Skip to main content

Dear English III

Dear English III,

Thank you for your recent letters.  I cannot express how much I enjoy reading your honesty, your kindness, and your requests.  I sincerely appreciate that you were willing to share your thoughts and ideas with me.  Thank you.

To begin, I am thrilled by the number of you who are ready to read!  Some of you are regular readers, some relieved to return to reading, others highly reluctant.  Either way, you seem happy to have the daily moment to indulge and pick up some of that "free homework" stuff I've been telling you about.  Not only does this make my teacher heart happy, but it makes me excited about all the stories we can share and styles we can learn from this semester!  It also reminds me to read faster so I can get to your suggestions!

Additionally, I am impressed by your revisions.  You used some strong, interesting words to begin with.  Then, when it seemed it couldn't improve, you crossed your first thought out and replaced it with a more interesting, more precise word that made each sentence glow!  Let's keep that habit going; you may just be surprised by how far it gets you!

I also need to take a moment to thank you for your honesty.  So many of you struggle with the challenges of dyslexia.  Others have outside-the-classroom factors weighing on you.  Still others are fearful.  Please know that I hear you, I understand, and I am ready to help in any way possible.  Please also know that I believe in you.  Even when it's hard.  Even when it seems too much or pointless.  I know you are brave.

Lastly, thank you for your compliments!  You know, it is early in the semester, and you don't have to flatter me.  You are just getting to know me! :)  Having said that, you've already seen most of my crazy, and I think you know that I'm bringing that to class daily.  We gotta keep it interesting, right?

I hope you continue to grow as a reader, writer, and thinker this semester.  I hope I can assist you in doing so.  I cannot wait to see what you can achieve!  Let's get to work!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Friend

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dude. Be nice.

It's in the air like the scent of burnt popcorn from the teacher workroom fogging the halls. It's on our faces like thick blue cupcake icing that will never, never wash off.  What is it, you ask? The spring slide. The end of the year blues. The how-many-more-days-do-we-have weekly question. Yup, it's that time of year. It happens annually. Spring Break concludes, and it takes all of our patience and enthusiasm with it. Students go off for a week and leave any interest and motivation under the blankets where they slept their break away. We teachers leave our efforts to collaborate and abilities to reason in the pages of our reads and on the beaches of our trips. And there is just never. enough. coffee. Ever. That sad and disappointing part of the spring slide/endofyearblues is that it leaves us snarking at each other and our students. Our patience is minuscule and our tempers are pre-lit. And everyone - everyone - we encounter wears a target gleaming, waiting for our
4 comments
Read more

Mom, the Book Queen

Last year about this time, my momma came to my classroom. She was in town for another shindig, and I talked her into being a guest speaker. She was scared. I was excited! She was worried. I was thrilled! In the end, she was incredible! See, my momma taught me to love reading. I have never, NEVER seen anyone devour a book the way Mom does. My childhood is filled with images of her in the navy recliner, nearby lamp lighting the words she inhaled. She read those dense books with thousands of pages. She read those books with the Fabio-looking guy on the cover, his hair blowing in an imaginary wind, a desperate girl draped on his arm. And she read as many books as she could carry home from the library. Go, Rangers! In summers, Mom took my brother and me to the local library once a week typically. At first, I played in the children's section, listening to read-alouds and puppet shows and wandering between shelves. I made piles of books covered with illustrated dragons and puppy
2 comments
Read more

My Emily

One evening a few weeks ago, my almost 8 year old, Emily, was having a night. The scream, pout, tantrum kind of night. Drama was high, and I was doing my best to remain calm and avoid an explosion of anger or a fit of giggles. I'm about 50/50 when it comes to kid fights. I can never predict if I'll react in yelling or laughing. Anyway, this particular incident dealt with toothbrushing. I have come to believe that brushing one's teeth - at least at elementary age - must be akin to chewing shiny metal thumbtacks. Hearing my children protest, one may conclude that I torture them frequently with the help of Crest and Oral-B. This night was no different. Emily was NOT going to brush her teeth no matter what I suggested. Typically, she puts the paste on her brush, clicks two minutes into the timer, and off she goes. But not that night.  Her protests grew, her voice reaching higher and higher octaves as her eyes bulged and her face sizzled. She slammed her bedroom door. She th
3 comments
Read more