Field Trip!

The first day of the EMWP summer institute felt right. My brain was exhausted and my heart inspired. Today we will be writing all day around the immediate area of Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. I have my teacher-writer bag packed with essentials: mechanical pencils, pens, paper, sticky notes, writer's notebook, iPad, digital camera, Clif Bars, and coffee money. I'm also bringing along Carl Anderson, Peter Johnston, and Jeff Anderson--not the actual people, but wouldn't that be amazing? I'm bringing, How's it Going?, Choice Words, and Mechanically Inclined. Partly because they aren't terribly heavy and partly because as I was building my demonstration lesson, I noticed the heavy influence of these teacher-writers on my own thinking and teaching. During this day of writing, I plan to spend time reading, reflecting, and writing to find the connections between their work and my work. I feel goofy like a 3rd grader all geeked-up for a school field trip.