2. Hello,
it’s me letter
Hello Mrs. Michaels, it’s me.
I am writing this letter to you, because you were
influential in my life. You were hands down the best teacher that I had in high
school. I was very lucky to be able to experience a teaching class in high school
and to have you as a teacher. You encouraged me and believed in me as a future
teacher even before I began my journey in college. I will never forget the day
that I received my college acceptance letters you hung them up in your classroom
wall. You are the kind of teacher that I hope to be, a teacher that invests in
their students.
Divorce
When we are
young it is easy to overlook the subtle change
That shifts the
core of a family. To us they were the superheroes of our childhood
And superheroes
are always busy; meanwhile letting blame
build up. What I
did not know then was that distance can make or break a family
And that fading
kisses are the first signs of dissipating love
And before they
knew it, less and less time was being spent together
When this song
plays I flash back to the day we all sat at the dinner table together
This was the day
that our whole family dynamic was forced to change
We sat there as
they explained it as simple as they could, but nothing is more complex than
love
The superheroes
had been defeated by divorce and it took a blow to our childhood
Dad choking on
his tears claimed we would always be a family
And crying mom said
no one is to blame
When situations
like this happen outsiders love to judge and place blame
but now it is easy
to see that they did not have their own homes together
They were too
busy judging us that they forgot about their own “perfect” family
They forget it
could happen to anyone because feelings change,
and a dark cloud
of tears lingers over your children’s childhood
And valuables
get divided down the middle even the products of your love
So many times I
caught my parents crying over lost love
Now here I am
ten years later and it seems so silly to hold onto blame
when they were
trying their best to give us a decent childhood
I know now that
love is not enough to keep two people together
Sometimes the hurt
is too great, and courage means understanding the need to change
They said you
will understand when you have your own family
But the mere
thought of creating a family
Makes me think
twice about falling in love
Because I have
witnessed how easy feelings change
And how quickly
sweet whispers turn into screaming blame
Being in the
same room is impossible together
My
experience in the classroom at the middle school so far has taught me so much
about student writers. The students in my classroom are working on a
multi-modal project over the course of several weeks. They have just completed
an annotated bibliography on a research topic of their choosing. While giving
feedback on the annotated bibliographies it was easy to see that there were
many opportunities for feedback, and I was concerned with a few of the student’s
progression of the project. The mentor teacher was very clear that she is
focused more on process than the final product. Patty McGee states, “We need to
ignore the instincts that move us to protect our students from risk taking,
vulnerability, and failure, and create safe opportunities to try, fail, and try
again without shame in order to learn” (McGee,2017,104). The students in my
class are being challenged to create writing that is more advanced and out of
their comfort zone, and they are able to complete the tasks asked of them. They
are able to complete these tasks because the teacher has created a safe space
for her students to take risks without fear of failing, and this is a principal
that I want to carry into my own teaching. My mentor teacher has also
demonstrated a classroom that is full of choices in writing, and she is
promoting creativity by allowing it. The students are working on phase 2 of
their project and they are writing a podcast script based on the research of
their topic. This unique type of writing is engaging to the students, and it
also allows a lot of choice in writing. This type of assignment also teaches
the students to write for different types of audiences and it breaks the
traditional “writing rules and single-minded structures” (McGee,2017,165). I hope
to use multi-modal projects such as this one in my own classroom, because I
feel that the students in my class have responded well to this approach. The
students get to learn more from the process of completing these writing
assignments and they have more choice in a multi-modal approach.
References
Mcgee, Patty. Feedback That Moves Writers
Forward - How to Escape Correcting Mode to Tran. Sage Publications Inc, 2017.
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