Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Huzzah! Hooray!

The Slice of Life Story Challenge is hosted by the talented team at Two Writing Teachers.
 Link up your slice everyday in March and on Tuesdays all year.
 Thanks Stacey, Tara, Dana, Betsy, Anna and Beth.

Huzzah! Hooray!
Hip hip and sashay!
Today is my day,
a BIG birthday whoo hoo!
Today is my day,
and presents from You!

Comments on blog posts are like presents. Comments are a reader's gift to a writer. We don't call it "comment love" for nothing. In fact, the word "love" was used fifty-two times in comments left on my posts this month. A quick look at the top nine words says a lot about the values of our commmunity: love, student, work, day, response, think, thank, great, make. Those are words I can build a professional around.



I so enjoyed doing the commenting challenge this weekend. I learned about loss about down sizing about apps and assessment. I can't believe I won the challenge.  I'm still stunned; I won--what a birthday gift. I won!

I love reading, thinking about and commenting on Slice of Life posts. I love the peek into teachers' classrooms and writers' thoughts. There is great variation and yet a lot of similarity in what we do.

My brother--whom I was visiting for a long-weekend, birthday retreat-- thought I should just write simple sentences of praise. He suggested a copy and paste of "Great post!" or the like.

I said, "no way!"  This was no Nerdfighter spam wow party.

Tagul word cloud created from comments left this month. 
Slicers are thoughtful in comments. We encourage. We praise. We "bless" and sometimes "address" to use Kelly Gallagher's words on giving writers feedback.  This community is full of gratitude and thanks, curiosity and wonder, poetry and play. It was fun pushing myself to comment more than usual this weekend.

Thank you to everyone who has blessed my writing efforts so far this month. And a heart full of thanks to the team at Two Writing Teachers and the Highlights Foundation.



8 comments:

  1. Yay! Congratulations! Jennifer Sniadecki

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lee Ann, I was so happy to see that you won the prize! I have enjoyed reading your posts during this challenge. The top nine words really did say a great deal about this special community of readers and writers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hope you enjoy your prize! What a fun way to win.

    ReplyDelete
  4. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! Happy Birthday!!! Now, how did you get the word cloud to use words from only the comments?!?!?!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Michelle! From my Blogger dashboard, I went to the published comments page. Then I copied and pasted the comments onto a document, took out the spaces and then loaded the text into Tagul, the word cloud generator. It was a few steps, but fun to play and see the patterns.

      Delete
    2. Thank you! I had my students using Tagul today! They LOVED it!!!

      Delete
  5. Congratulations and happy birthday. You're going to LOVE the Highlights Foundation! It's one of the most special places for writers. (Melanie Meehan has nicknamed it a brain spa!) Let us know which course you're going to take so we can live vicariously through you. :)

    ReplyDelete