Practice What You Preach

I was sitting in a professional development meeting today learning about different things that I could be doing in my classroom to effectively teach my students. One of the things our session facilitator talked about was not expecting students to do something you wouldn't do as an adult. I realized that as a Language Arts teacher I expect my students to be writers, and tell them that good writers write. However, it's not something I'm doing myself.

That's when I realized that I need to be writing more regularly. I decided, after some unintentional encouragement from a good friend *cough* *cough* Molly *cough*, that I would start up my own blog. I'm really not sure what sort of musings I will post here. But I figured that if I am going to tell my students to practice writing, I should do the same.

 Something our facilitator said that really stuck with me today was that we expect things of our kids that we would never do ourselves. Never in my adult life have I read a great book and then made a mobile about it or completed a vocabulary worksheet. I have however, had a meaningful conversation with that book with a friend. That got me thinking that there has to be a way to make my students learning more concrete. I try to make what my students are learning applicable to what they are writing about, but I really want to try and make their writing applicable too. Good writers write. Good readers read. Now it's time to put my money where my mouth is. I am telling all of you reading this, probably only two of you I'm sure, that I will make it my personal goal to read and write more. You can hold me accountable here on The Daily Dubs.