Slice of Life 2023: 25 of 31- How I'll miss her

It's March, and March is for slicing.  Anyone is welcome to join us through Two Writing Teachers, slicing, sharing, and commenting on other slices! 

  

ATTENTION VISITORS: 

If you leave a comment, please include your name in it! So often all I see is "anonymous", and I REALLY want to know who is commenting! Thank you!

My thoughts spin as I walk toward my car. I've been teaching in a second-grade classroom. The children were enthusiastic. Responsive. Excited to see me. Hanging on my stories and grateful for any feedback I gave them. Instead of teaching small groups, I'd pulled small groups to offer complimentary feedback. 

Look at the transition words the four of you have used in your writing. Between these pieces, I say words like when, a little later, after a while, and next. 

Look at the complex sentences you're using in your writing. You've written long sentences, combining short sentences with the little word and. That's an important thing writers do. 

Listen to the word choices you've made. You've brought your story to life by carefully selecting the exact word to make readers understand how your characters moved or talked. 

Students waited for me to tell them what they should do, and I didn't. Instead, I encouraged them to keep doing the wonderful things they're doing with vocabulary, transitions, and sentence structure. I loved the surprise on their faces for receiving only positive feedback. 

I think about this as I walk to the car. As well as the science teacher who doesn't like the current unit and is rewriting it, but I don't know how to enlist her to support a new teacher who needs a mentor. And I think about how I've been as a coach and if I've done a good enough job teaching a different teacher the components of a minilesson so that she isn't handcuffed to the curriculum, but instead is empowered to teach a purposeful and intentional lesson with clarity which is just what students need on that day. And why are all the students writing the same basic story and filling out the same basic graphic organizer? Thoughts continue to whip around as parents file toward the school, eager to pick up their children and begin the weekend. Everyone is familiar and no one is known, so I stay within my thoughts. 

I am only partially aware of a figure in a green puffer coat approaching me, and my busy brain dosn't pay enough attention as the figure walks into my path and stops short just before I would have crashed into her. 

"Hi!" says S. a favorite parent and a part-time tutor. She smiles, and then laughs when I stop short and gasp for a breath.

My heart races with that feeling of surprise, shock, or fear. "Oh my goodness," I say. "You scared me."

She laughs and puts her arms around my shoulders. "You were in your own world," she says. 

I was! 

"You gave me the story I'll write for tomorrow," I say. "Have a wonderful weekend."

It occurs to me as I watch her walk away from me how much I will miss her when she returns to Ukraine next week. How much I've enjoyed getting to know her. How much I hope she stays safe. 

All good things,