Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The Writer, the Teacher

In celebration of THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!, I would like to share this blog post I found via How Publishing Really Works, by the author of the blog Alphabet Soup Kitchen.

If you've ever wondered what it's like to be a teacher & a writer at the same time, this post explains it perfectly. This is a poignant telling of what it's like--how it's both a compromise and a value, how it's bother rewarding and damaging.

Here's the sample:

Wake up, shut off alarm, don't snooze. Used to be a snoozer, but now you're not. Now you're a teacher. It seemed a perfect fit for a budding writer, a chance to immerse yourself in the English language. Your day job would be related to your dream job; it felt like cheating.

Yesterday: taught all day, wrote all afternoon, prepared and graded papers into late night. Now it's early. Still dark out. Four hours sleep. More papers to grade.

Really, this is excellent writing. Go read.

Side note: You know you, perhaps, grade your essays too hard when you use up an ENTIRE red pen on one set of essays. Perhaps.

6 comments:

Kate said...

Great link.
I love the side note!

B.J. Anderson said...

Love it! Thanks for pointing us in the direction.

Clementine said...

Congratulations, Miss Beth! I'm so glad you get a break.

Keri Mikulski said...

I'm with you on the teacher/writer combination. So true - sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not so good.. Sometimes I can actually start to pick up common student mistakes, like overusing 'that'. Mistakes I just pointed out and talked about in class. Mistakes I haven't done myself in years. But, sometimes, the students and I will learn something new about writing together and sometimes, I'll have an amazing writer in my freshman college class that had no idea he or she had talent. These are the moments when it's completely worth it. :)

Erin said...

This is great writing! It's so to the point, but funny. Thanks!

About Me said...

Couldn't imagine teaching. Of course for me to imagine being a teacher, I would actually teach myself how to get my novel published. :)