Progress?

On Friday I sat down with a group of kids for writing workshop, expecting the typical chaotic writing workshop that we've been experiencing. And yet...

They surprised me (these kids surprise me each and everyday so I don't know why I'm surprised by being surprised. Regardless...)

Now that we've worked on sequencing our board maker pictures enough they have the routine. They get what to do. They independently (or with less prompts than they normally need) cut out the words, sequenced the words on the paper in the right order, glued the words down, drew a picture to match their words, and wrote the words (in some cases they didn't need to trace the words- they were independently writing!)

It was one of those moments where you are scared to breath because you are worried that in one breath the whole beautiful event will blow away or come crumbling down.

It is amazing what happens.

I've worked hard on writing workshop this year, trying to maintain what I believe writing workshop should look like while meeting the needs of my students. It's working. Slowly but surely I'm seeing genuine progress. The connection between reading and writing, the ability to write words from the word wall, READ words from the word wall, sequence centers, enjoy books, interact with literacy- it is happening.

It was a long week and I'll admit, I'm not feeling overly good about our profession as a whole or my place in it. A friend recently commented that my blog makes her feel manic- and yeah, I know- that's how I feel I'm living- low lows and high highs. But this one moment- to see the progress, the small steps- the increase independence, pride and work skills- maybe something somewhere is working.