LANNY BALL, Literacy Specialist

Title: “Teamwork”

“Where’s my black shirt, honey?  You know, the one with the long sleeves?”  I queried.

“I saw it downstairs.  I’ll grab it for you,” my wife answered.  And off she went.  I couldn’t believe the hustle and bustle of the day had begun at 6:30 in the morning.  Wasn’t this supposed to happen after I get home from work? But not today.  Today was a little special.  I glanced over at my kindergartner sitting on my bed with my one year-old.  Yep, there was a twinkle in her eye.  She knew today was special:  Papa was going to dress like Cat in the Hat.  When had that ever happened?

My wife returned presently with my black shirt, and the process began in earnest.  Scooping up my youngest baby, I headed downstairs with my five year-old in tow.  “His tummy needs to be white, Mama,” I heard her say.  This girl knew her Cat in the Hat.

As I made my way to the kitchen, I shot my wife a questioning look. Hmm…a white belly? Let’s see… “Ideas?” my face tried to wordlessly ask.

“Hold on, I think I know what we can do,” she responded.  And she was off.  A minute later she returned with fabric scissors and a large piece of white felt.  Where did that come from?  Brilliant!

And that is how the morning proceeded.  Between the expert consultation of a kindergartner, the mad McGyver-like skills of my wife, and the moral support of my new baby, by 7:15 I had, indeed, become Cat in the Hat!

Because of the expert work of my team at home, our Read Across America Celebration was a little more fun.  And sometimes going all-out to promote reading…well, it’s worth it, right?  Yes, I received some strange looks driving to work, I’m not going to lie.  But as adults who are in the privileged position to impact young people,  sometimes we need to go a little over the top to brand ourselves as lovers of books, as readers, as people who live the words we preach to children: reading matters.  In the words of journalist and author Simon Van Booy,  we want to exude the message, “[I] read books because I love them, not because I think I should read them.”

Thank you to my team at home for making this transformation possible.

Title:  “Remembering”

The meeting ended.  Closing my computer, I said my good-byes to colleagues departing .  With the amazing precision that only teachers can demonstrate, everyone had heard the bell ring , gathered their papers, computers, writing implements, and student work and slipped out the door, all within the span of 32 seconds.  Almost everyone.  I lingered. And next to me sat my colleague, MP.

“It was twenty years ago today,” I mused, staring at her multitude of books on the south wall.

“Twenty years?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s been twenty years since my brother’s accident.”  In fact, today did mark twenty years to the day that I lost my brother to a fatal car accident.  And twenty years is a long time.  Well, it seems like it should feel like a long time.  Strangely, though, as I leaned on my elbows, hunched over the table in MP’s seventh grade language arts classroom, it suddenly didn’t feel like a long time.

“I’m so sorry,” MP offered.

I started to explain that, really, I was fine.  Forcing a smile to my face, I said, “Time helps.  It makes a big difference.  Makes it better, easier.”

But then I thought of my own girls at home, my two older ones.  And I began to explain that I often speak of my brother and tell them stories of times when he and I were their age (they are two years apart, just as my brother and I were).  For instance, there was a time when we put the soap bubbles on our faces to “make beards” and called our mom into the bathroom to “check out our beards!”  And there was the time when we played the drums together in my first grade classroom, attempting to cover the music of an obscure German pop group, “Kraftwerk.”  And then there was the time we caught my grandfather smoking cigarettes beside the house in California, even though his doctors had forbidden it.

And that’s when I realized I wasn’t feeling fine anymore.  I could feel the tears spring to my eyes unexpectedly, right there in this empty classroom.  Luckily I happened to be with someone who means a lot to me, someone who I knew would understand.  A trusted friend.

“I’ll be thinking of you today,” she said softly.

As I sit to write this small slice of life, I am reminded of the importance of two things: the first is the importance of having a relationship of trust with someone with whom you feel comfortable sharing the most difficult times; and secondly, I’m reminded of how important it is write about these times.  One of my great mentors once said, “Writers write to hang onto moments of trouble.”  I suppose this gives texture to our writing lives.  And I suppose that’s a good thing.

