Tag Archives: Writing

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Famous Last Words: “I Would Never Be a Teacher”

I could also have titled this “I Will Never Go Back to School.” And guess what? I’m a teacher, and went back to school. Hmm. I will never have a million dollars. Let’s see if that works.

Many little girls admire their teachers and like to play teacher, so becoming a teacher is a natural next step to take. That wasn’t my childhood dream. Almost from the time I could hold a crayon, I wanted to be a writer. The University of North Florida didn’t have a creative writing program, so I settled for the next best thing, a degree in English. When I told people my major, most assumed that I would teach high school English or literature. “I would never be a teacher,” I told them. In my arrogance, I thought I would be the one writer to break through, immediately land an agent, get published, have my books in bookstores all over the world, and be the breadwinner for my family—happily ever after, the end.

Yes, I was the editor in chief of a literary rag when I was 19, where I learned about the slush pile, the rejections, editing, printing, distributing, and so on. And that was just for a little start up. I dabbled in freelance writing and editing for a few years, which was a whole lot of work for very little pay. I even self-published a couple books over 10 years ago. I have been humbled and realize that my dream might remain just that.

When it was time for my elder son to start school, I convinced Thomas to put Peter in the elementary school I had attended, a small Christian school that went from preschool through the 6th grade. At the beginning of the year, Peter’s teacher solicited for parent volunteers. I liked the idea of being involved with what Peter did on a day-to-day basis, so I volunteered once a week, doing whatever Peter’s teacher asked me to do. Sometimes I was cutting laminated pieces or taking down and putting up bulletin boards. I played games with three- and four-year-olds. I painted with them. I ran stations. I continued going every week because I enjoyed every aspect of it.

The next year, a plea went out for substitute teachers. I thought that substituting couldn’t be much different than volunteering—with the added benefit of being paid for it. I took the plunge, wondering if any of the teachers would take me seriously, would entrust me with their classes… and I was soon working 20 to 30 hours or more per week as a substitute teacher. I taught all grades, all subjects, although I was particularly busy in the younger grades.

I began to think that, since I would have two children at the school before long, it would only make sense for me to work there full-time. I decided to pursue a teaching certificate, and since I didn’t have a degree in education, I had to go the competencies route. I’m not sure what this looks like in other states, but in Florida, it’s the alternative to going back to school. Aspiring teachers have to prove that they are competent enough to plan a lesson, assess students, teach students with different needs and in different modalities, and so on. If memory serves, there were about 17 different competencies. I had to take some online courses, type papers, complete projects, and present everything to a member of our administration, who helped me submit my materials to the Department of Education. I also had to take a number of tests, including one in the subject area of my choice. I chose to be certified to teach prekindergarten through 3rd grade students (and added a K-6thgrade certification a few years later). I took the first available job opening, which was as a PreK 4 assistant teacher.

That’s how I got my start. How I got where I am now has to do with Peter. Since I was in his classroom so much in the early days, I had the advantage that many parents don’t have: I was able to see how my child did in school firsthand. He was a people pleaser, not a behavior problem at all. He made friends easily, especially with kids who didn’t particularly fit in. These were all things that made my parent heart happy. One day toward the end of his first year of school, the kids were playing a game in which they marched around the outside of the classroom rug that was bordered with the letters of the alphabet. The teacher played music, and when the music stopped, the kids would stop and say whatever letter they landed on. As I watched Peter, I noticed that he got a little antsy every time he passed the P. Whenever the music stopped, he somehow managed to land on it. Finally, he landed on a different letter nowhere near the P. He tried to sneak his way over to the P, and his teacher called him out on it.

Although that wasn’t a lot of evidence, I had this feeling… so I looked up dyslexia markers, one of the biggest signs of which is delayed speech. Not only had Peter’s speech not been delayed, but he had spoken early and well—no speech impediment and full sentences with good grammar. I expressed my worries to Peter’s assistant teacher because the idea that he might have trouble reading broke my heart. He loved listening to me read to him, but I am not just a bookworm—I’m a bookdragon—and I wanted to pass my love of reading onto my boys. The assistant teacher reassured me, saying one of her sons was dyslexic and was doing fine in college, with the help of academic accommodations. While this was reassuring, all I knew about dyslexia was the little I’d heard from others, most of which was wrong. I started to drill Peter on his letters, to no avail. I remember one frustrating exercise, in which I recited the alphabet and then stopped, asking him to tell me which letter came next. He could not come up with it. I got upset, thinking he was intentionally messing up. We had other frustrating moments, not related to reading, when I would give Peter a simple task, like asking him to take dirty clothes, put them in the laundry basket, and turn out the light on his way back. He would get halfway down the hall and wonder why he was holding dirty clothes.

In Peter’s second year of school (PreK 4), I was in his classroom one day, and the kids were each assigned a different zoo animal to paint. Each child had to sound out the name of their animal and write it on a label under their painting. The youngest boy in the class, who was six months younger than Peter, wrote “BRD.” Today, I know that means that he heard all three phonemes (sounds) of the word bird. I can’t even remember what Peter’s animal was, but I do remember that he was only able to identify the first sound. It’s like the rest of the word didn’t even exist.

Sight word garage

By the beginning of kindergarten, Peter knew most of his letters and their sounds. The ones he still confused were B/D and M/W. But what really tripped him up were sight words. The students always had to do some sort of activity as they entered the class, and one week, the teachers had a sight word garage (as pictured) taped to the door. The students would lift a flap, read the sight word written underneath, and enter the class. Peter’s strategy was to listen to the kid in front of him, pick the same flap, and repeat the word he’d just heard. One morning, Peter arrived, and no one was in front of him. He was on his own. I prayed he would choose the flap that had Iunder it, but Peter didn’t remember which words were where. He chose one—not I—and didn’t know what the word was (I think it was either me or we). He had no idea where to start, and I was helpless to do anything for him. It was humiliating for both of us.

