continue making assignments for myself that I will share on this blog. My plan is to give myself weekly writing prompts that I could use with future classes. By the end of the spring, I’ll have a bunch of…

I Hate Josh Armstrong: Mistake Essay

I’m in Spokane for the RMMLA and I still managed to get my essay on a mistake I made written. Take note, students. I Hate Josh Armstrong I’m in Mr. Fox’s 7th grade social studies class. I am the shortest kid in class. I have short brown hair, massive bangs curled under and sprayed into…

No Room For Hate: Values Reflection

This is the first assignment I ever wrote with my class. It was the fall of 2014. At the time I was trying out a very spontaneous teaching style, where I would wait to do the reading until right before class that way I could be really fresh and in the moment during discussion. For…

Troop #427: Description and Reflection on a Community I Belong To

This week my students and I are writing about an experience that made us feel like we were a part of a community. I wrote this one last fall as an example about going creeking with my girl scout troop. I got to practice William Zinsser’s idea that “memoir is the art of inventing the…

Revised and Developed Version of My Childhood Object Reflection: I Am (Not) Fire. I Am (Not) Death.

After the work I did yesterday, I managed to finish developing my childhood object paper and have a solid draft, thought probably not 100% pristine. As usual, I could probably make more changes and get it even better, but I want to have something to make available to my students ASAP; I don’t have an…

Revision Work Day #1: Developing My Reflection on a Childhood Object

For my students’ next papers, they will be revising and developing one of the three papers they have written so far. They are supposed to aim to double the length, which will be around 4-5 pages. Peer Review Activity: Snapshots, Thoughtshots, Exploding a Moment Today we did a peer review activity where they went through…