Sunday, March 10, 2019

Remember the Flowers #SOL19


I am participating in the Two Writing Teachers Annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge.  

Yesterday I spent  most of the day grading argumentative essays. As I was reading one student's paper, the tears came.

Earlier in the year I wrote this blog post on our Teach Write Chat Blog.

Back in 1978, I was an eighth grader, and the movie, Ice Castles was released.  I had this thing for Robby Benson (we share the same birthday!) so this quickly became one of my favorite movies. 

It is a story about a figure skater who becomes blind, and with the help of the character played by Benson, finds a way to skate again.  He prepares her for a big competition, but no one knows she is blind. (Suspend reality here!)  She skates a flawless routine to the theme song of the movie, "Through the Eyes of Love."

The audience gives her a standing ovation and begins to throw flowers out onto the ice.  She takes her  final lap, not knowing that the flowers are in her way.  She stumbles and falls, revealing her secret to everyone there.  Robby goes out onto the ice to help her and says, "We forgot about the flowers."


On the second day of school, I planned a "write-around" activity where I gave a starter sentence and students had to add on to the story.  Then we moved to another student's writing and added to that story. We moved four times to four different stories.  I thought this would be a great way to get kids up and moving while writing fun, silly stories.

Only I had one student who refused to participate.  I tried to coax him to write by telling him how much fun this activity could be. 

Still nothing. 

I came back to him and told him he only needed to write one sentence, just one sentence. 

Still nothing. 

So I let him be.  I later found out that he struggles with writing.  I was creating a space where he could stumble and fall, revealing his secret to everyone there, simply because I "forgot about the flowers."


The essay I read yesterday began with asking me to imagine a room filled with smoke, which led into his argument that kids should not smoke cigarettes. He told me that smoking leads to lung and heart disease, cancer, and even strokes. He gave me a statistic about how many people die from smoking and another one about deaths caused by second-hand smoke. He told me cigarettes have nicotine, and it's additive. He told me it was against the law to sell cigarettes to kids under the age of 18.  Then, he told me he had friends who smoke, and he was worried about them. He concluded with asking me to imagine a world no longer filled with smoke.

All this.

From a student who, at the beginning of the year, would not even write a single sentence.

Yes, there were tears, and if I could have, I would have thrown flowers.


14 comments:

  1. I am tearing up after reading your slice. Wow.

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  2. What a beautiful celebration Leigh Anne! Your support and guidance helped this student find his voice!

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  3. What a wonderful success story! I love that he has come so far. What really got me was the beginning. How often do we as teachers come up with activities that we think will be great fun but actually present terrifying obstacles for students? Your connection to the movie was brilliant and will be something I think about when I plan activities that could potentially set kids up to fail.

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  4. We don't know our students that well when they walk into our rooms that first week of school. Sometimes what we learn as time passes just breaks our hearts. We formulate plans, offer encouragement, build successes for the student, and miracles do happen. Flowers to you as well as this student.

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  5. Wow this is amazing. I love hearing stories about those students who have break throughs. They are so special and you will remember this forever.

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  6. Just like reading where you have to find the right book, writing we need to find the right subject. You were able to find that connection for your student - and you didn't give up! Kudos to you too! I'm sending you a bouquet,

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  7. Happy for you and especially for your student. I would throw flowers, too.

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  8. These are the moments that make all the hard parts worth it! I love your ending sentence and how it circles back to the story of the movie. :-) Nicely done!

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  9. Thank you so much for sharing! I love when we can see student growth over the course of the year. Good for you for celebrating this student's work!

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  10. Wow. What a powerful essay/idea your student shared with you. Thank you for providing your student with choices of what to write about!

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  11. Beautiful. So important to recognize the process and that writing and who we are as writers takes time to become.

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  12. Wow. Just wow! You must be so proud. Well done!

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  13. This is why we do what we do! So glad that this student was able to write so eloquently. No wonder you cried! I'm sure it was due to your belief in him. Flowers for both of you!

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  14. Such a celebration for both of you! These are the moments we have to hang on to when the world gets a bit murky.

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