I have always held a staunch anti-blog position. My thoughts, however fascinating to me, are not always brilliant so why bother? Yesterday I was in homework hour with my kids (3rd graders...20 of them) and I was trying to find something for them to do because they finish their weekly homework packets on Monday. That's when I flashed on a memory from my third grade class at Blossom Hill. I have very few concrete memories from that class. I remember learning what a simile is, learning how to spell "together", fighting with a neighboring 4th grade class about the OJ Simpson Trial, and QuickWrites. Whenever we ran out of things to do before the rest of the class did, Mrs. Larkin would have us just write whatever we were thinking. At the time that was pretty badass to us. We could write ANYTHING that was on our minds -no judgement. In the days of Daily Oral Language and assigned pencil boxes it was the most freeing assignment ever.

Now that I work with 3rd graders I see that part of it was a quick way to make us stop talking so Mrs. Larkin didn't pull her own hair out from frustration. But still, the act of writing what's on your mind has at least two solid perks. First off, they get to put how they feel on paper. It becomes less abstract and they can make something of it. Second, they are writing! It's a miracle! One day these nutty kids might be able to write a research paper or a persuasive speech or hell, a fiery opinion article for their local newspaper.

So yesterday I decided to start the Quickwrites. My kids are a little...well, let's say feisty. Eventually I had them convinced that it would be a cool activity and they set off with their cheap school district provided pencils and copy paper to write whatever they wanted. At the end of the hour I had short stories about monsters, little brothers, weekend plans, and birthday parties. At least one was ripped off from a recent Pixar film and one was ripped off of the kid sitting next to him but overall it was a success. When they turned in their papers the first thing they asked was what I write about when I quickwrite at home (because of course my homelife is just an extension of my time with them). So I decided if I make them quickwrite I'll just have to do it for myself too. So here it is. Quickwrite #1