Five best friends, more like sisters.
Middle school English is my life.
Real books are better than Kindles.
Three continents down, four to go.
Ben and Jerry are my boyfriends.
I love writing 6-word memoirs with my students! It's fun to see how mine change from year to year. Here are today's memoirs, written as I watched my students write their own.
Five best friends, more like sisters. Middle school English is my life. Real books are better than Kindles. Three continents down, four to go. Ben and Jerry are my boyfriends.
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I'm reading Night by Elie Wiesel with my 8th graders right now, and there's this beautiful section toward the beginning in which Wiesel starts every sentence with the phrase "Never shall I forget..." Today I had my students write a list of things that they will never forget, and I thought I'd do the same today.
Never shall I forget the moment I heard my first little sister's cry through the hospital door. I jumped up and down, yelling, "My baby's here! My baby's here!" Never shall I forget the cross-country road trip that took us to our new home in Vermont, when my loves of traveling and Ben & Jerry's ice cream were born. Never shall I forget the look on Melissa's face when she and Mom told me that Mom had cancer. Never shall I forget the day I opened my mission call and saw the words, "Spain Barcelona." Little did I know how that moment would change me and create this place in my heart for a country, a culture, and a people halfway across the world. Never shall I forget the odd mixture of smells that characterize the streets of Spain: one moment cigarette smoke, the next freshly baked bread, the next a large pile of garbage. Somehow the smells of cigarette smoke and cooking olive oil always manage to transport me back to Spain. Never shall I forget that first semester at BYU - so lonely, so overwhelmed. And of course I can't forget the rest of the semesters, either: the late nights, the roommates, the last-minute papers, the friends. Never shall I forget the first time a student called me "Miss Brown" and I realized it really does have a special ring to it. So many good memories...isn't it amazing how much memory affects us? I can't imagine what I would do without memories. What's something you will never forget? ...I'm going to write a book. I've been telling myself this for...oh, about my whole life. I've got stories running through my head constantly and every once in a while I'll think, "Okay, now that's a really good idea for my book!" But then I get busy again, the momentum is gone, and pretty soon the idea is forgotten. But this past month or so, I've really been thinking that I want to write. Not lesson plans, not journal entries, not comments on student essays...I want to actually work on this book of mine. A colleague of mine has been writing a book as part of a 30-day challenge, and she's inspired me. So maybe I'll never finish this story, and maybe it will never see the light of day, but today I'm starting. I'm going to harness all of those thoughts that are running through my head and try to get at least the beginnings of a prologue down. Let me know what you think. PrologueI am a failure.
The pain settles deep into my stomach, tying itself in knots and pulling the rest of my body with it. Why couldn't I have stopped this? Why wasn't I strong enough? As the mourners drift silently away from the small cluster around the grave, I look down at my hands and snort in derision. What good is all that magic if I couldn't even save my best friend? Sure, I can conjure up beautiful ball gowns at the drop of a hat - but even those prove to be too much for my meager powers, dissolving too soon to the rags they came from. Just one more evidence of my constant failure. And now Emmaleigh is gone. I need to get away. I can't stand this pain, this dejection, this utter failure - the reminder that if I had been something more, I could have helped in some way. I will leave and never look back. My toes itch with the need to run away. But suddenly a miniature hand slips into mine. Ellie. As much as I want to, I can't leave her. Emmaleigh trusted me to care for her daughter, and in this I cannot fail. I will not. Instead of running, I know that I must stay here, facing the reminder of my failure every day, doing all that I can to somehow make it up to my best friend. Ellie will learn everything her mother would have taught her. Except for magic. |
About MeI'm a daughter, sister, friend, and book lover turned English teacher. This blog is all about the things I'm learning as I go through my many adventures. For more info about me, check out the About Me page. Categories
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