Faithful Moon #SOL20

Each Thursday, Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche, posts a picture and invites others to write a poem from it. Her weekly post, This Photo Wants to be a Poem is a "low stress weekly poetic writing prompt." Today's photo is from Paula Bourque at LitCoachLady

Today's poem captures a sliver of what ended up being a very chaotic day - much more than what I thought when I wrote it this morning!

The faithful moon rises,

oblivious to the chaos below.

Grasp tightly to its beam of light.

©Leigh Anne Eck, 2020

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

Ode to My Heather-Grey Sweatshirt #SOL20

This past fall I attended NCTE in Baltimore. My roommate, Michelle Haseltine, bought a set of Rememory cards by The Storymatic.

"Rememory is a time machine, a writing prompt, a teaching tool, and a game--all in one little box. Draw one card from each of the three decks...and remember."
The slate set of cards decides whose life you are thinking about, and the coffee-colored cards tell the season of life. Both of these lead the writer to the door of memory, and the ruby cards open that door.

I have not used these cards yet and decided tonight would be the night because nothing else has come up as a slice. My cards were:

Whose life:  mine

Season of life:  night

Door of memory:  favorite article of clothing

I promise this is clean!

Ode to My Heather-Grey Sweatshirt

Oh, heather-gray sweatshirt, I see you folded at the end of the bed

discarded from the few hours I wore you yesterday 

after I got home from school.

The worn-out softness comforts my soul

after a long day with hormonal pre-teenagers.

I have held you in high regard for so many years

that you have become my after-school clothing of choice.

At the end of each day, I can't wait for our nighttime rendezvous to begin

My love for you oh, heather-grey sweatshirt, will go on forever

Or at least until you wear out, 

and I have to replace you.

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

The Next Step Forward #SOL20

Sometimes decisions are made that leave us with more questions than answers. This is my current state of mind as I question why a certain decision was made. This decision affects many people that I care about, especially my colleague, my sister, and my daughter.

I recently read a message to the person affected the most by this decision, and it said, "Remember to take the next step forward."

I know everyone involved needs time to adjust, but these words are powerful. When we have to accept decisions, we can't look back. It will only bring regret and anger and resentment. That is not healthy for anyone. But if we remember to take the next step forward, I have to believe that we can heal in time, and we can rise above those responsible. 

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

The Red Oak #SOL20

Earlier in the month, I read a slice by a fellow slicer, Dee A. Robb, whose writing was filled with beautiful words. As I was reading them, I began to picture and form a poem in my mind. With permission, I have written a found poem using her words to tell the story of a 200-year-old red oak. These words are not mine; I have only repurposed them. You can find the original post here at Can I Get Back To You?

The red oak

still

standing proudly

in the corner of the pasture

weathering decades 

of drought, storms 

and prairie fires

weeping tears of sorrow 

from the civil war

enduring the turn of two centuries

surviving the despair 

of the great depression

and the wars of the world

whispering the words

perseverance, 

persistence

and the goodness of 

what life has to give

still

it remains

a solid sentinel

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

Noticing What I Need To #SOL20

A friend of mine on Facebook replied to a recent post with, "You notice what you need to." 

I am a bath person, and I have used Dr. Teal's bubble bath for several years. I use the Soothe and Sleep...don't that just make you want to soak and go straight to bed?

Last week when I was shopping, I noticed that Dr. Teal has a sleep lotion with melatonin and essential oils. Because of my love for the bubble bath, I just had to try it.

The first night I used it, I woke up the next morning thinking about how well I slept. I don't think I moved the entire night. And then the next night and the next. One night I missed using it, and it seemed that I didn't sleep as well. Or did I?

I began to wonder, does this stuff really work or am I just "noticing what I need to?"

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

Spring Wanted #SOL20

What I Want

What I want is
A sign of spring

To wash away
Winter’s salt

What I want is
Longer days filled

With sunshine
To kiss the tips

Of the daffodils peaking
From beneath the frozen ground

To nudge the buds
From their winter nap

To fully awoke
tulip 1, tulip 2

I used the mentor poem "What I Want Is" from C.G. Hanzlicek to write this poem for a poetry challenge. 

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

I'm THAT Teacher #SOL20

"Oh, you're THAT teacher." Anyone ever heard that? Or maybe you have said, "Oh, she's THAT teacher."

In our #100DaysofNotebooking group, someone shared a page with this prompt. So, today I share what makes ME that teacher.

I'm THAT teacher...

