Writing Like a Reader

My writing club students asked me what I was going to blog about today because I wasn't typing like I normally am when they came in at recess.

I have a group of about nine fifth graders that consistently come in each Tuesday with their lunch and spend their lunch and recess time writing. What they write varies from week to week unless you are Jordan and Desiree. I am pretty sure they are both writing a book, Jordyn inspired by a friend's love of unicorns and Desiree inspired by the unicorn story. Every Tuesday both their stories get longer and more detailed. And each time they reread their stories to the group, they find different things they want to revise based off of what I taught them in writing. Definitely the sign of good writers!

But today I told them what I wanted to blog about and why I couldn't quite yet. I explained that I was looking at my writing as a reader and a reader would not want to hear my rant and the anger in my voice. This opened up an interesting discussion about the tone a writer sets when they write.

You see, I still need to calm down. Compose myself. Think about how to write about what I want to write about without offending my audience. 

It will come. 

Soon. 

But it may have to wait because another one of my writing club students requested that my next blog post be The Ringlet, a piece that I modeled for my writing students during our narrative unit. 

And you know what? I think I may just do that.