Posted Saturday March 4, 2017 by Stacey Shubitz323 Comments Slice of Life Story Challenge

DAY 4 OF THE MARCH SOLSC #SOL17

Welcome to the fourth day of the 10^th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! Delighted you are here!

If you’re participating in the individual Slice of Life Story Challenge, this is where you share your writing. If you’re sharing your students’ slice of life stories, then head over to the Classroom Challenge, which Beth, Deb, Kathleen, and Lanny are hosting this month. (Please see Deb’s post that went live at 12:00 a.m.)

A special welcome to the first-time Slicers who are joining us this year.

Each day you’ll find a section called “BE INSPIRED,” which will follow each day’s essential information. That section will include something like a link to someone’s slice of life story, a quote about writing, etc. Even if you’re back for your tenth challenge, please read through the essential information before checking out today’s writing inspiration.

A SPECIAL THANK YOU

Every year, we ask returning Slicers if they’d like to welcome new people into our community by committing commenting on New Slicers’ blogs daily for the month of March. This year, many people answered that call. This year’s Welcome Wagon volunteers include:

Diane Anderson, Linda Baie, Bev Baird, Ramona Behnke, Tracey Bogaards, Carrie Cahill, Katie Diez, Sally Donnelly, Leigh Anne Eck, Jennifer Floyd, Adrienne Gillespie, Holly Hanson, Aileen Hower, Maureen Ingram, Noël Kaczmarczyk, Jennifer Kesler, Jennifer Laffin, Susanne Leach, Kristi Lonheim, Jone MacCulloch, Chris Margocs, Fran McVeigh, Marilyn Miner, Michelle Nero, Alice Nine, Brian Rozinsky, Sonja Schulz, Shelly Surridge, Barbara Suter, Joanne Toft, Vanessa Vaile, Sarah Valter, Erika Victor, Ali Vrbas, Carol Wilcox, Vanessa Worrell

Commenting is at the heart of the Slice of Life Story Challenge community. We appreciate having so many volunteers to help first-year participants feel welcome in this online space.

Also, many thanks to Kathleen Sokolowski and Lisa Keeler for coordinating the Welcome Wagon team! It takes a lot of effort to recruit and match Welcome Wagon participants with new Slicers. Kathleen and Lisa have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure all new Slicers are matched with someone.

ESSENTIAL INFORMATION

Username:

Please use the SAME email/username information on all of your March comments.

Commenting:

Please include the permalink (aka: unique URL) to your post when you leave a comment. Click here and scroll to the “New to Slicing” section of the blog post. Once you arrive, you’ll find two visuals that illustrate an example and a non-example of a permalink.
- If you link your slice of life story incorrectly today, you’ll receive a reply to your comment from Beth Moore, who is handling tech support this year, or one of the other co-authors.
We worked together to create some comment guidelines. We may, at any time, remove a comment from our blog if it is inappropriate. Please refer to these guidelines when commenting this month:

Self-Promotion: Please don’t use your comment or link to your blog for self-promotion. The links in the comment section of our Slice of Life Story Challenge are meant to lead our readers to stories from people’s lives–not just whatever was on your blog that day.
Linking and Running: Please do not just drop off the link to your Slice without commenting on at least three other Slice of Life Stories. Comments are the foundation of this community. If you choose to link early in the morning, please return later that day to leave at least three comments.
Spam: It’s not just big advertisers who spam. Spam can include: Copying and pasting a comment from one post to another, or leaving a message such as, “Nice post. Visit my blog at…” This kind of comment is a form of spam. We reserve the right to delete comments that fall into this category.

Thank you for appreciating and standing by our guidelines.

If you’ve never posted a comment on TWT before, or if your comment contains more than one hyperlink, then your comment will be held for moderation. The co-author team and I will monitor blog comments a few times today so we can approve comments that don’t post automatically. Therefore, there is no need to submit your comment multiple times if it doesn’t appear after you click “post comment.”
- If you use the same username/email to log in when you leave your comment, your comments should appear instantly in the future.
- Tech-related questions? Contact Beth Moore at beth[at]elizabethmoore[dot]work.
If this is the first time you’re participating in the Slice of Life Story Challenge, please let us know that when you share your link as a comment.

If you have a Blogger blog, please make sure you’re using the “No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA” option or removing the security layers to make it easier for people to leave comments on your blog posts. Click here for more information about “No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA.”

Prizes:

Prizes will be given away at the conclusion of the month-long Slice of Life Story Challenge. You’ll be eligible for a prize if:

1. You fill out the participant data form, which went live on February 19th.

2. You comment ONLY ONCE on the daily call for Slice of Life stories (3/1 – 3/31/17).

3. You sign a Slice of Life Story Challenge Participation Pledge on April 1st. (We’ll post the pledge and will ask you to “sign.” You’ll sign by leaving a comment certifying you wrote and linked daily, as well as commented on at least three other Slicers’ writing daily.)

In order to be in the running for a prize at the end of the month, you must leave the link to your slice of life story by 11:59 p.m. EST to be eligible for prizes.

Only links left before 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time will count when you’re signing-off on the participation pledge on April 1st.

The call for slices goes up at midnight EST. Everyone has the same 24-hour window to post, regardless of the time zone in which they live.

Please play fair and leave only one link each day.

If you haven’t filled out the participant information form please do so today. Filling out this form allows us to keep a list of challenge participants and helps us expedite prizes in April. Only the TWT co-authors have access to this information.

Social Media:

We are using #sol17 on tweets about Slice of Life Story Challenge.
- NOTE: You must leave a link to your slice of life post on the daily calls for slice of life stories here at Two Writing Teachers to be eligible for a prize.

Questions:

Should you have questions about getting started with this Challenge, please contact:

If your last name begins with the letters A – G, please email Betsy, betsymhubbard{at}gmail.com.
If your last name begins with the letters H – M, please email questions to Lisa, lkeeler{at}stab.org.
If your last name begins with the letters N – S, please email questions to Melanie, meehanmelanie{at}gmail.com.
If your last name begins with the letters T – Z, please email questions to Stacey, stacey{at}staceyshubitz.com.

BE INSPIRED

Last month, Valentine’s Day fell on a Tuesday. As part of the Tuesday Slice of Life Story Challenge, Molly Hogan of Nix the Comfort Zone wrote a poem to her husband about a time he made the bed (something he doesn’t like to do). A slice of life story can be in poetic form. Check out Molly’s “Love Letter” and then try writing a poem today.
Click here if you need topic ideas.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

OTHER USEFUL INFORMATION

Stacey Shubitz View All

I am a literacy consultant who has spent over a decade working with teachers to improve the teaching of writing in their classrooms. While I work with teachers and students in grade K-6, I'm a former fourth and fifth-grade teacher so I have a passion for working with upper elementary students.

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).