• who has piles (upon piles) on her desk.
• who has too many tabs open on her computer.
• who has a TBR pile that is uncontainable.
• who has chocolate stashed in her desk.
• who will stop and ask what are you reading.
• who would rather buy books than clothes or shoes.
• who won't share her favorite pens.
• who will always give students a pencil when they don't have one.
• who believes in the possible!

How are you THAT teacher?

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

A Snowmanless Winter #SOL20

It's March, and I should be thinking about flowers and green grass and redbud trees and forsythia. 

Not snowmen!

After Thanksgiving, we had our annual Christmas door decorating contest at school. My door had a snowmen theme. Each student in my homeroom made a snowman face and decorated it in a silly way. The sign said, "We are all snow unique."

When we returned in January, I thought I would leave it up for a while longer. A few weeks passed and people were asking, "Mrs. Eck, when are you taking those snowmen down?"

"Oh, I think I will leave it up until we have a snow day," I said.

The snow day never came.

February came. "Mrs. Eck, when are you taking those snowmen down?" they asked.

"I'm keeping them up until we get at least a 2-hour delay."

The 2-hour delay never came.

But the snowmen came down today.

And spring had better come! 

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

Living Under a Rock #SOL20

I live under a rock. Most days I am ok with that, but I do miss out on some situations that my students are going through because not much gets underneath that rock.

Today we had an Edcamp PD that combined our high school and middle school teachers. We do this twice a year, and it is always nice to sit in on sessions with everyone together. I attended a session about vaping, and my eyes were opened and blinded by the light coming out from my rock.

Our guidance counselor had a bag of vapes that had been confiscated from our middle school students. I could not believe what I saw and learned. Vapes come in all different kinds and sizes. Some look like jump drives, highlighters, and pens. They have hoodies where they can hide the vapes in pockets and even in the strings. They have cleaned out the insides of markers - dry erase, highlighters, and Sharpies, and put the vapes inside. They are very sneaky.

It is believed that 50% of the student body, both at the middle school and at the high school, vape. This is a staggering statistic to me. We are looking into a program that teaches students the dangers of vaping, as they are not learning anything from punitive consequences. But we have a long way to go.

It is information like this that makes me grateful that I have raised my children, and they are not exposed to these temptations as teenagers.

And some days, I don't mind living under that rock.

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

A Book You Haven't Read Yet #MGBOOKMARCH

I am joining folks at MG Book Village on Twitter to share some middle-grade book love this month. Each day has a different prompt, and people share their favorite book that fits that prompt. What a great way to learn about new titles and add to my TBR list. Here is day three!

Book you want to read but still haven't.

Oh my, I have boxes and boxes of books I want to read but haven't yet. But if I have to pick one, it would be this one.

Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams

I sat at a round table with this author at NCTE, and she was simply delightful! I finally ordered the book recently - but haven't gotten to it yet.

From Goodreads: This novel tells the story of a thirteen-year-old who is filled with self-loathing and must overcome internalized racism and a verbally abusive family to finally learn to love herself.

Maybe now that I have publicly said this, I will get the job done!

I Remember...My Wedding Day #SOL20

Today I mined my notebook and found a series of "I remember..." entries. I expanded a few of them to write the story of my unconventional wedding day.

I remember the night I got married. 

          There were no invitations.

I remember telling my sister we were getting married, and she asked when. 

          I said tonight at 7:30.

I remember borrowing a camera. 

          I wish I had known the film wasn't in right.

I remember saying "I do."

          The church was empty.

I remember walking into Dave's mom and dad's house all dressed up, and she asked where had we been.

          We said a wedding.

I remember she asked whose wedding.

          We said ours.

I remember her crying.

         Dave was the only child out of seven she didn't see get married.

I remember her hugging me.

          I was welcomed into the family.

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

A Book that Deals with Mental Illness #MGBOOKMARCH

I am joining folks at MG Book Village on Twitter to share some middle-grade book love this month. Each day has a different prompt, and people share their favorite book that fits that prompt. What a great way to learn about new titles and add to my TBR list. Here is day Two!

A book on mental illness:

So B. It by Sarah Weeks

Again, there are many I could have chosen about characters with mental illness. So B. It. Although this is an older title, it is the most recent one that I have read.

A lot of dots go unconnected in this book for me, but it is still a beautiful story of a girl trying to find her roots. Heidi lives with her mother who is mentally disabled, and both are cared for by an agoraphobic neighbor. Her mother keeps repeating a word that makes no sense to Heidi, so she sets off across the county to find out who she is, where she comes from, and maybe what the word means. Sometimes the answers we so desperately want or need, aren't what we thought they would be. So B. It is a perfect middle-grade book.