In memory of Sean Kelly Ball, 1970-1997

Title: “Nostalgia”

Pulling the door open, the wall of noise hit me, nearly falling into the category of jarring. Good grief, what was going on in here?  This was no normal, run-of-the-mill day of class in sixth grade.

Ah,  wait a minute. This is a book club meeting day.  Around the room, tables were scattered with post-its, notebooks, books face down on binders, number two pencils, and DaSani water bottles.  Faces were a mixture of consternation, rapt focus, harmless daydreaming, and concentration, as varied levels of interpretation filled the classroom space.

Sidling up next to a group of four girls, I attuned my ears.  They were discussing a book entitled Iqbal by Francesco D’Adamo, a powerful book about child labor and one young boy who made a difference.  Ideas were flying from one side of the table to another.  Sometimes one idea would flutter across the table and land in another girl’s lap.  The recipient would then scoop up the idea, affix more to it, and sail it back across the table to her clubmate.

And books were open.  Paper books.  Paper books were open.  And across the conversation, the girls referred to page after page of printed text.

Quietly exiting the classroom day, I came to realize that I believe there to be something magical about watching kids engage in face-to-face conversation as they hold a physical book in their hand.  There is something enchanting about observing kids converse as they refer to notes they made with a ballpoint pen on a small piece of physical paper.  There were no Kindles, no laptops, no iPhones or iPads, no snapchats or Instagram photos, no YouTube videos or FaceTime.

Maybe this is just nostalgia here.  But human interaction cannot be dismissed as antiquated.  It just can’t. Writer Carson McCullers once said, ““We are homesick most for the places we have never known.”  I hope that the domain of human interaction never becomes a place we do not know.

This coming Wednesday, the calendar turns from February to March.  I find March to be exciting for many reasons.  It is the month in which I was born, so that’s exciting.  It also feels like the month when spring begins to poke its timid head above the winter snow and say, “It’s time, right?”  March marks the month of Spring Break for most schools (although not my own)- also exciting for many. And March, whether it comes in like a lion or a lamb, always feels like a spirit of renewal.  Spring cleaning begins, things begin to grow again, and the warmth of the sun — maybe not consistently– appears, seeming to whisper, “Hey, remember me?”

For me, this particular March is exciting for a new reason.  Recently, I have become a co-author of the excellent blog entitled, “Two Writing Teachers.”  No, I am not one of the “two” writing teachers; but I am one of the eight writing teachers who now blogs about the teaching of writing.  And this is actually really exciting for me!  Each March, the Two Writing Teachers blog hosts what is called the “Slice of Life Challenge.”  To participate in this challenge, one must (1) own a blog and (2) commit to writing everyday for 31 days in March. One must also commit to joining a community of writers who provide each other feedback along the way (i.e., commenting on others’ blog posts throughout the month).  Writing  during this time is intended to be about “slices” of everyday life.  “Small moment stories” they are sometimes called.  Poems are also okay, though not my strong suit.  So, as a co-author of Two Writing Teachers I will be participating this year.

For the first time.

And I am nervous.

However, I am one who believes everything is hard before it is easy.  Therefore, I plan to forge ahead with this challenge and use this opportunity for the following purposes:

(1) Continue to write posts meant to be within the spirit of this blog: that is, writing for those of you working to support middle school readers and writers at home.

(2)  Write more. Writing begets writing, and we learn to write by…well, writing.  Writing is a bit like riding a bike– the more we do it, the stronger we become (although writing is harder, I know that!). So I’m hoping to become stronger.

(3)  Join a community of writers all struggling together to accomplish something hard.

The late and great William Zinsser once said, “All writing is a journey.”  The March Slice of Life Challenge will be a journey.  I look forward to some of you tuning in to see what happens…I hope you do.  Stay tuned…