Greetings Writers!

Last month, as Kari and I began facilitating the Teachers as Writers Workshop at Northview, I realized how much I miss being a writer.   In the teacher-as-writer balancing act I’ve tried to maintain since my first Summer Institute, I somehow lost my writer identity and have been overwhelmed by my teacher identity.  I’m hoping to use the Teachers as Writers Workshop to bring balance back into my life. 

A few years ago, when Amanda and I were in a writing group together, she was working on creating pieces she could use in her classroom as examples for mini-lessons, and I think that might be the place where I can find the balance I’m looking for.  I can justify (to myself and my husband) the time I invest in my writing if I can find a practical use for it in my teaching.  I know that this isn’t the best reason to write, but it is the compromise I’m willing to work with for now.  

And so I invite you to share pieces you are working on to use in the classroom OR share stories about how you are balancing your teacher identity with your writer identity.

Here’s the piece I’ve begun to work on.  The characters aren’t fully fleshed out yet, but I’m hoping to use this to teach students how to create atmosphere.  Watch the "our writing" section for revisions and updates.

Seated comfortably in a high backed wing chair, with his legs crossed, watching the play at the gaming tables, he barely noticed the young woman who stopped to refresh his drink.  He had his eye instead on two players at the table, the one whose place he intended to take, and the one whose money he intended to win.  It was important to choose just the right moment to enter the game, when the players had drunk enough to be uninhibited, but were not so inebriated as to gamble wildly and unpredictably.  The smaller man had tiny beads of sweat accumulating at his hairline and his eyes were moving quickly from the cards in his hand to the diminishing pile of chips he kept close to him on the table.  The larger man’s face was flushed and also beaded with sweat, but his eyes were bright and he was full of confidence.  He was the target. 
The girl returned and placed a drink at the table beside his chair.  “Can I get you anything else?”  He waved his hand over the glass as a cue that she should move on, but she did not.  Instead she followed his eyes to the table, looked over the gathering of men at the table, and slowly turned back to look at him.  He didn’t seem to have noticed her lingering there and another customer was beckoning.  She moved gracefully to another table, but not before looking back to see if he’d lifted his drink from the table. 
In fact, he didn’t need to pick it up to tell that it was just water.  She had refreshed his gin with plain water and he could smell it without looking at the glass.  He ran his forefinger around the edge as the right corner of his mouth lifted slightly, imperceptibly to anyone who might be watching.  Then, faster than humanly possibly, he emptied his glass into the soil of the potted plant resting on the floor beside his chair. 
She did not catch the movement of his hands, but she did notice the suddenly empty glass and she caught the small change in his expression and smiled to herself.

 ~Linda Berlin