10.09.08
A Day All to Myself
Today is the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur and we have off from school.
I love my job. I really really do! Each morning I when drive in to work I find myself very excited about the day ahead of me. Though, as wonderful as the school, the students, and my co-workers are, it is nice to have an extra day in the middle of the week all to myself.
The only problem is that as I type this to you, I’m not exactly sure what I am going to do today. There are a lot of things that I have to do (thesis work mostly) and a bunch of things that I want to do (stop by Macy’s for a sale, work on my middle school novel, and have lunch with friends), but there’s just not nearly enough time for all of it…
I slept in a little later than usual, so that already makes the day feel a little more relaxing! I’ll try not to let myself rush, and I’ll just take things one at a time. It’s the best I can do; hopefully at the end of the day I will have accomplished some work, some writing, some relaxing, and some catching up with friends. I think that will be a very good day!
If you were given the day today to do anything you needed or wanted to do, what would you choose to do?
~Melissa 
09.27.08
Do you write to remember?
Several posts ago I asked the question “Why do you write?” I asked this question not because it was a new question, but because there really are so many different responses for why we write. We have reasons that are different from one another, but we each also have multiple reasons of our own.
In planning lessons for my students, I try to give them as many reasons as possible to write. I hope that through these opportunities to write for different purposes and audiences that they will develop an answer to the “Why do you write?” question for themselves, as well as foster the necessary skills to write well in a variety of situations.
At the same time, I am teaching my students other concepts beyond writing itself, and can’t help but think that writing with and about the concepts will also help them to remember these other concepts. We journal, we document, we archive, we write to record information, but does the act of writing ever help you feel like you remember what you wrote about even better? Does the act of writing about something create a relationship between the writer and that thing? (I am not necessarily referring to copying or taking notes in class – though there is a correlation there – but actually generating the ideas and writing them down.) I do think/know that it does for some people and to an extent, but I am curious to know what you all think and if you have certain strategies that you use which involve writing and remembering. Please share your thoughts.
~Melissa
08.24.08
New Category – “Education and School Related Things”
Well, there are just a few days before it is officially back to school. I will be going back both as a teacher and a student this fall…and this is the first fall that I have ever done so! When I went back to school for teaching, I went full time and did not work. Then, when I started working, I didn’t take any classes for the first year and didn’t take any the second year until the spring semester. Wow! I am feeling the excitement and anxiousness from both sides of classroom this fall! (I do have my first day of school outfits – one for teaching and one for graduate school – already picked out just like I did when I was a little girl!)
I am particularly excited to begin teaching in a new district this year and can’t wait to meet my students (as well as all of my new colleagues)! I am also pretty happy to know that I am (finally!) on the last phase of my MA and having the end in site is a great motivating factor. It has been a long and challenging process for me to work on this degree, so it will be especially rewarding when it is complete.
I will use this new category to post education related thoughts and updates on all of my new adventures. (Also, there may be some duplicate posts here from things happening over at my classroom blog, www.missmorrisblog.wordpress.com. Teachers especially may want to check that out after the first few weeks of school and see what we are up to over there.)
I hope that all of the teachers who read this blog will add some of their own educational insight and wisdom to these posts as well.
Happy learning!
~Melissa
