Dear Writers

Dear Students,

        Thank you for being so open and honest and writing to me about your “writing selves.”  I very much enjoyed getting to know you better as writers, and as individuals.  Before I share some of the things I learned about you, I thought I’d share a bit about “ my writing self”. 

        I am a writer who writes with a purpose – usually, to communicate something.  I often write non-fiction and usually keep things pretty procedural.  Currently at home, I’m writing a journal to Poppy and even that is pretty straight forward.  I also have to confess that I do not love writing.  It is not my strength and I don’t spend much of my free time doing it.  However, because of this, I have made “To Become a better writer and writing teacher” a goal for myself each of the last 3 school years.  And I think my efforts are slowly paying off – but each year, it’s a lot of focused, hard work.  I take classes and read books to help me become a better writing teacher for YOU! J  And finally, I like to learn a lot of my lessons about writing, from AUTHORS!  I study the art of writing in the reading I do – and in the read alouds we do in class.  We’ll be doing this together all year! 

        So now, I’d like to share with you some of the MANY things I learned about the writers in our classroom!   Some things that came up often were that you need a QUIET environment in order to do your best writing.  I also read that you need private think time, help with ideas, you like to be alone, and that you need to slow down and/or to reread your work often.  I also learned that many of our classmates want to improve their spelling, handwriting, and they like to SHARE their writing! 

        Many of our fellow writers like to write about: family, animals/fish/pets, friends, funny things, and yourselves!  I also learned that the majority of you like to write fiction and use your imaginations!!  On that note, I learned that you too use other books, your imagination, and inspiring stuff in nature to help you get inspired to write. 

And finally, I was so happy to read over and over again how many of you LOVE to write!  How exciting for our classroom. J  We have many future authors in here!  It was refreshing to read how much you enjoy writing – I heard that it allows you to express yourselves, calms you down and motivates you, and even helps bring you back up when you’re feeling down.  How wonderful to know that writing plays such an important role in so many of our lives!!

Thank you again for your thoughtfulness.  I look forward to writing with you this year – both teaching, learning and growing together!

Love,

Mrs. Crowther J