Day 1

I love new beginnings. There is something so rejuvenating, so invigorating, so empowering about starting something fresh. Whether it's the beginning of a new year, a new relationship, or a new goal, new beginnings fill me with excitement, hope, and the feeling that I can do anything! (Well, almost anything.) Today is a new beginning...day 1.

I am a sixth-grade language arts teacher, and I have big dreams for my new parcel of pupils that will make their way to my classroom in early August. This year, I am not simply going to teach the do's and don'ts of correctly crafting the standard argument essay, informative piece, or sliver of narrative. This year, after we master placing the elusive end mark in every sentence, I want to teach my students that, whether they know it or not, they... are... writers.

To make this dream even the slightest possibility of reality, I realized that I could no longer just be a writing teacher, but I now had to become a writing teacher. In other words, just teaching my students how to write is not going to be enough. I, too, must write.

Sadly, when it comes to writing I epitomize the idiotic idiom that mocks, "Those who can, do; those who can't..." (I can't even bring myself to complete the thought.) In a moment of panic, I reached out to Jennifer Laffin from Teach Write. "Where do I begin?" I cried. Not only did Jennifer quickly respond to my desperate plea, but after an encouraging, thought-provoking, and inspiring conversation, she triple-dog-dared me to have my blog up and running, complete with my first post, by the end of the day. (Note: No dares were actually used in the making of this inaugural post.)

So here it is.

Now I need to go and figure out what all of these gadgets, navbars, and sidebars do.

Happy Writing!

Gail