Rhonda Fox

OWP '01

Paper #4

Dear Students, July 18, 2001

While you've been blissfully horseback riding, fishing, spending long hours driving across the country and staying up late every night glued to the Playstation; I've been working on becoming a stronger writer. No really, I know you've all been keeping writing journals, updating them on a daily basis, making sure you use all the proper punctuation with a variety of strong adverbs and adjectives. Now this would be a teacher's dream come true!

For the last four weeks I have been in the Oregon Writing Project. This class is designed to not only help teachers become better writers, but also to help them equip their students with some creative ways to approach writing. I've been participating in writing activities each day, while spending several days a week in response groups with other teachers from many different schools. I now know how you feel when you've spent a great deal of time working on an assignment and then you have to read it to your peers so they can give you constructive criticism. Ouch, it's hard to accept criticism from other teachers. The teachers I've shared my papers with have been very helpful to me as a writer, but at the same time it's sort of embarrassing to share your writing with someone you don't know very well and with someone who has been a teacher a lot longer. I'm really glad that I participated in these groups because it has taught me that I can make a valuable contribution to another person's writing and at the same time how to receive helpful ideas from others. I can't wait to start our response groups this school year. We will all work together to become stronger writers and hopefully, all of you will find out what you like best about writing and be able to use it in your daily life.

There are many wonderful books about writing that I've been reading during this workshop. I had to write four book reports. That's about how many book reports you will write this school year, except you will have more time to finish your reports. Several of the books I've read include some great ideas for using writing with media: which is video, T.V., digital cameras and anything else you can think of that captures images. They also include some great ideas for music and technology. We will experiment with turning our writing into music, our poetry into drama, and our reports into presentations, while at the same time using technology to explore all of these areas. I can't wait to start some of these projects with you.

One of the greatest things about this Oregon Writing Project has been listening and participating with all the other teachers when they have taught their own lessons. My notebook is crammed with many delightful ideas that are sure to bring smiles to all of your faces. It is so neat to see how much all of these teachers really care about their students and how important it is to them to help their students improve their writing.

This school year I want to give you the freedom to explore writing outside the box, to create your own voice, your own style. I will do my best to walk beside you, to help you where you need it and to make sure that I'm encouraging you to be the best you can be.

You are my wonderful students who are patient and persistent and will work hard to improve your writing. All of you inspire me to keep learning and growing as a teacher to be the best writer that I can be. Let's have a great year.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Fox