A Parenting Failure #SOL20

Parenting is hard work. And in one area of parenting, I have totally and completely failed.

Read on and see if you can guess what it is.

Yesterday, my teacher-daughter was reading an email and announced, "Oh, we have a carry-in on Wednesday. It is social worker week. What can we make?"

"Want to try that again?"

So, she tried again, "What can you make?"

"Umm...one more time?"

"What can I buy?"

And this is the life of a single girl whose mother never taught her how to cook and still lives at home!

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

A Book that Features a Journey #MGBOOKMARCH

Not that I need another challenge in my life right now, but I am joining folks at MG Book Village on Twitter to share some middle-grade book love this month. Each day has a different prompt, and people share their favorite book that fits that prompt. Sounds easy enough! And what a great way to learn about new titles and add to my TBR list. Here is day one!

A book that features travel or a journey:

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

In this novel in verse, Jude and her mother leave their brother and father and their home in Syria to journey across the ocean to the United States. As Jude begins to adjust to the fast-paced life in America, she finds herself with a new identity - "Middle Eastern." She makes new friends, meets new family members, tries out for a part in the school musical, and finds out how lovely it is to be part of something bigger than herself.

"Hoping,

I'm starting 

to think,

might be the

bravest thing

a person can do."

Other Words for Home is a beautiful journey about hope and love and courage.

What are your favorites books that have taken you on a journey? 

And so it begins... #SOL20

Once upon a time, there was a notebook. She was a black Moleskin lined notebook with a pocket in the back that could hold ephemera, a ruler, and stickers, an attached bookmark ribbon for keeping her writer's spot, and a matching elastic closure. The pages were heavy so the ink wouldn't bleed or ghost through to the other pages.

The perfect notebook for a notebooker wannabe.

Sadly, this notebook sat empty for months and months because the writer was afraid. Afraid of making mistakes. Afraid of not having anything to write, and afraid that what she did write wouldn't be perfect.

These fears, which are common among many writers, are detrimental to the writing process, so she decided to join a group of other notebookers (386 to be exact) to challenge herself to write for 100 days. Yes, 100 days! The notebook was a little skeptical because the writer had never been committed to any notebook. Why should this be any different?

But the writer is doing it! She has written for over 50 days! Yes, she missed few days here and there, but showing up to the page has become a habit.

Now, this writer is trying to decide what to do with all these entries. Some of them are snippets of her day, rants, all kinds of lists, ideas she has tried out for the first time, poems, quotes from books, and her thinking about books she has read. She knows there are stories hidden within the pages and tucked in among the words. She is ready to do the work she asks of her students:  to mine the pages and look for the golden nuggets, to find the stories, and to share them with her writing friends and maybe even a stranger.

She is ready to join the Slice of Life Community for the 7th year. And I can't wait to read her stories!

Please join Two Writing Teachers and the annual Slice of Life March Challenge.

Unfamiliar Territory

I have four days to get my slicing muscles back into shape before the March challenge begins. And let me tell you, they are most definitely out of shape. I must remember that it is a marathon and not a sprint because slicing is not something that I have kept up with. At the end of each March, I always say I am going to keep on slicing throughout the year after writing for 31 days.

But then I don't.

I am dragging out the "equipment" in the form of my blog, prompts, notebooks, memories, and whatever else it is going to take to turn writing a slice back into muscle memory.

Today I went to Gary Anderson's blog to look at his long list of prompts while I begin my training. This one caught my eye:

"Tell about unfamiliar territory."

A word popped into my thinking this week. A word that is unfamiliar to me. A word that I don't think I have given much thought to nor even had a discussion about.

Retirement.

That word does not roll off my tongue easily and leaves a taste in my mouth that I don't quite recognize. 

I began to think and question. How many more years do I have in me? Do I want to leave the classroom while I am still somewhat on top of my game? Do I wait until I no longer enjoy it? Am I ready? What would I do? How will I know when I am ready? Is it retirement or just a wanted/needed change?

I am unsure of these answers as of right now. But what I do know, is that I have never thought about retirement until recently. Maybe it's a sign. 

Whatever it may be, it is certainly unfamiliar territory.

Middle School Love Note #PoetryFriday

My one little word for 2020 is commit. I have made "10 Commitments" and one of them includes participating, supporting and engaging with my social media communities. Poetry Friday is one I have participated in, yet not very consistently. When I saw that Linda's round-up post was all about hearts and love and Valentine's Day, I decided to share the poem that I wrote for Sarah Donovan's 5-Day Poetry Challenge.

The poem prompt was from "Twenty Questions" by Jim Moore. I wrote about the innocent yet anxious time of middle school love. 

