Just write Karen over and over again #SOL21

We have a long-running joke in our Tuesday night Teach Write “Time to Write” accountability ZOOM group that whenever we don’t know what to write, we can just write “Karen” over and over again until something else comes. I can’t remember how long ago it happened, but one of our writing buddies, when asked what she was going to write about that evening, replied, “I’m just going to write my name over and over again until something comes,” or words to that effect. It’s been a catch phrase for all group members, and source of giggles, ever since.

Flash forward to last week. We just returned from vacation and asked all Kindergarten writers to write a book about their vacation. Our team will use all writing samples in a “Looking at Student Work” session to not only celebrate the journey our young writers have already taken, but to plan our next teaching moves. One young writer handed in his booklet with nothing but his name written on every page. During a conferring session, when prompted with “Tell me more!” he replied, “Well…whenever I don’t know what to write, I just write my name. So that’s what I did!”

I think he’d fit in with our group just fine. Don’t you?

Thanks for wondering and wandering a bit with me today. And many thanks to the crew at Two Writing Teachers, and the extended SOL community, for giving us the time, space, and encouragement to live the writerly life here every Tuesday throughout the year and daily during the month of March.