About a week later was the parent-teacher conference, and I felt like an abject failure. Peter had co-teachers that year, and I assured them that I read to Peter every night. I had no idea why he couldn’t read; it wasn’t like he was a first-time student. Both of his teachers teared up; they cared about my child and read my desperation, my confusion about what was going on with him. One of the teachers told me that when she got her children’s report cards, she would fold under the part with the grades and read the comments from the teacher because that’s what mattered. She assured me that Peter was a great citizen. Both teachers also told me they knew I was a good mom, which was a relief—I hadn’t done anything wrong. They were prepared with a list of child psychologists, and I immediately got on the phone to have Peter evaluated. In the end, Peter is dyslexic. He is also kinesthetically gifted, has an auditory deficit (which is unusual for dyslexic people), and his working memory is in the toilet. 

My boy has gone through many testing sessions over the years. He spent two days a week with a tutor his 1st grade year, and when he was in 2nd grade, the school finally had a full-time dyslexia specialist on staff who pulled Peter every day. Although I finally learned what dyslexia is (thanks to Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz), I still had no idea how to help him read. The summer before 1st grade, he was supposed to read Froggy Goes to School. Although I usually read everything to him, I believed that he should be able to read the one book the school had assigned to him. While the book was short enough to be read in one sitting, Peter struggled to read one page every day. It took weeks to finish that book. At the time, we didn’t know that Peter also had severe anxiety, so struggling to read, compounded with his feelings about himself, made for a miserable experience that we both still remember.

While Peter was going through his reading struggles, we were also trying to figure out what was going on with our younger son, Ian, who was language delayed (he would parrot a word he’d heard and never say it again) but at the age of two read every single letter on my husband’s t-shirt. Due to Peter’s reading struggles, we hadn’t pushed it with Ian, so this came out of left field. This was a kid who could read but couldn’t tell us what color his eyes were (we weren’t sure he even knew he had eyes), and he floundered behaviorally. So started our journey to get Ian diagnosed, as well. Although it took many doctors (some of whom were quacks) and years to get all the diagnoses, I can now tell you that we have two neurodiverse children. Ian is the poster child for ADHD (with a big ol’ H!), high on the autism spectrum (what they used to call Asperger’s), and has social pragmatic language disorder, OCD, and dyspraxia (the last of which I’d never even heard of when he was diagnosed). Every therapy known to man was recommended for him, and we finally settled on speech therapy, occupational therapy, and ABA, starting at age four and continuing through the 5th grade. For both of my children, I read every book and article I could get my hands on to give myself the tools to help them. But when it came right down to it, since I was already a teacher, I took the path that would help kids like Peter—the educational route—and at age 36, I gritted my teeth, swallowed my pride, and went to grad school to get a master’s degree in reading education.

When explaining to my adviser why I was going back to school, she told me about University of Florida’s Dyslexia Certificate program. Instead of the reading block that was a part of the Reading Education degree, I would detour and take five courses through the College of Special Education, ending with a 40-hour practicum, a master certificate in dyslexia, and a reading endorsement. I have done a lot of professional development, but the dyslexia certificate is by far the most valuable continuing education I have ever received. It changed my life, and finally, I felt like I not only had to tools to screen and assess for reading disabilities, but I had a game plan to remediate them. I finally made it onto my school’s student support team, and that’s where I’ve been for the past five years.

If you had told me what I would be doing now 20 years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. In fact, I think I would have been sad to hear that I wouldn’t have a single novel published. I would still love to be an author—don’t get me wrong—but I feel like there is so much I have learned on this journey. Not only do I get to watch the light bulb go on for struggling learners all the time, but an unspoken part of my job is helping parents. These students need an advocate. One of the most unintentionally hurtful things said to me about Peter was, “But I thought he was so smart.” Well, guess what? Peter is smart, and dyslexia doesn’t change that. We need to stop treating As and Bs like they are the definition of a worthwhile student. This isn’t to say that people with good grades don’t work hard or don’t deserve praise, but grades aren’t everything and certainly don’t tell the full story. This is something that needs to be addressed in the American educational system, but that’s for another post.

If you have read this far, thank you. I am in the running for America’s Favorite Teacher. I am shocked that I made it through the first round as a Top 20 teacher. It would mean the world to me to win this, although I know it’s a very long shot. I wanted to write this to give my amazing supporters some idea what they’re supporting. Let me tell you, early morning wake-ups are hard, and many of the days are long. I always knew I wanted my kids to have the same great early educational experience I had—and they did. I did not expect to go back to school myself—both as a teacher and a student—and it’s been one of the most joyful and rewarding experiences of my life.

Please vote for me daily at the following link: https://americasfavteacher.org/2025/sarah-cotchaleovitch

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It’s a Major Award!

About as satisfying as winning a leg lamp (but not nearly as provocative), I won something this November. I won, I won, I won! What did I win? I won NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month, the non-profit online gathering of writers from all over everywhere whose goal is to write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November. That’s it. Each person can interpret “novel” as they see fit. For instance, some may choose to write a short story collection. More than once, I’ve continued a novel from the year before. Whatever you write, your 50,000 word count must be contained within the month of November. It’s that simple and that hard.

This year was the ninth time I’ve won, although they weren’t consecutive wins. The first eight years I participated (2013-2020), I won every time. Then I took off 2021 and 2022 when I was bogged down by grad school, my creativity all but depleted. (I was also in grad school in 2019, but looking back at those stats reminds me how badly I struggled. I was able to participate in 2020 because I took the fall semester off, and honestly, what else was there to do in 2020?) Last year, I decided to participate almost one week into the month, knowing that a win was far from likely. Why did I do it? To make a long story short, I wanted to make myself write again, and I also wanted to show the perfectionist in me that it’s okay to fail. (Read the whole story here.)

This year, I wanted to participate again and had the feeling I would do better than last year—if only I knew what in the world to write. As October slipped by, however, I began to lose hope. It wasn’t until October 30th that an idea planted itself in my imagination, and I decided to run with it.

