Finding the Positive and Possible Blog Changes

It was a two-day week this week, which one might think would be a breeze. One would be wrong. All things considered, the kids were pretty amazing. And yet, here I sit at 8pm on a Tuesday night after only working for two days and I'm ready to crash. Fascinating. I wanted to share some good stuff from our classroom this week and some possible changes around here, so I figured I'd write quickly before getting back to that crashing and sleeping bit.

Kindness
In regards to my students, most blog readers know I use quick writes on a daily basis in my classroom. Often these quick writes are images, poems, or videos. Many them also serve as what I'd consider life lessons. Today's quick write was on what we put out into the world and what comes back to you. I began with this Twitter post from author Andrew Smith.

The boys in that post are my students. The year has been crazy and I hadn't gotten around to teaching them how to Tweet until Friday. It's always an option, never required, and those two asked to tweet Andrew. There was no way we could have known he was having health issues and the impact their tweet had. Thus, I shared his post and this video today for our quick write.


I want my students to realize the impact of little things in this world. They think that changing someone's day involves huge decisions, but I'm a firm believer in little actions, little bits of positive actions, can make a huge difference in this world. Now I just have to hope that my students absorb it and use this lesson for good.

Blog Changes
In sharing my blog with my seventh grade students this week, one boy pointed out that at the top it still says, "Exploring literacy and reflection in the fifth grade classroom." Well, crap. I haven't taught fifth for three years. As I pondered that, he went on. He asked how my blog would change with this fiction book I'm writing. The kids know it's a romance book for adults, not kids. (And yes, they've asked to read it. And no, I've said absolutely not.) One asked how I would share that side of my writing life with the world. The answer? I have no idea.

While I've been posting here sporadically at best, I still love to blog about my classroom. So that won't be going away. What I don't know is what this blog will look like in a few months. I'm currently around 85,000 words into my book. After doing this much writing, it will absolutely be published in some form one day. Whether that is self-published or traditional, I have no idea. I will need to write about that stuff more as I get to it, and I want to share my publishing journey, as well as my revising journey, I just haven't figured out how that will mesh here. At the bare minimum, the blog needs a bit of a facelift so the "fifth grade" line could be removed. All that will be coming, I just have to find someone that can do it. (The original creator of this design no longer does this work.) If you have any thoughts on any of these topics, please let me know.

Wishing you and your family a wonderful holiday!