Saturdays, Sushi and Writing (SOL Day 14)

On Saturdays I love spending time with my daughter, Rachel.  Today we went to one of or favorite spots for lunch to enjoy a little sushi.  After we settled in at one of the tables, Rachel looks and me and asks, "So what's happening in Valerie's world?"  I love how considerate Rachel is.  She didn't start the conversation by telling me what was on her mind or asking me for a bit of advice.  She wanted to hear about what her mom had been up to this week.

Life gets super busy.  Even though Rachel is in college, she still lives at home and commutes to a local University.  Our paths cross briefly during the week.  She spends a lot of time on campus and when she's home she's usually studying.  I'm equally busy, spending a lot of time at school either doing things in my classroom or attending various after school meetings.

In response to Rachel's question, I immediately told her about the writing samples that I had looked over this morning and how I'm a much better writing teacher than I was earlier in my teaching career.  It's the subject that I consider to be the most difficult and time consuming to teach.  I always feel like I wish I were two people during writing time in my classroom.  However, I've worked hard to improve my teaching practices around writing.  I work with a range of writers in my first grade classroom and working with early writers can be quite challenging.

One of the things that I love about the Slice of Life Story Challenge is that it gives me an appreciation for what I put my students through.  It causes me to reflect on my teaching practices in writing.  I'm reminded of the following things:

• Writers need writing ideas and inspiration.
• Sometimes there are dry writing days and some days the writing flows like a river.
• Writers need time to think.  When the writer is not putting pen (or pencil) to paper it doesn't mean  they are being defiant, they may simply be in the prewriting stage.
• When writers have an audience it motivates them to write and may also improve their craft.
• Writers need a writing space.  Sometime a change of venue may be needed.

Rachel, sat there listening intently as I talked about my early writers.  She is used to my students being the topic of most of my conversations.  The sushi has come and our conversations turns to food and things in Rachel's world.  I love this time we spend together.  Quality time with my 20 year old daughter, who just happens to be…a writer.  Rachel is majoring in Creative Writing with a minor in Graphic Design.