One question often asked of writers is where they get their ideas. Personally, I get a lot of mine from dreams (and many of these ideas are trippy and unusable in that form, but they’re catalysts, at least). I also get ideas from living life. On October 30, 2024, I opened the door that separates our house from the garage to throw something (a bottle or can, probably) in the recycling bin, which sits right inside the garage. After throwing the whatever-it-was in the bin, I closed the door, and it slammed. I started to call out an apology for the noise—in our old house, if you slammed the door to the garage, everyone in the house and perhaps the neighborhood heard—but in this house, you could probably blow the door open with dynamite and no one would be the wiser.

And that’s when the story idea came to me: A woman was folding laundry, and when she disappeared forever, no one knew because they didn’t hear the door slam from across the house.

I will be the first to admit that this is a flimsy premise for an entire novel. Why would this woman disappear? Did she walk out of her own volition? Did someone abduct her? These were questions that I hadn’t even answered after the first day of writing. But still, I managed over 2000 words on November 1st. Considering that I didn’t even start until the 5th last year (and then, I only wrote 733 words), I felt immediately successful.

My daily progress (blue line) and the minimum I needed to write per day to win (grey line).

If you look at this year’s stats (above), you can see that, even though I started with a bang, I got behind and stayed behind for a long time. I entered this past week knowing I would have to write 2500 words per day to finish. I think the only way I wrote as much as I did this year was by making a promise to myself not to bring work home in the month of November (and I’m really bad about bringing work home—I’m a teacher). I also decided to give myself a break on weeknights. I figured that if I wrote 1000 words Monday through Thursday, I could write 2000 words each day of each weekend to catch up, and I would finish on time. But it’s not like my life is comprised of only work and writing. There were days when it would be half an hour past my bedtime when I finally sat down to bang out a couple hundred words. Even if I couldn’t meet the minimum word count (1667) every day, I was determined to write something—and I did. I technically have one day to go, and being done even a tiny bit early is such a good feeling. Did I actually complete the story I started? Not hardly, but now I can let it germinate and then finish writing it at a more leisurely pace.

Who knows if I’ll have something to write next year? Maybe I’ll still be working on this story. But I’m glad I did it this year, glad that new ideas can still happen. Here’s my badge that means absolutely nothing to anyone but me—and all my fellow WriMos:

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What’s Schwa Got to Do with It?

Ooh, schwa. Sounds exotic. What is it?

Unless you teach elementary-aged kids, sing chorally, or are a word nerd (word nerds, unite!), you may not know what in the world a schwa is. Why should you care? Well, if you play Wordle, it’s a fantastic word to know (you’re welcome). And if you’ve ever thought that English is a ridiculously hard language to learn, you can thank the schwa—it’s a big part of why this is such a difficult language to read and spell.

Merriam-Webster defines schwa as “an unstressed mid-central vowel (such as the usual sound of the first and last vowels of the English word America),” wherein “mid-central” refers to the placement of the vowel in the mouth. The Oxford Dictionary definition is, “the unstressed central vowel (as in a moment ago), represented by the symbol /ә/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet.”

What does all this mean? Even though we know there are five vowels (a, e, i, o, and u) and sometimes a sixth (y), the schwa sound can be made by any of them. The key is identifying where it falls in a word (unstressed syllables in multisyllabic words). What, to the naked ear, may sound like a short u or i could actually be spelled with any of the vowels—and often not the ones you expect.

Learn from My Mistakes

It was time to teach the schwa sound to my students, and we practiced “calling words home” (a trick that helps them identify stressed and unstressed syllables), and then I set them loose with a worksheet to find the schwa in a bunch of different words. I’m not proud of it, but it was one of those lessons when I just needed an activity to fill the time, so I did what (some) teachers do in this type of situation: I looked for a free worksheet online. One that didn’t require my students to cut out and glue anything because, even though I have a very cute chicken-shaped receptacle for my glue sticks, I absolutely abhor using them. More glue gets on the table than on the paper, and what little does get on the paper doesn’t hold, so there are scraps of paper everywhere and a sticky table. But I digress.

The nice lady who created the worksheet explained that she had vetted every single word to ensure they all had a schwa syllable. Indeed, all were schwa words. But many of them are what I call hiding-in-plain-sight schwa words, and I did an inadequate job preparing my students for these. Within a few minutes of turning them loose with what should have been an independent activity, I was getting called to help them left and right because they were able to find the unstressed syllables, but then it appeared that many of the unstressed syllables had the vowels they were expecting. So how could they be schwas? I had missed one important detail about the schwa, which was right there in my teacher’s manual. UFLI Foundations defines schwa as a “quick, unstressed neutral vowel pronunciation, noted by the symbol /ә/. The purpose of schwa is to allow unstressed syllables to be said more quickly” (p. 371, emphasis added).

I had neglected to tell my students that, sometimes, the schwa vowel is, in fact, the one you think it is (depending on regional pronunciation, of course). What I mean by this is that I can sound out a word like muffin and figure out that its vowels are u and i (in that order). Does this word have a schwa? Yes, it’s the i. Say it. Which syllable gets the stress? muf Now, say the whole word, and when you do, really listen for that second vowel. Does is sound like a pure i (“ih”), or do you say it so quickly that its sound is indistinct? (I hope you said it’s indistinct, but if you think differently, I’ll get to that in a sec.)

Every multisyllable word has at least one unstressed syllable, and chances are, that unstressed syllable has the schwa sound. Try some more words: across, chicken, dentist, dragon, upon. Unstressed syllables make the schwa lazy; the vowel is kind of taking a nap and not doing its proper job. This was a hard concept for me to grasp because I am a trained singer, and when singing, I often modify the schwa sound to make it more palatable to the ear.

