Thoughts on the Second Grade
Disclaimer: I will try not to write blogs as long as yesterday's ever again (as a reader of mine informed me that it was very long and decided not to read the whole thing).
Second grade was the year of writing stories, getting in trouble for talking, and wearing a crown with red, curly, paper hair.
I was moved away from my friend, Heather, because we talked too much. She had this pair of pants that we called "The Bubble Pants." When she sat down, the material would bubble up and it made us laugh...hard! We enjoyed sitting next to each other and chatted up a storm. I always was the one who got caught talking, though. [Which never changed: even in college, sitting next to Karen, I was always the one who the professor looked at and ended up despising...and Karen talked to me ALL THE TIME! She says that I'm a lousy whisperer.] Anyway, I was moved away from Heather and next to Ricky [he loved dinosaurs and his dad was a police man. Once his dinosaur ruler went missing and Mrs. O'Dea searched everyone's desks. I forget the outcome. Funny the obscure things you remember about your second grade classmates!] Aside from getting into trouble for talking, Mrs. O'Dea made me believe that I was a writer!
She made these books for us: 2 pieces of cardboard covered in patterned contact paper with white paper sewn in. After we would write a story, she'd let us have a book to copy our story in. My first story was called "The Four Friends." It was about 4 girls who became friends and they built a tree house, but of course there's some conflict and some girly fighting that had to be resolved. [The story is FILLED with spelling errors. It turns out that my teacher actually told my mom not to correct my spelling because she simply encouraged us to spell words how they sounded to us. Not a very good approach, if you ask me. It annoyed my mom.] I went on to write several more books. My stand out nonfiction works include: "All About Food", "All About Me", and "All About Clowns." [I think I also wrote "All About Holidays."] My works of fiction are: "One March Day" (all about a St. Patrick's Day costume contest) and "Summer Camp."
One day Mrs. O'Dea came to me and told me something grand! I was going to MISS SCHOOL for a day (missing school was always welcome) so that I could attend The Young Author's Convention. Whoa! Did this mean that I was an author? I went with Mrs. O'Dea to the Young Author's Convention and I got a button with a red ribbon attached to it to wear. From then on, I called myself a writer. It all started in the second grade!
Being a teacher now, I can look back on that incident and recognize it as something amazing! Teachers have SUCH great potential to influence. Mrs. O'Dea called me an author, she gave me contact paper covered books in which to write my stories, and she took me to the Young Author's Convention.
I don't really remember anything else about the second grade except a play that we put on in our classroom one afternoon for our parents. It was about a princess with red, cruly hair. I landed the lead, but I did (and do) not have red hair, nor is my hair remotely curly (sadly!). What I remember most about the play is my crown! Attached to the crown were long strips of red construction paper that we rolled around a pencil to make them curly. I loved my crown and red, curly hair!
Second grade was the year of writing stories, getting in trouble for talking, and wearing a crown with red, curly, paper hair.
I was moved away from my friend, Heather, because we talked too much. She had this pair of pants that we called "The Bubble Pants." When she sat down, the material would bubble up and it made us laugh...hard! We enjoyed sitting next to each other and chatted up a storm. I always was the one who got caught talking, though. [Which never changed: even in college, sitting next to Karen, I was always the one who the professor looked at and ended up despising...and Karen talked to me ALL THE TIME! She says that I'm a lousy whisperer.] Anyway, I was moved away from Heather and next to Ricky [he loved dinosaurs and his dad was a police man. Once his dinosaur ruler went missing and Mrs. O'Dea searched everyone's desks. I forget the outcome. Funny the obscure things you remember about your second grade classmates!] Aside from getting into trouble for talking, Mrs. O'Dea made me believe that I was a writer!
She made these books for us: 2 pieces of cardboard covered in patterned contact paper with white paper sewn in. After we would write a story, she'd let us have a book to copy our story in. My first story was called "The Four Friends." It was about 4 girls who became friends and they built a tree house, but of course there's some conflict and some girly fighting that had to be resolved. [The story is FILLED with spelling errors. It turns out that my teacher actually told my mom not to correct my spelling because she simply encouraged us to spell words how they sounded to us. Not a very good approach, if you ask me. It annoyed my mom.] I went on to write several more books. My stand out nonfiction works include: "All About Food", "All About Me", and "All About Clowns." [I think I also wrote "All About Holidays."] My works of fiction are: "One March Day" (all about a St. Patrick's Day costume contest) and "Summer Camp."
One day Mrs. O'Dea came to me and told me something grand! I was going to MISS SCHOOL for a day (missing school was always welcome) so that I could attend The Young Author's Convention. Whoa! Did this mean that I was an author? I went with Mrs. O'Dea to the Young Author's Convention and I got a button with a red ribbon attached to it to wear. From then on, I called myself a writer. It all started in the second grade!
Being a teacher now, I can look back on that incident and recognize it as something amazing! Teachers have SUCH great potential to influence. Mrs. O'Dea called me an author, she gave me contact paper covered books in which to write my stories, and she took me to the Young Author's Convention.
I don't really remember anything else about the second grade except a play that we put on in our classroom one afternoon for our parents. It was about a princess with red, cruly hair. I landed the lead, but I did (and do) not have red hair, nor is my hair remotely curly (sadly!). What I remember most about the play is my crown! Attached to the crown were long strips of red construction paper that we rolled around a pencil to make them curly. I loved my crown and red, curly hair!
posted by alisa beth at 9:01 AM
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