Stock Photo from Last Year: But Perfect Metaphor for Gaining Perspective This Year Online. Loving these Labs!

Perspective. That's the glory of directing the National Writing Project site that I do in Connecticut, and having the privilege of witnessing phenomenal teachers doing phenomenal things for and with kids.

Yesterday, I teeter-tottered between two classrooms (which really turned into four or five because teachers have mastered the break out rooms) and in each space I entered, I was tasked with cool prompts and new ways of approaching my own writing.

Earlier this summer, I attended a workshop led by Dr. Tonya Perry through NCTE and in it she prompted us to read the writing and thinking of a kid named Darius. I responded in a drawing and for purposes of the workshops with CWP, I thought I might use the drawing to walk through some of the workshops the teachers led with the writers 3rd-5th, 6th-8th, and 9th-12th. In one, students had to show the emotion of anger from the character they were working with,

Darius stormed out of the house wanting his mother to know that he wasn't pleased that she was his mom, that he had to live by her mother code - a single mom code was the worst, and that her lectures were getting really, really old. He stretched a bit, looked down Central Avenue, and decided he'd rather feel the flames in his thighs - he'd just run the stress off and hide in his stride. 

"I deserve my own story; I'm making a choice," he chanted, creating a rhythm for his run. "I want tomorrow, not the sorrow. I deserve my own voice."

I DESERVE MY OWN VOICE. 

Voice?

He was practically sprinting at this point, putting their fight onto the pavement, punching his sneakers into the road. His mother lived Black history, loved Black history, made Black history, and this frustrated his own history of being the only child, the athlete, and as he already knew it, a Black male. He hated her reminders.

"@$#$," he screamed at the revelation, but also because he tripped over his own feet and slid across the pavement, scraping his knee, shin, and left shoulder. The slide across the gravel and stones scratched the flesh, letting blood trickle in the tar that stuck to his leg. Clumsy. He hated when this happened.

Then in another room, kids were being asked, "So, you have this character, but they need to go somewhere? What do they pack? Clothes? Games? Accessories?

Darius stood up. It hurt, but the adrenaline didn't share how deep the scratches really went. His mother said, "I'm asking you to stay with your Uncle for a couple of days. Just until the two of us calm down. I don't like the fighting, D. I don't like the lip you're giving either."

He knew he'd have to pack a bag when he got home. Socks, indeed. A couple pairs of sneakers - he never did like to run in the same shoes every day. Red licorice. No nutritional reason...just his thing. Something nice to wear, cuz his Uncle always took him somewhere nice to eat. Cut off sweats to sleep in. The baggy ones. Hated clothes to stick on him at night. And his chain. Never took it off really. A gift from his father before he passed.

The University life has me always writing academically, and I miss creative exploration...at least tapping the voices of students I've taught over the years, hearing them tell me their stories, and trying to make sense of them with the research I do and the theories I hope might apply.

It's a hump day today (again) meaning we're halfway through. Normally, these literacy labs run 6 hours a day and I'm also working with a room full of 20 teachers. This summer, though, the teachers who aren't teaching for CWP are off...the institute, I hope, will move to a hybrid model beginning in the spring, where we are online mostly, but come to work with kids in the summer. We shall see...that's one of the 20 grants I have out there without any news.

And now I go back to learning! Have a great day.