For example, when singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” I pronounce the i in perilous as the pure short /i/, not /ә/. Even though no one goes around saying per-ih-lous, this is a choice that many singers make because the schwa sound is, quite frankly, ugly when it’s sung (especially when a note/vowel is sustained for any length). Because I’ve been singing for a lot longer than I’ve been teaching, I sometimes (unintentionally) speak in an affected way, making the schwa hard for me to detect. This happens even more when I’m sounding out a word in isolation with my students. Note to self: when teaching, take off your singer hat. When my students were trying to find the schwa in a syllable that clearly sounded like /ә/ and just as clearly was spelled with a u (like until), it’s no wonder they were confused. They thought that the schwa could never be the vowel that typically makes that sound. It’s important to teach that, even though it may sound like a short u (or i, as the case may be), the schwa prevents it from having its purest sound. In other words, when trying to be a schwa detective, be the opposite of a good singer.

How to Teach Schwa and Why It’s Important

First, being able to identify which syllables are stressed and unstressed is a great tool for readers to have in their literacy toolboxes. Because I have a very long last name that starts with an unstressed syllable, I’m familiar with people attempting to lead with a stressed syllable. And once they start pronouncing it incorrectly, they get stuck. I teach my students what stressed and unstressed syllables are by using their names. I pretend they’re very far away, then call them in a sing-song voice. When I do, which syllable do I naturally stretch out? That’s the stressed syllable. (Kids love this because they discover that many of them have one or more schwa sounds in their names.) We can use this same exercise with multisyllabic words. If emergent readers are decoding a word for the first time and it sounds wrong, they’re likely emphasizing the wrong syllable. They need to “call” it the other way, with the stress on the other syllable. Then all kinds of light bulbs start to go off. (To see exactly what I mean, here’s a FREE video of me teaching the schwa sound.)

Second, if students don’t learn about the schwa, they might be prone to spell words like nickul (nickel) or baskit (basket). And while spell check is out there to fix a lot of these mistakes, it can’t help when someone is wildly off. I teach with the simple view of reading approach, in which sounds (phonemes) and word parts (syllables) are taught in an explicit, systematic manner. The spelling patterns are more important than the individual words because they’re like keys, and once readers have the keys to decode, they can “open up” all kinds of new words. Once I’ve taught a spelling pattern (like the schwa sound), I include it in word work, games, and texts, and students gain reading comprehension. It’s a formula that looks like this:

RC = D x LC

in which Reading Comprehension is the product of Decoding and Language Comprehension.

Why It Matters (My Soapbox Moment)

The more students engage with and experience these words, the better they will understand and retain them. The better readers they will be. The better spellers and writers. But what about those students who struggle? They may have the reading strategies down cold, but they just can’t get the hang of spelling, no matter how hard they try. They are the kids who routinely fail spelling tests (in the schools that still give them) or who lose a letter grade because their essays, while including all the right content, look like they were written by a three-year-old. If you’ve read my blog before, you know how I feel about tests (don’t like them one bit), although I grudgingly understand why we do have to have some way to quantify what students know.

I am a formative assessment kind of gal, and one great way to give this kind of assessment was introduced to me in a math workshop, of all things. While I was attending in the hopes of helping my kiddos who struggle with math (and I did get a lot of great tips for that—never fear!), I came away with a much stronger sense of how to help all my students in any subject.

When we throw concepts at students and expect them to swallow (and regurgitate) them with no opportunity for reflection, how much are they getting out of the lesson? How much do they retain? The answer is often just enough to get them through the unit test—if that. What I learned from Dr. Yeap Ban Har from [Math]odology is that the answer does not matter nearly as much as the journey to searching for the answer. He uses the analogy of going to the airport. Some students are on their way there (need assistance). Some have arrived at the airport and are ready to board (emergent). Others are at cruising altitude (independent). One way to gauge which level of “airport” readiness students have achieved is by giving them the opportunity to show their learning through reflective journals. These can take many different forms, from simply describing what they learned to turning it into a story or letter to a friend to… well, whatever way a student needs to express him- or herself. If education across the board could shift in this direction, I think great things could happen for our young minds.

Bringing it back to the schwa sound, I would much rather a student explore and find words in texts they’re reading, write them out, and play with syllable stresses than memorize a list of words for a spelling test. If they get the vowel wrong, at least they’re thinking. We’ll read some great literature together, and they’ll suddenly start seeing words with schwas everywhere, and the dots will start to connect. If you’re a teacher, wouldn’t you much rather spend your time reading great texts to your students than drilling them for a test? If you’re a parent, doesn’t that sound like the kind of education you’d like your child(ren) to have? With the right exposure, the right techniques, they’ll become much more competent and confident readers, writers, learners, and thinkers.

For more about schwa and all kinds of other spelling patterns, check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store, Mrs C Loves to Read. For two days only (August 6-7, 2024), get up to 25% off everything in my TpT store using the code below.

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Is AI Making Us Dumber?

In February 2023, I attended a conference for academic support teachers, and one of the workshops addressed ChatGPT. As an elementary school teacher, it wasn’t on my radar at all. The stance that the workshop leaders took wasn’t exactly “if you can’t beat them, join them,” but it wasn’t far off. If kids are going to be exploring ChatGPT anyway, they reasoned, we teachers need to make it our job to learn about it and any benefits it might have in the classroom.

I didn’t give ChatGPT another thought until last year’s preplanning, when one of our admin gave a ChatGPT demonstration by having it write her presentation. Were there some gaffes? Yes, but it did a decent job of covering her topic.

That was my only taste of ChatGPT until one day a few months later when I was completely burnt out and needed to write a lesson plan for my 3rd graders. One of my colleagues said, “Have ChatGPT write it for you.” So I thought, why not? I pulled it up and asked it to write my lesson plan. At the beginning of ChatGPT’s lesson plan, it gave instructions for whichever spelling pattern I was teaching (I wish I’d saved it—I can’t remember what pattern it was now), and while the structure of the lesson plan was fine, the explanation of the spelling pattern was incorrect. In ChatGPT’s defense, it is difficult to give printed instructions for a lesson that is dependent on sounds and articulation. I can imagine it being just as difficult to read a speech therapist’s lesson plan. Even so, the fundamental principals were just wrong. It concerned me that other teachers who are lost and looking to ChatGPT to help them might assume that it’s correct and teach it verbatim. You may think it doesn’t matter if kids don’t learn how to spell (after all, they can just have AI write it for them—yeesh), but what if it writes an incorrect chemistry or algebra lesson?

