Slice of Life Story Challenge

Slicer Participant Information Form

Stacey Shubitz

The Ninth Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge begins on Tuesday, March 1st and I can’t wait!

Would you take a minute to fill out the following form? It will help the eight of us keep track of who is participating in the Slice of Life Story Challenge. Further, it will assist us with timely prize distribution in April.

In addition, you’ll notice three new questions that deal with writing pods. In an attempt to make it easier to find people who have similar interests to you, we’re experimenting with writing pods this year. Once everyone’s information is entered into the database (which must be done by March 5th, 2016 to be in the running for a prize), I will email each participant a spreadsheet that includes each person’s username, blog URL, and areas of interest. For instance, someone might check off that they’re a mid-career teacher who likes to blog about their children who are under 18, their spouse, and cooking. When you receive the spreadsheet on March 6th, you can check for other people who blog about their kids, their spouse, cooking, and/or who are mid-career teachers. While we cannot guarantee that the people in your writing pod(s) will comment on your posts, it is one of our attempts at making the challenge feel a little smaller this year.

Please note: Kindly fill out this year’s form even if you did so last year since we retire our database each year.

Thank you!

Published by Stacey Shubitz

I am a literacy consultant who focuses on writing workshop. I've been working with K-6 teachers and students since 2009. Prior to that, I was a fourth and fifth-grade teacher in New York City and Rhode Island. I'm the author of Craft Moves (Stenhouse Publishers, 2016) and the co-author of Jump Into Writing (Zaner-Bloser, 2021), Welcome to Writing Workshop (Stenhouse Publishers, 2019), and Day By Day (Stenhouse, 2010). I live in Central Pennsylvania with my husband and children. In my free time, I enjoy swimming, doing Pilates, cooking, baking, making ice cream, and reading novels.

21 thoughts on “Slicer Participant Information Form”

  2. I stumbled on this form accidentally – even though I’ve taken part in this challenge for a few years now. I’d like to suggest you move it up for a bit into your “slice” portion of your blog. I’m looking forward to tomorrow!

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  6. Post-graduate school assignments are weighing heavy on me. Can my students participate even if I don’t participate in the challenge? Also, do the teachers respond to student writers or do students respond to each other if we have online forums?

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  7. I marked “other” on the career section and wrote in second career. I remember when I did 10 facts about me as a post last year, there were several who commented that they were also second career educators. I will also write poetry which was not listed – I know it is impossible to list everything! Looking forward to March!!

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    1. Believe me, I tried to think of everything. I could probably keep adding and adding, but I decided after travel (which was a BIG miss since I know lots of our international participants travel during March!), I decided to stop adding on to the list. We’ll see how this pod experiment goes this year. It is *truly* an experiment.

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  8. I hope we’ll still have the opportunity to comment on our choice and not limited to the PODs. Love the Travel and wished there had been Poetry.

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  9. It is not clear to me whether signing up for a pod would mean I would only receive blogs from those within the pod. If that is so, I choose not to be in a pod as I would like to sample a variety of blogs. Also…I am a volunteer commenter, so does that affect my pod status? Thank you.

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    1. When you receive the spreadsheet of everyone’s blog URLs and usernames on the sixth day of the challenge, you’ll also see a column (of the spreadsheet) that has people’s interests. It’s up to you to search that column to find people who have the same interests. From there, a pod can be formed. You never have to comment on any particular person’s blog at any time. We don’t mandate whose blog you comment on — ever. (We just ask that everyone leaves three comments for other bloggers each and every day of March.) Does that help.

      And, no, being part of the Welcome Wagon has nothing to do with being part (or not part) of a writing pod. They’re totally separate.

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  10. This will be my third year slicing. My sister is a writer and has followed me both years. She would really like to join the challenge this year. Does she have to be an educator to participate as a slicer?

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    1. Most people who participate are educators, but not all. She’s welcome to join us (so long as she’s over 18) for the individual SOLSC. If she’s under 18, then she should join the Classroom SOLSC.

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