I
am thrilled to be part of the Teachers Write! Summer Writing Group! After thinking about
what I can do to focus on my writing this summer and talking with teacher and
librarian friends on Twitter who want to write themselves, I realized it would
be great to start a writing group. I am so excited to be teaming up with Gae Polisner, author of the 2011 YA Nerdy award-winning book The
Pull of Gravity and Kate Messner, author of the 2011 Non-Fiction Nerdy
award-winning picture book Over and Under the Snow, as well as the
soon-to-be published Capture the Flag (and so many others), to support teachers and
librarians as writers!
I
believe as a teacher until you are writing yourself, it's hard to really
comprehend what it's like to go through the process. And teachers should be
models of writers as much as they are models of readers. So let’s get
writing!
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| Capture the Flag, by Kate Messner |
Kate
has offered to develop and lead a virtual summer writing camp specifically for teachers and librarians on her blog, called Teachers Write! Monday through
Friday, she will have mini-lessons, writing prompts, quick writes, author
question and answer chats, and even a virtual happy hour! Tomorrow, visit her
blog to get started with your summer writing!
 |
| Kate Messner, Author Extraordinaire |
I
am eager to see what Kate has to share and to join in on the camp activities to
develop my writing as the summer progresses. If you weren’t convinced of Kate
and her super-woman abilities, this should seal the deal for you. Already there are hundreds of people signed up to see what she has to offer and to jump into writing.
Every
Friday, Gae already hosts Friday Feedback on her blog so her readers can see
some of what she is writing and share their own writing with her...and the
world! She invites people to share only a few paragraphs and then she comments
and asks others to comment on what they think: Does it hook you? Does it make
you want to read more? Does it make sense?
 |
| The Pull of Gravity, by Gae Polisner |
As
always, on Fridays, everyone is invited to share their writing and give
feedback to each other on Gae's blog. This is your chance to get some feedback
from Gae, myself, and others about what you are writing.
 |
| Gae Polisner, Awesome Writer-Cheerleader-Friend |
After
a week of writing with Kate and then getting feedback from Gae on Friday, we’ll
have a weekly reflection here at TMT on how writing is going. On Sundays, I
will share how my writing is going as a teacher who is writing and/or have a guest
post from a teacher who shares his or her experience with writing. The focus
here will be on what revelations we have about writing from participating in
Kate’s Teacher’s Write! and Gae’s Friday Feedback or other experiences.
In
the comments, chime in and let us know how you are doing with your
writing: your pits and peaks of the week, your revelations, how much you
wrote/revised/edited, your goals for the upcoming week.
Here are my rules for the TMT Summer Writing Group:
1. We respect each other and the type of writing
we do.
2. We only criticize each other constructively.
3. We are positive and encourage each other at
all times.
4. We recognize and maintain this as a safe
environment.
**I reserve every right to put the smackdown
on anyone who messes with our positive energy.**
on anyone who messes with our positive energy.**
Today, in the comments section:
Introduce yourself: tell a little bit about
yourself and your writing.
Tell us what your writing goals are for this week
and for the summer.
Share one thing that scares you and one thing
that excites you about writing!
I hope you join in on the TMT Summer Writing
Group fun with Kate, Gae, and myself! See you this week at Kate’s blog and on
Friday over at Gae's blog!
