SI Day 2: no less tired

The timeline I made about my journey as a writer.

A map showing the flow of writing in my classroom and school.

Day 2 of SI has been no less challenging than Day 1, although I feel like I'm starting to hit a creative stride. Yesterday, I made a timeline of important events in my writing life. I used pictures and words to illustrate emotions and poignant moments in my writing life. While I knew my writing life has been mostly about me avoiding a writing life, I really didn't synthesize the why until I worked with my writing group on a video interview. What was revealed to me was that my non-writing life wasn't just about avoidance or not wanting to be like someone, it was about fear of exposure. I have always worried that if I exposed how my mind works I would be vulnerable. Yet, I am so unhappy when I'm not living a writing life.



Another activity we did was to draw a map of both our classroom and our school and mark where writing happens and where it is display. Next, we put overlays on top and used markers to show the flow or process of writing. Once writing occurs, where does it go? Does it only go to the teacher? Do students share writing? Does what they've written in my class go into another classroom?  I observed a few key things on my map:

1. I do not display enough student work
2. I do not model writing by posting enough of my own work
3. I need to have more assignments that are meaningful to an outside audience
4. I need to encourage others outside our school to contribute writing in some way
5. I need more time to do all these things!

I do think that it's very important that my students see me as a writer, struggling for the best words, making mistakes, feeling unsure. I did start to do that a bit last year and it was successful.  There are so many thoughts and ideas swirling around in my head...

On to the INQUIRY! If I'm remembering what I was thinking yesterday correctly, I wanted to inquire as to the best ways to make daybooks a part of my non-traditional classroom. Since I do not direct the flow of activity in a self-paced environment, how to I help students to grab on to the habit of using the daybook as a thinking tool? I also think this ties into the idea of the flow of writing in the classroom. Where are their ideas going once written? How do I show students that writing is an extension of the thought process? I think the most basic place to start is by modeling. I need to show them my book and talk about how I use it and what the possibilities are. Then, I need to use it all the time as I work with them...write about our conferences and their questions. I also think it will be important to model the process of going back to notes and writing and culling for information and ideas.  This is a starting point. I know there is more!