And so it begins...

Today was back to school day for teachers in our system, and our students will have their first day back on Monday. It's an exciting time of year... thinking of new lessons to try, new books to read, new pens & pencils to write with! We're both reminded of one of our favorite poems to use at the beginning of the year, "The Unwritten" by W.S. Merwin.


"Inside this pencil
crouch words that have never been written
never been spoken
never been taught..."


Classrooms full of new students are kind of like those pencils. Who knows what brilliance will shine from them this year? They hold inside them words, ideas, & stories that have never been written, & quite possibly, never shared. That's one of the most exciting things about writing with students... to see them realize they have so much potential inside them! That they are indeed writers & have tremendous talent to share.

At The Carle gift shop we both purchased Take Joy by Jane Yolen and Mandy purchased The Day-Glo Brothers by Chris Barton & illustrated by Tony Persiani. We can't wait to use both with students!

The Day-Glo Brothers offers lots of possibilities to use during workshop time. The illustrations have a retro feel to them, and move from black & white at the beginning to bits of day-glo colors as the story progresses. As soon as we got to the end, we knew it was a perfect book to model endings for young writers. We've both talked in the past about how endings are hard to teach. This book nails it! It will be especially helpful with our grade level research papers... helping students see how to wrap important details back together in an interesting & meaningful way. For our science friends there are two pages at the end that explain how fluorescence & daylight fluorescence work. The author's note (Mandy's favorite book feature, by the way) could also be useful during research time. Barton recaps the process of chronicling the story of the Switzer brothers for readers beginning with how his interest in the brothers began and walking through his research process for the book, including his use of primary sources.