I started keeping a Writer’s Notebook in 1997 after attending an Advanced Placement Summer Institute in Norman, Oklahoma. The presenter, Cindy O’Donnell Allen, had sections and lessons in her presentation about having students keep a Writer’s Notebook. I had “journaled” or kept a diary since I was a child, but this concept was different. It is not a diary, not a journal/diary. I embraced it because I liked the set-up and purpose. Why Keep a Writer’s Notebook From my notes, I gleaned these ideas about keeping a notebook: What we choose to record reflects a lot about who we are. We use Writer’s Notebooks to…
Year: 2018
Life After Teaching – A Revelation
I have been reflecting quite a bit of late about the place I am now in my life. I left my teaching career at the end of the school year in 2016. Now, two years later, I live at a much slower pace helping my husband with his businesses and providing the flexibility he needs in time and traveling. I did have a revelation recently. Something I had been trying to deny. While visiting with a friend, we talked about looking for jobs other than teaching. I commented to her that for at least the last five years teaching, I would look at the end…
Remembering Dad After Memorial Day
When leaving Wal-Mart the other day, I was behind an older couple who were moving a little slower than other customers. I patiently followed the couple out of the store and down the same parking isle. They stopped about two cars before mine. As I followed them out of the parking lot, I noticed the license plate for a Korean War Veteran, US Army. I wished I had noticed it before. I would have said hello to him and convey that Dad had been in Korea, too. I would have thanked the gentleman for his service, and hoped that we could have shared a moment…
May for Teachers
May for teachers is a bitter-sweet time of year. We are anxiously awaiting the end of the school year so that we can get started with summer. We are also saying goodbye to a group of students who have been with us for nine or so months. Students who have grown academically (we dearly hope), physically, and emotionally (again, we dearly hope). In my early years of teaching, I would write a year-end letter that I would give to my students on their last day with me. As technology progressed, my year-end letter became a DVD slide show set to music. The last few years a…
Daddy’s Birthday
Original writing: May 6, 2018 Sunday 7:04 a.m. Today would have been Daddy’s 85th birthday. Today is also the fifth anniversary of Granny’s (as known to my children) death in 2013. My step-mom passed away (died is such a jolting word to me) May 6, 2013. A few short days later my youngest daughter graduated high school. A little over two years later, on September 12, 2015, my dad passed away. From where I sit writing this morning, I can see the lilac bush from my Dad’s place that my husband transplanted for me. I can see it out the window of my sun room.…