Twenty Positives for Twenty Negatives

Today was a hard day.

It was a day that culminated 20 negatives.

Today was the 20th anniversary of my mother's death. A day I never thought would get here and one I never wanted to see.

Twenty years without my mother. Twenty years of questions only she could answer. But instead of dwelling on all the things I wish I could have had with her, I focused on 20 positives. Because that is what my mother would have wanted. That is how I was raised.

So in honor of my late mother, here are twenty positives that I found while reading my writing students' reflective letters of our year together.

1. "The entry I'm most proud of is the Best Part of Me because we got to talk about the best part of ourselves."
2. "I feel good when I write because it expresses me a lot. It calms me. I used to hate writing       because it was hard but now writing is easy and fun."
3. "I am really good at thinking of really random things to form a story."
4. "I have grown as a writer because I don't write in grocery list writing anymore."
5. "The biggest challenge for me as a writer is to not hurry stories. Instead I need to let the plot develop a bit first."
6. "I used to think writing was a side subject, but this year I have liked it more and now I think it is a true subject."
7. "I have grown so far as a writer this year by showing how I feel in my head, to putting it down on my paper."
8. "The piece of writing that I am most proud of are the reflections because I got to answer questions about my own writing."
9. "I love to write because you can express your feelings and it's really fun to just write about your everyday life. Like Slice of Life. You can just write about your day."
10. "My writing goal is to keep all my writing things that I've learned in my head. I will never, ever try to lose this information to improve as a writer in the future."
11. "I have grown as a writer sensationally." 
12. "I am most proud of my argumentative essay on chocolate milk. I like this the most because I did great on it and it was fun. What made my entry the best is the time I put into it."
13. "Throughout the year you have taught us that the sign of a good writer is that you make mistakes and put in effort." 
14. "I feel like this year in writing made me want to make books and I do like to entertain people, so I think that is what I want to do. Truly, I've grown to be a writer."
15. "I feel confident about writing and hope to continue in the future."
16. "I am most proud of my Alexander Hamilton obituary. I just feel like it has the most detail, and I definitely enjoyed writing it the most. Also, it was about Alexander Hamilton, of course I loved it."
17. "What I feel about writing is a good feeling because I think it will take me a long ways."
18. "At first I hated writing. It had so many rules and no fun to it but now I love it and I know there are ways to experiment, and I like it more because of you."
19. "I've grown as a writer because now I know how to argue better."
20. "The writing I am most proud of is when we did sacred writing and I wrote about being a goalie. I am most proud of this because you told me that it gave you goose bumps when you read it." 

Reflective Letters From Fifth Graders