Middle School Love Note

Do you like me?

Do the butterflies begin to flutter the minute the bell rings?

Or does your stomach rumble because your breakfast is already gone?

Do you quickly glance to see if I am looking as we pass each other in the hall?

Or do you avoid my gaze?

Does your arm tingle when our elbows innocently touch while shutting our lockers?

Or do you think the bump was clearly an accident?

Do you write my name in the middle of your notebook so no one will see it?

Or do you even know my name?

                Or how to spell it?

Do you wish you had my scrunchie around your wrist?

Or do you wish I had short hair?

Does the teacher call on you when she catches you daydreaming about holding hands in the bleachers of the high school basketball game?

Or are you dreaming about making the last second shot?

Does your face turn red when I walk into the classroom?

Or are you too busy messing around with your friends to even see me?

Does your heart skip a beat when you read “write a poem” on the objective board?

Or do you roll your eyes disgusted with thought of writing about your feelings?

                Or do you even have feelings?

Do you like me?

Or did I already ask that?

© Leigh Anne Eck, 2020

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR

Jen Vincent at Teach Mentor Texts and Kelle and Ricki at Unleashing Readers co-host It's Monday! What Are You Reading? Be sure to stop by and see what others are reading and recommending this week.

My one little word for 2020 is commit. I have made "10 Commitments" and one of them includes participating, supporting and engaging with my social media communities. #IMWAYR is one I have participated in, yet not very consisently. I hope to be more committed to not only my reading life but to also sharing it!

Here is what I read the last two weeks:

Allies by Alan Gratz

I have loved everything that Alan Gratz has written, and Allies was no different. He has this knack of creating several characters and intersecting their stories. I wish he would now write the story about the two girls at the end of the book. They deserve they own title!

The Toll by Neal Shusterman

The much-anticipated conclusion to the Scythe series was quite the read! The first 200 pages were frustrating for me as I was trying to remember things that had happened in the previous books. But after that, the story was the perfect ending to a must-read trilogy.

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

The Crossover as a graphic novel added a nice touch to a beautiful story about the importance of family. I did feel that the poems lost some of their effect in this format, but the addition of the illustrations was perfect. 

On my reading radar this week:

Happy Reading!

#100daysofnotebooking

Have you ever had someone share an idea with you, and you think, "Oh yeah, that would be fun!"?And then that idea grew like a snowball rolling downhill.

That is exactly what happened when Michelle Haseltine told me about her 100-day notebook challenge. It was a simple concept - write in your notebook every day for 100 days and share it on social media. Michelle's goal was to help others develop a meaningful habit of writing and to discover the power of writing and the joy it can bring.

But it has created a writing revolution.

I started my day writing about my one little word and posted it in the #100DaysofNotebooking Facebook group and on Twitter. Twelve hours and 160+ members later, writers are still posting and tweeting and sharing and commenting and inspiring and encouraging each other.

People have posted inspiring notebook pages full of one little words, thoughts, dreams, vulnerabilities, pain, and artwork. The community that has evolved from this little idea is inspiring.

Who wouldn't want to be a part of this!

As a member of #TeachWrite, I believe that teachers who write make better writing teachers. But I also believe that writing makes us better humans. One thing I learned from the events of today is that people want to write. People want to share their words. People want a community.

I don't know where this will lead, but I am honored to be a part of it.

If you are interested in learning more, check out Michelle's website here. It is not to late to join us!

Reflections on #onelittleword2019

As I begin to cross the threshold to a new year and a new decade, I pause to reflect on my one little word for 2019. When I chose this word, I did not...gasp...write about it! 

And I'm not sure why. Reflection is such a big part of who I am and the way I make sense of my world - all parts of it. And reflective writing is what this blog is all about.

I had ideas that needed to start with small things but could have the possibility to create many ripples. In the latter part of the year, the stones I have tossed seemed to have plopped and sunk to the bottom, causing a very little ripple, if any at all. I began asking why? Deep down I know the answer.

I believe there is a direct correlation between writing and reflection and the effectiveness of our one little words. How can a word guide me through the year when I have chosen not to write about it or reflect on it along the way?

Some years, words just don't work out, and I'm OK with that too. It seems that I do better with a one little word that is a verb, an action. I have a word chosen for 2020...and yes, it is a verb. I look forward to putting this word in action starting tomorrow with the #100daysof notebooking challenge with Michelle Haseltine. Check out Michelle's site for more information and to join me along with over 100 other teacher-writers!

I like new beginnings. And I am ready with a blank new page! 

Welcome, 2020!