Wow!  It is amazing to think that four weeks is about to come to an abrupt end like a roller coaster going down a very steep hill.  This has been the fastest four weeks in my life they went whizzing by as if I was riding a roller coaster.  There has never been a dull moment and I have enjoyed every minute of the writing project!  At times, the track became bumpy, but it always seemed to work out for the best in the end.  The project wasn’t exactly what I had anticipated, but I am taking way more with me than ever imagined.

I had the privilege to network and communicate with sixteen highly qualified colleagues.  It will be sad as we all depart and travel on our own education pathways.  This project has helped us grow together and work as a unit.  We have discovered that we have all traveled different windy and bumpy train tracks making us who we are today.  We were able to share with others our negative and positive experiences as being educators as well as having been students.  It seems if we have all had those teachers that needed to retire long before we had them.  However, it also seems that all of us have one teacher that has made such a positive impact on our life that they have remained with us in our hearts.  It is these experiences that help me realize how important my job is everyday.   I learned a tremendous amount about the internet, technology available to help make writing fun and easier, resource books that are available for wonderful ideas, and just writing in general.  I had never heard of a BLOG before taking this class, but I now feel confident to use it in my elementary classroom and look forward to implementing it into the curriculum this coming year.  I also had never been introduced to the computer program Inspiration.  Wow!  Inspiration is an excellent program.  I will definitely be using this with my own writing as well as with my students.  At the completion, of this project I will have more than sixteen lessons focused around writing that can be easily adapted and incorporated into my elementary classroom.

This project helped inspire me to write my own writing and to play with words.  It has also helped me become a better writer personally as well as a better teacher of writing.  I learned how to make writing fun and relevant to all students.  It was brought to my attention how easy it is to differentiate in the elementary writing classroom.  However, it is not necessary to differentiate all assignments, but it does help to do this once in a while.  Taking this project also gave me the opportunity to look into resource books focused on writing.  Some might say I have a book addiction.  I will be sure to purchase at least a few of the recommended resource books.  However, I have read quite a few over the last four weeks!     

When I signed up to take this class, I was worried what it would be like.  I will confess that I considered myself a terrible writer and was paranoid to hear that we would be working in response groups’ peer editing each other’s writing and then displaying our writing using the BLOG system.  However, this class has helped me overcome this fear.  I can see that with every paper I write my writing is getting stronger and more developed.  I feel more confident about my writing and have gained many more valuable tools that I can use in my writing to make it more interesting for readers to read. 

Looking back over the train track, I will be sure to encourage all staff members at my school to attend a writing project.  I learned such a wealth of information about writing my suitcases are packed full and I will be sharing with colleagues as well as implementing lesson plans discussed during the project into my elementary classroom.  My future students will be lucky that I was able to take this scenic roller coaster ride through the topic of writing.  Well, it has been FUN companions!  I will continue to use the BLOG in order to keep in touch instead of sending postcards.  I look forward to attending another writing project in the future!