One thing I will give ChatGPT is that it asks for feedback, and I did not hold back. I told it that I couldn’t use the lesson plan because there were errors, and it asked me what those errors were because, as AI, it has the ability to learn. I told it what was wrong, but again, if I didn’t know what I was talking about, I could fill ChatGPT with all kinds of nonsense that it would internalize and use in the next lesson plan that some unsuspecting teacher asks for. In that way, it reminds me of Wikipedia—which, by the way, my school teaches students not to use as a trusted source. Sure, you may find facts there, but it’s also been known to have bogus information, such as that Sinbad died in 2007 (he’s still alive and well 17 years later).

ChatGPT isn’t the only AI out there. It seems like there’s something new every day. I see commercials for Grammarly constantly. Do we really need AI to help us with our emails? (Okay, I’ll admit, some people need to get help from somewhere. Apparently, it’s too much to ask people to proofread a two-liner before hitting send.) Even WordPress is trying to get me to use AI to “improve” this blog. I’m sorry, if I reach a smaller audience because I’m not using AI, at least that audience is reading my words.

And AI doesn’t just write and edit for you—it can also take a candid photo and make it look like a professional headshot. While this is a nice alternative to having to spend big bucks on a photographer, it’s also a hop, skip, and a jump away from fudging reality. If AI can make a snapshot of me at Disney World look like a professional headshot, couldn’t it also make it look like I’m best friends with J.K. Rowling? Or like I spent two weeks at a fancy resort that I’ve never actually visited? If seeing is believing… what if we can’t believe what we see anymore?

Thinking I’m a dinosaur who needs to get with the times, I asked my 16-year-old what he thinks about ChatGPT. To my surprise, I know more about it than he does. The extent of his knowledge is that it’s AI, therefore he has no interest in it. I asked him why—after all, he’s my dyslexic kiddo who has legitimate access to all the assistive technology he could ever want. What Peter said is that AI is allowing people to get dumber because they don’t have to think. There you have it from a high schooler, folks.

And as if the universe was giving me extra incentive to tackle this topic, I read this the other day: “Calculating machines could provide swift answers to complex sums, but what happened when the human mind atrophied and forgot how to calculate?” (Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson—yep, this lecture brought to you by a sci-fi geek).

I am all for assistive technology. After all, I’m the same person who made this vision board in grad school:

Just as I have students with dyscalculia (a math disorder) who are allowed to use calculators on math tests, there are assistive technologies that help people with just about any learning disability you can imagine. The more research that comes out about different learners, the more we’re able to differentiate and allow people to learn according to how they are wired. But before assistive technology can be used, the people using it need to know why they’re using these tools and how to use them properly. Putting a calculator into a child’s hands does no good if she doesn’t know which functions to use or the order of operations. Only once she understands the basic principles of math can she use the calculator to free up some of her working memory so she can think through problems and solve them correctly. In other words, we still have to teach people how to think.

Before writing this post, I did go back to ChatGPT to have it write a lesson plan on r-controlled vowels. The activities that it outlined were okay, but it lumped ar, er, ir, or, and ur into one lesson without any explicit instruction about the different sounds or how to differentiate between er, ir, and ur, which all sound the same. I’m sure I care more about this than most because I’m a specialist, but that’s the point: I’m the specialist, not ChatGPT. The next time I’m feeling overwhelmed, I’ll just take a breather and remember that, even on my worst days, I’m a better teacher than AI.

Here’s the thing: generative AI should only be used to supplement what we already know. It should not be the only source we turn to for anything, and when it’s used at all, it should be with extreme caution and—dare I say?—skepticism. In a time when it’s so easy to let our minds atrophy in front of screens, AI gives us another excuse to let our thinking “muscles” go slack. It’s such an issue that, when submitting a piece of writing for publication, I have to check a box saying it’s my own creation and that no part of it was written by artificial intelligence. Plagiarism, while still an issue, is no longer the main way that people claim works that aren’t their own.

I’ll leave you with this:

I love creating teaching materials or having brainwaves that make me lose myself in a piece of writing for long stretches of time. Don’t let AI steal what you love to do and turn it into a cheap imitation of your original, hard work.

For worksheets, activities, reading passages, lesson plans, and more (that I created), please check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store, Mrs C loves to read: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/mrs-c-loves-to-read

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Freedom to Fail

In November, I did something that I had not done since 2021: I signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). And in doing so, I did something I’ve never done before: I signed up for NaNoWriMo expecting to fail.

The last time I participated in NaNoWriMo, I was in the midst of grad school, and I think the only thing that saved me was that it was 2020, when most of my (and my children’s) extracurricular activities were postponed until who-knew-when. Was I still stressed out? Yes. But I validated a 51,000-word manuscript by the 25th of the month.

In 2021, I had just started a special education certificate program that required me to take more courses per semester in order to stick with my cohort. With sports and music programs in full swing again, I made the tough decision to forego NaNoWriMo in the interest of spending time with my family and keeping a shred of sanity. What made my decision particularly tough was that, in March of that year, I’d had a brainwave, and a new story idea was born. Despite this brainwave coinciding with a new semester at a new school, I split my time between typing papers and typing the story. By the end of June, I’d written close to 114,000 words. Then my creativity fizzled out. There was a two-year period in my story line in which I needed the characters to develop, but I had no idea what events would cause that development. I knew what would happen at the end of those two years, but as for filling in the details, I was stuck. NaNoWriMo would have been a great time to wrestle with that, but even if I hadn’t been stupid-busy, I’m not sure if I would have made progress.

