
Common Core has seemed to clobber our classrooms with 8 to 10 feet of anchor standards, evaluation systems, testing, bullying, and so many other changes! How will we ever dig ourselves out?

Sit down and try something new in your writing. Maybe you can think of a new way to generate ideas. Maybe you can find a way of elaborating, or mixing images that are concrete and abstract, or of combining sentences to make meaning. Then, in the margin do some writing called a teaching story.
A teaching story is a 3-5 sentence reflection on how the strategy worked for you. Part of it is thinking how you would apply the strategy to your students. Sure, you were able to mix concrete and abstract images by saying, "I sent her all the patience I had," but how can you help 8-year-olds gesture toward this?
If you can figure out a way to do this, new learning is born! It's as invigorating as the first spring breeze--you know the one--the one you feel for the first time on a March afternoon!



It will make spring really feel like it's here in your classroom!