Movies, Music, and Art: What's Your Inspiration?

It's interesting how different writers respond to the stimuli of music, or movies, or art. Honestly, sometimes I am distracted by any noise at all (if I'm having a really hard time concentrating), but usually I really enjoy writing to all kinds of music. I do believe the kind of music I hear affects the way I write. (It was no surprise about Stephen King's preference of writing to the sound of heavy metal!) I am not sure how to link music to the blog yet, but would enjoy providing music to accompany different posts. Think about what kind of music would connect to your writing or your life. Art is also inspiring, as are movies. You might be looking for a snapshot to bring in one day next week for a writing activity.

Today I enjoyed talking to you about music. It is such a vital part of my household, and even though my own kids are not always home to provide the live piano, cello, trombone, guitar, and flute concerts, my pets and I still savor the music we have. As you can see from this photo, Riley is camped out under the piano, hoping for some musical entertainment!

Getting into the Routine

It has not even been two full weeks since my return to school (It is actually three partial weeks), but I feel like we are getting into a good routine. In working towards reading 100 pages a week, you should be finishing up 300 pages by the end of this week, and many of you are working on your first book responses. We should be ready to start To Kill a Mockingbird next week, so having your independent reading already underway - or nearly finished - will be of great benefit. Your first book response may be handed in any time, but must be in before October 11th (next Wednesday). Your second response may also be handed in any time, but must be in before October 25th.

It was interesting to hear some of your "book titles" from our free writing today, and with some inspiration and effort, you will find a paper to expand into a writing piece for your portfolio. We will be conferencing and revising next week, so you will need to settle on something you like before the end of the week. Tomorrow holds another writing activity, so I hope you've generated a lot of ideas.

It's late, so I must close. If you're still up to see this, rest up and get to sleep! Even the critters in my house have begun to snooze as you can see they like to do.

Stay Tuned

This is only a short post tonight. It was wonderful to hear many of you read the "school lunch" free writings today in class. We will practice another writing exercise tomorrow and talk about the 6+1 traits. Before the week is out, each of us will select a free write to expand on for a process paper. I'm looking forward to reading on!

Monday, Monday

Why do so many of us seem to dread Mondays? Even the pets in my house seem to prefer weekends when they can sleep in later with no early morning alarm to wake them. (You'd think they'd get up at the same time each day.) In an effort to start the week out well, I like to spend class time on Mondays with writing and reading workshop. Writing is such a powerful way to clear your mind and get in touch with your thinking. I'm looking over the plans for our class tomorrow, and I am remembering a few things we still need to finish up from Friday. We didn't get to check portfolios, so we will start with a quick grade check form. We will also set dates for book responses and goals for your independent reading (the books you plan to read this quarter and the kind of book responses you have chosen to do.) Revised papers need to be handed in tomorrow along with any other make up work. We will start working toward our first process paper this week.

This a brief post tonight. We have a brief week coming up, but we have a lot of important writing to do. If you dread Mondays, you might think of tomorrrow as Tuesday because this week is a four day week for you!