Last year, I felt guilty for opting out for a second year in a row, but no new ideas—or even old ones—had occurred in my year-plus of writing abstinence. Even though I knew I would finish my degree by the end of the month, it wouldn’t be enough time to squeeze 50,000 words in. And I was so burnt out that I was grateful for the lack of pressure.

Why is there so much pressure with NaNoWriMo, by the way? It’s kind of an honor system, although I believe that most people who are crazy enough to sign up to write 50,000 words in a month will see it through properly—or proverbially die trying. I put all that pressure on myself. While fellow Wrimos supported me every year, it was me who was upset if I didn’t make a certain word count in a day. So as November approached this year, I knew that it was on me to take the plunge… or not. I hadn’t written anything new in almost two-and-a-half years. I’ve edited some since 2021, but what if editing was all I had left? Signing up for NaNoWriMo seemed like a final test. Can I still write? That was a more important question than, Can I write 50,000 words in a month?

At the end of October, I signed up, deciding that I would return to my unfinished manuscript from early 2021. It was November 5th before I had time to even think about starting, and when I did, it was only in short spurts. My momentum didn’t start until the week of Thanksgiving. At that point, I knew I was capable of making up my paltry word count—after all, for my first ever NaNoWriMo in 2013, I wrote close to 5000 words on my first day. But that kind of passion was absent this year, leaving me with more of a slow burn. The poor NaNoWriMo stats tracker eventually gave up on telling me how many words I needed to write in a day when the daily goal exceeded 8000.

Here is what I did do in November: I spent time reading a fabulous book (The Running Grave, sequel to The Ink Black Heart, if you read my last post); I enjoyed a day trip to Savannah with my family (also in my last post); I did some much-needed cleaning/decorating/straightening around the house we moved into two months ago; I gave my family and our pets more attention than I have in Novembers past; and I ultimately lost NaNoWriMo for the first time, writing just over 9000 words.

But if you don’t live, what is there to write about?

I don’t know what future Novembers will look like, but now that I’ve lost and survived it, it feels… good. My writing has slowed down, but in this slower season, I will keep moving forward in manageable chunks. I now know the answer to my initial question: Not only can I still write, but by allowing myself to change my pace, I’m even enjoying it again.

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Cemeteries, History, and Bayonet Graffiti

One of my favorite places to go for a quick day trip or mini vacation is Savannah. As close as Disney World but not nearly as expensive, it also has the added attraction (for the adults, at least) of being full of history. And being married to a history nerd… well, it’s rubbed off. One of my favorite historical haunts (pun intended) is Colonial Park Cemetery. I visited it twice when chaperoning my kids’ 5th grade field trip to Savannah, but what actually made the biggest impression on me was hearing about it from the perspective of a ghost tour this past summer.

Displaced headstones again the back wall at Colonial Park Cemetery

I’ll have to admit, I had no idea what to expect from the ghost tour. While there was a conspicuous dearth of actual ghost sightings, and much of the tour was intentionally campy, the historical foundation laid beneath the ghost tales is solid. After hearing that hundreds of victims of the Spanish influenza had been shoveled into a mass grave and that Union soldiers used the cemetery as a camp in the Civil War, Thomas and I had to investigate for ourselves.

We didn’t find a marker for the victims of the flu, but we did walk along the back wall of the cemetery, where displaced headstones now rest. Many headstones are so old that their surfaces have been worn smooth, but we finally found one where some 19th century comedian etched a 1 with his Union-issue bayonet, changing the deceased’s age from 42 to 421. The rule follower in me is appalled by such blatant disrespect of the dead, but the nerd in me finds it absolutely fascinating that this prank from over 150 years ago is still visible today.

Earlier this week, we took the kids to the cemetery to show them our post-ghost tour findings. I’d taken a picture of the altered headstone the first time we found it, and we were able to find it again. Instead of being bored to death, the boys actually thought it was interesting. When not distracted by classmates and a rushed schedule, they began asking questions about the cemetery and the Civil War and history in general. We found some headstones from the 1840s that looked pristine. Considering that people were no longer buried in Colonial Park Cemetery after 1853, that’s comparatively recent. Reading the ages of the deceased on many of these headstones was a history lesson in itself—lots of children and teenagers. It’s sobering to realize that these aren’t cool props but actual markers in honor of real people. Now that the boys are old enough to appreciate it, a cemetery is a pretty cool place to visit.

Now that I think of it, a cemetery would be an excellent setting for a novel—one I have yet to use. I can, however, recommend a great book that has a lot of interesting goings-ons in London’s Highgate Cemetery. It’s Robert Galbraith’s The Ink Black Heart. (Side note: Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling, and The Ink Black Heart is the sixth book in his/her phenomenal Cormoran Strike series.) Not only does a murder happen in London’s Highgate Cemetery, but Galbraith/Rowling creates a whole animated world around that cemetery. If you happen to be in the Savannah neighborhood, I can even recommend where to buy The Ink Black Heart (and any other book you could possibly want): E. Shaver Booksellers. They have giant friendly cats that sleep in the windows—what more could you want?

So keep reading, but don’t forget to get out into the real world and visit places that are worth reading and writing about.

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A Time to Write

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.

~Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NIV)

It’s been 363 days since I posted. More than once over the past several months, I’ve wondered if I should discontinue this blog altogether. From July 2021 until November 2022, I didn’t write or edit any fiction. I can’t tell you how many papers, discussion posts, and lesson plans I wrote, but none of them fed my creativity. While I do journal nightly (mainly to keep my sanity), I’ve never lived through such a dry spell since I could hold a crayon. In November 2021, I knew I wouldn’t be able to participate in NaNoWriMo—there was no way, immersed as I was in the five-course dyslexia practicum that lasted through the following August. And when I finished the grueling practicum, the next course I took required me to read at least one novel per week (more about that in my next post). I raced to the finish line, completing my Master of Education in Reading Education a semester earlier than I’d ever hoped, but I was white-knuckling it that last year just to get done. Finally, I feel like I can breathe again, like I can choose to do—or not do—things because I want to.

