Katherine Bomer talked about celebrations this past summer at the TCRWP July Writing Institute. As I was planning my News & Announcements Charts for the upcoming week today, I found myself wanting to write about writing on four out of five of them. You see, I want my students to realize that their hard work will pay off… we will have a writing celebration at the end of the week. While celebrations are fun, they’re often hard to work into the schedule. In fact, I found myself wondering, “Do we really need to have a full-blown celebration this Friday? We have so much else to do.” I answered my own question with a sharp, albeit internal, YES!
One phrase Bomer delivered in her Keynote stayed with me and subsequently snapped me back into reality today. She said, “Celebration is the most important part of the writing process.” I agree with her 110%. Kids need to have other people read and respond to their writing, just like we do in the blogosphere. Furthermore, when we show kids how good it feels to get feedback on their work, especially after toiling away on one piece for a certain amount of time, it creates a great sense of community within our Writing Workshops. Finally, celebrations are fun!
So, all of that collecting the kids have done for the past three weeks will be brought to fruition this week. They’re going to work hard, but in the end, I know they’ll have had fun, will have learned something, and will be hopefully acquire a few new developing, revision, and editing skills along the way.
TWO WRITING TEACHERS 