Reflection

Thank you for restoring my love for writing.  I spent many years as a technical writer for a career because the graphic design industry (my first love) was too unstable during our economic recession.  I accepted the writing position mostly for stability but also for interest.  Writing technically for so long made me stop writing for pleasure.  Technical writing requires a different type of creativity; a rigid one.  It can feel claustrophobic at times and gets overwhelming when proper subject matter experts are not utilized.  So Much Research!

As a writer getting back into the art, I feel my organizational skills have grown.  After losing myself in organizational chaos, I felt I had completely forgotten how to organize facts, ideas, and thoughts.

The quick writes we did in class helped with fear, the individual demo activities helped with ideas, and the course reading helped with organizational processes.  I feel ready to write real blogs pertaining to real things now.  A long time ago, I enjoyed sharing a feeling or moment in time.  Now, I will focus on both writing to escape or venture to dreamland and writing to take action or support important issues.

Digital writing is fun.  I enjoy sharing ideas, thoughts, feelings, and information.  I will incorporate blogging in my classroom when I feel it is safe for everyone involved.  I will definitely be consulting seasoned teachers for advice on the do's and don'ts to include and avoid.

Overall, I feel more confident and eager to grow the skill within me and inspire others to do so as well.  I can't wait to read what my students share with me.  I feel that language arts teachers get the best insight to the real personalities of kids.  I am so excited!

Teaching Argument Writing

This book takes research papers from telling a story to conducting action.  It shares many examples of traditional research paper assignments where students would summarize various secondary sources but never apply any actual research of their own.  It focuses on writing about experiments conducted by the writer or observations viewed directly by the writer instead of writing about impersonal concerns irrelevant to the writer.  It describes how to get the writer more invested in the process of their own research to create a more personal opinion.  It explains processes to organize the writers thoughts for a fluid flow.

I enjoy the information from the book but wonder if writing based on secondary research is an easier way to teach argument writing at first.  I believe in proven experiments and observational research being very useful information shared for the purpose of redundancy.  However, I also definitely see value in the class experiment type writing suggested by the book where the activity gets students involved in a very real way about real concerns that affect their lives.  Anytime the project can be carried out in a fun relevant way I believe you will boost interest and a better products.

Overall, I like the book and clearly see the different process it encourages the teacher to teach writers.  I believe it makes the process more manageable and interesting.

What you see is not what you get

I finally found an asthma support group and I'm very excited about it.

Silent as a hidden foe
Asthma sneaks into control
Unknown not understood
What you see is not what you know

An incredibly lonely disease
With hidden symptoms you learn to cope
deflated cells fatigued muscles
bulged eyes adrenal strife

Calm gasps of air
lifetimes repeated song
flared nostrils strained
pulled coughs blare

Fish out of water
tossing clumsy reach
Figetting wobbly feet
But it's not what you think

Blinders cloud the eye
suffocation takes the wheel
but pain inside the vessel
has no strength to deal

Shaking muscles have no control
little air is left to flow
mental magnitude assures the breath
but it cannot steal the show

Health sees no cost
of oxygen over will
of lives confined within
and it never will