On November first, still finishing my last course, I had the vague idea that I might be able to squeak in some National Novel Writing Month participation. I opened the story I’d last worked on 16 months previously. I had started it in March of 2021 and written nearly 114,000 words before life intervened and I had to set it aside. And to be honest, I’d reached a point in my writing where I needed to step back, anyway. I just didn’t think it would be for almost a year-and-a-half. So when I reopened the manuscript, I was more than a little rusty. The plan was to read through the whole thing over again, editing as I went, praying that I would get through what I’d already written quickly enough to start making progress again. Well, forget NaNoWriMo. What with editing as I went, I was lucky to add 500 words in November, almost two months after getting started again, I’m only just over halfway through that manuscript. I have hope that my not-so-trustworthy memory and more dependable notes will be enough to get me back on track. But the heartening thing about all this is that I’ve discovered that I still like to write; there is still something within me that wants to tell a story. So I’m not giving up. I’m just glad that, after surfacing from the necessary mire that was grad school, the impetus to write remains.

Here’s to an end of something—grad school, not this blog!—and a renewal of something that remains important to me, even if it doesn’t pay the bills. I used to hold onto a story idea for months in order to have 50,000 words in my mental tank for NaNoWriMo. Not anymore. That’s not to say that I won’t ever participate in NaNoWriMo again, but it does mean that I will absolutely use the time that I have to write—or build a LEGO typewriter, or whatever. I feel like 2023 will be a great year for rediscovering what I like to do when I have that rare commodity, spare time, and the main thing I like—love—to do is to write.

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My Totally Unrealistic 2022 Book List

Book Purgatory, where books wait to be read… or not.

Every year when I post my book list, I have the opportunity to reflect on the previous year, the book list serving as a kind of visual soundtrack of my life. My 2021 post reminds me that I lost a dear friend on New Year’s Day and that books, more than ever, helped me escape into a world that didn’t contain that pain. Later in the year, I had my younger son to thank for Tolkien; he wanted to read The Lord of the Rings, but of course, I had to start with The Hobbit. I am grateful that my kids still let me read to them, and in this case, I read for the whole family because my husband had never read the series before. When I think about the vacations we took in 2021, I will remember reading those works of fiction to my guys. (As a side note, they are the most difficult books to read aloud that I have ever read; with a lack of helpful punctuation and copious Elvish, I was stumbling all over the place.) About halfway through last year’s book list, the pace slowed down regarding the number of books I read, marking the end of a comparatively relaxing stretch in which I was waiting to transfer to a new university. By the end of 2021, not only was I taking a heavier class load than ever, but I was also into the Outlander series, all the books of which are monsters (800 pages or more).

Reading and writing go hand in hand, and along with reading less, my writing has completely stalled. I can’t even say I’m suffering from writer’s block because I’m not trying to write—and haven’t in more than six months. I don’t feel guilty about not participating in NaNoWriMo because there’s no way I could have fit it in. Reading and writing voraciously will likely not be a part of my life again until I finish grad school (whenever that happens). Rather than getting upset by this reality, I’m choosing to think of this as my fallow time. Just as fields need to lie fallow periodically for the sake of the crops that will be grown there in future seasons, now is the time for my creative juices to enjoy an extended break. I will continue to read because that helps me stay sane; plus, having some fictional stimulation will keep me primed for when I can write again.

I hoped to read 25 works of fiction last year—and I did—but I instead of my detours adding to my list, they replaced some of the books that I am now shifting to my 2022 list. Here are the fiction titles I read in 2021 (* indicates books that were not on my original list):

  1.  A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes #3) by Sabaa Tahir
  2. The Ickabog by J.K. Rowling
  3. A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) by Sabaa Tahir
  4. Troubled Blood (Cormoran Strike #5) by Robert Galbraith
  5. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
  6. Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1) by Leigh Bardugo
  7. Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows #2) by Leigh Bardugo
  8. The Diabolic (The Diabolic #1) by S.J. Kincaid
  9. The Empress (The Diabolic #2) by S.J. Kincaid
  10. The Nemesis (The Diabolic #3) by S.J. Kincaid
  11. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien*
  12. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern*
  13. Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1) by Orson Scott Card
  14. Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate*
  15. Outlander (Outlander #1) by Diana Gabaldon
  16. Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander #2) by Diana Gabaldon
  17. The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings #1) by J.R.R. Tolkien*
  18. The Giver by Lois Lowry*
  19. Voyager (Outlander #3) by Diana Gabaldon
  20. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir*
  21. The Creakers by Tom Fletcher*
  22. Drums of Autumn (Outlander #4) by Diana Gabaldon
  23. The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings #2) by J.R.R. Tolkien*
  24. Dune (Dune Chronicles #1) by Frank Herbert
  25. The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings #3) by J.R.R. Tolkien*

This year, I have no idea what books I’ll be reading aloud with my family, but I hope we continue this tradition. (I’m rooting for Harry Potter.) I also hope that my husband discovers a new book that he thinks is a must-read, like 2021’s Hail Mary. Yet again, this is a list that presumes a lot more free time than I actually have—and it’s not even complete. I always read at least 25 books in a year. I’m five short, so I’m looking for some must-reads. Check out the list below, and if you know of a book that you think I would love, please drop me a comment!

