For National Poetry Month, I am writing poems inspired by words, sentences, or ideas in Virginia Woolf’s Diaries. In an attempt to keep depression at bay in 1926, Virginia Woolf uses several entires to try to capture her “state of mind” as she feels “the waves” rolling over her, trying to drown her. I was…
Remote learning began officially this week for the children of many of my parent friends across the country. And as they report on how it’s going, I can only wonder: what are we doing? So many children in tears. So many parents in tears! Fifth graders who have to access six different online platforms to…
For National Poetry Month, I am writing poems inspired by words or lines in Virginia Woolf’s Diary. Woolf writes longer-than-usual entries in early May 1926, as she chronicles the General Strike that led to workers in many unionized industries striking in solidarity with miners, who were being told they must take a pay cut and…
I’ve decided to revive one of my old blog series under a new title. I consume ridiculous amounts of the Internet each week, and The Sunday Six will curate six articles that I think are worth sharing from my reading over the past week. Antero Garcia argues that we need to stop focusing on the…
For National Poetry Month, I’m writing poems inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Diary. The slow pace of my initial close reading has picked up, and now I am reading great chunks of the diary each day–and feeling fussy that I can’t find Volume 4 anywhere on my shelves. For some unknown reason, I have three copies…
For National Poetry Month, I am writing poems inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Diary, Volume 3 1925-1930. For someone who longed for the pleasures of solitude, Virginia Woolf spent an awful lot of time in company. Her diary of spring and early summer 1925 details an apparently endless round of visits, dinners, and engagements, and it…
Before yesterday, I had never so much as heard of an etheree. I discovered it by reading Mary Lee Hahn’s lovely Gratitude poem, written for her April poetry challenge, The Flipside. Her post sent me to the original prompt from Liz Garton Scanlon. And I notice today that my friend Glenda Funk shares a bit…
For National Poetry Month, I will be writing poems inspired by entries in Virginia Woolf’s Diary Volume Three: 1925-1930. For more ideas for designing an April writing or creativity challenge for yourself, see my post, Looking for an April Creativity Challenge?. I am still working through VW’s very rich entry from Wednesday 8 April 1925.…
It’s April, and that means it’s time to write poetry. I had some trouble this year deciding what I wanted to do. Join a challenge? Design my own project? Follow the day’s whimsy? I found myself drawn to several different poetry projects, but the one I couldn’t stop thinking about was Christie Wyman’s Thoreauly Inspired.…
April is National Poetry Month, and it’s also National Poetry Writing Month. Check out NaPoWriMo for a daily prompt, resources, and encouragement. Robert Brewer shares a daily prompt and participants “poem with poets from around the world” at Writer’s Digest PAD Challenge. EthicalELA hosts a 30-day poetry challenge. A prompt will be posted each morning…
It’s the last day of what has surely been the longest March in human history–or at least the longest March in my own history. I began the month with a half-hearted commitment to slicing, coming back more for the community than the writing, and I end the month, grateful for the writing and even more…
As we shift to remote learning for the rest of the semester, I have so many questions about what that should mean for student teaching and learning in the middle of a global pandemic. What does the best teaching and learning look like when we are doing this work remotely, without the spaces and presence…