  1. The Swarm (The Second Formic War #1) by Orson Scott Card
  2. The Hive (The Second Formic War #2) by Orson Scott Card
  3. Ready Player One (Ready Player One #1) by Ernest Cline
  4. Ready Player Two (Ready Player One #2) by Ernest Cline
  5. The Fiery Cross (Outlander #5) by Diana Gabaldon
  6. A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander #6) by Diana Gabaldon
  7. An Echo in the Bone (Outlander #7) by Diana Gabaldon
  8. Written in My Own Heart’s Blood (Outlander #8) by Diana Gabaldon
  9. Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (Outlander #9) by Diana Gabaldon
  10. A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy #1) by Deborah Harkness
  11. Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy #2) by Deborah Harkness
  12. The Book of Life (All Souls Trilogy #3) by Deborah Harkness
  13. Sisterhood of Dune (Schools of Dune #1) by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
  14. Mentats of Dune (Schools of Dune #2) by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
  15. Navigators of Dune (Schools of Dune #3) by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
  16. To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini
  17. The Christmas Pig by J.K. Rowling
  18. Artemis by Andy Weir
  19. Randomize by Andy Weir
  20. Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon
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Premature NaNoWriMo?

I don’t plan to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) this year. There, I said it. It’s something I’ve been contemplating since the summer, and I know it’s the right thing to do. I’ve written a novel every November since 2013, but not this year. I started 2021 with a lot on my plate but added even more in March, when I ended a nine-month hiatus in my grad school venture, transferring to a new school and plunging back in with both feet. The queen of over-committing myself, I may have signed up for NaNoWriMo without batting an eye in previous years, but not now. Maybe it’s COVID that’s given me a different perspective, but I’m more protective of my time than I’ve ever been—I’ve actually said no to some things, and NaNoWriMo one of them.

The idea of skipping made me feel like a failure at first. I told myself that I would sign up but give myself permission not to write if I couldn’t afford the time. But I know me, and if I sign up for something, I’m going to by-God finish it. And I really can’t say I mind the sacrifice. What I’m doing with my degree connects with my passion for reading and writing: I’m working on a dyslexia certificate as a specialty within Reading Education. This time next year, I should be able to screen kids for dyslexia and devise individualized plans to help them learn to read. There’s not much sadder to me than knowing there are people who struggle to read but would love it if only someone would help them. I want to be that someone.

Another reason I don’t mind taking off this year is that I wrote a ton from early March through June—close to 114,000 words, in fact. It was one of those stories that just blossomed out of nowhere. I wondered why it couldn’t have hit me at a more convenient time—October 31st, say. But it happened in March, and I wrote 55,000 of those nearly 114,000 words during the first 30 days. At the time, I kicked myself because I was worried I wouldn’t have anything left by November. But as I continued with grad school, work, spending time with my family, and life in general, my initial impetus to write waned. I believe things happen for a reason, and it seems that the reason the story came to me eight months prematurely is because I wouldn’t be able to commit to it in November. When the time it right (write?), I’ll take it up again—with no regrets or guilt.

If you’ve read my previous November posts, you know that I have really struggled with NaNoWriMo the past few years. One year, I actually re-started my previous year’s novel from a different angle, hoping to break through the writer’s block that had kept me from finishing the book the first time. Maybe taking a year off—writing when I have the itch and not on a schedule—is what I need in this chapter of my life. I don’t say this to deter potential WriMos, but I do hope that those of you who struggle with the November-only commitment will feel relieved that you’re not alone. Life happens. Sometimes you can spin out 50,000 words in November; sometimes you can’t. For those of you who need to pause, you’re in good company. And for those of you who do participate, I wish you well.

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Want to sign up for NaNoWriMo? Here’s the link: https://nanowrimo.org

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You Can’t Take NaNoWriMo from Me, 2020!

With all the crazy changes that 2020 has brought, I was determined to have one normal thing: National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. This year marked my eighth foray into the crazy undertaking of writing a 50,000-word novel in the month of November. It was also my eighth win—yay!

With everything else that’s gone awry so far this year, I was worried that NaNoWriMo would be added to the list, especially since it’s been a struggle the last few years. NaNoWriMo 2019 was the ultimate low for me. I did have a good excuse, at least: last fall, I started grad school, and I wondered if I would be able to cobble together 50,000 words. But while grad school made finding time to write a challenge, it was my enthusiasm for the story itself that was the real reason for my struggle. I really had reservations when, 22 days in, I had only written 17,000 words. But I’m not one to quit when I say I’m going to do something, so I knuckled down and validated by the 29th of the month. It was a pretty miserable experience, honestly. I labored on after November, attempting to finish the book, and then—boom—COVID. When you’re writing a book set in 2020, and then a pandemic happens, it tends to kill an already-floundering storyline. I don’t know. Maybe someday I’ll have the energy to go back and fix it.

Unfortunately, I was already on a downward spiral, with 2017 and 2018 being little better. Those two years, I actually wrote the same story. After 2017 lost its mojo, I decided to set it aside and start fresh for NaNoWriMo 2018. But even though I have two novels’ worth of material, I still have never been able to put it all together into one cohesive book.

I’ve had to face the reality that nothing will be like my first NaNoWriMo in 2013. That was the year I embraced what I thought was a completely insane experiment and started with a sprint—over 4700 typed on day one. And I hit 50,000 words just 14 days in. I’m realistic enough to know that that is not the standard to which I should hold myself, but still. I don’t want 2013 to be the one hit wonder of my NaNo experience.

Thank goodness it wasn’t. Although no subsequent year has been as easy as 2013, I finished writing each of my novels for 2014, ’15, and ’16 a few months after NaNoWriMo. And this year, I am determined to do the same. I can’t lie—it helps that I’ve taken a semester off from grad school this fall. Next year, I won’t be able to say the same. But for now, I am determined to enjoy my present success. I’ve already typed 57,000 words, and I haven’t grown weary of this story, as in the past several years. I’m excited to see where it takes me. (Hopefully not as unpredictable and outright nuts as this year, but I’m not counting anything out right now.) Right when I was beginning to fear that NaNoWriMo was just a chore, something from 2020 has finally given me hope.

If you’re a writer, I hope 2020 has provided some interesting fodder for your projects. Did you participate in NaNoWriMo? I’d love to know how you did!

Happy writing, friends.