The start of the 2012-2013 school year... and a special dedication to Kaitlyn, as I write annually.

Part 1: Beginning the Year

This school year has been off to a very unique and exciting start. It has been a wonderful journey already as my two classes of reading students have learned about schema as well as text features. I have not taken as many photos as I have wanted, yet I want to show you quite a lot in the very near future.

For my 37 reading students (19 students in my homeroom, 18 in the homeroom next door), I made bags out of duct tape last weekend to hold their "Thoughtful Log" journals, chapter book choice, a highlighter, Post-It notes, and an envelope that holds their homework. It is one of the absolute neatest ideas I have ever followed through with! Besides that, I have made several anchor charts this year that have guided their thinking. One of my favorites was about main idea and supporting details.

Things I am looking forward to in the near future are becoming stronger at journaling (always a challenge at first as a fourth grade teacher because this is the first year they are tested in Writing- computation and grammar) and conferencing about book choices. Therefore, beginning CAFE as well as centers. Likewise, I am starting VOICES in writing in the next few weeks, at the very latest. I am already figuring out who needs guidance with details, punctuation, and even skills already.

I have a lot of students who try very hard. As I told you, a few are already using skills in their writing, which is a pleasant and joyful surprise. It is wonderful seeing onomatopoeia, a few similes or metaphors, and quotations this early in the year. One of my boy writers is an ace at this, though I haven't told him yet. (I am waiting until the right moment!) Then another boy used tremendous vocabulary- "immortal", "invincible", and a few other words. (Wow.) The girls also show great promise-- and they are generally VERY enthusiastic. One had amazing voice last week in just five sentences. I am excited about them growing as writers! The best part is that I was an advanced teacher for four years (teaching some very high-end writing lessons) and now I have a mixed-ability class, though the students in my homeroom are immensely talented (of course, at the beginning, without realizing how sensational they are going to become). So that always makes me jittery and enthusiastic as well!

In reading and writing, with the right guidance and mini-lessons, I will help them with things like sentence marathons (which I see every year), word choice, expounding on details, and coming up with incredible ideas. It may take an intense month, but usually by October, I am quite confident about the progress they are making.

Then of course, owl pellet dissections and salt dough maps are coming up in the next few weeks, also. Always good!

I am enjoying my class, and I am looking forward to seeing them grow to their potential in the next 9 months!

Part 2: A Special Dedication:

Before I write this, I need to take some deep breaths. Four years ago on September 9, 2008, my former student, Kaitlyn, passed away. She was a few weeks into her eighth grade year and was walking to the bus stop, though she walked a bit farther and somehow went to another one. I believe she desired to meet up with a few friends. I recall it was a very foggy morning and I woke up quite early with a lot on my mind for some reason. I knew the following day, I would be receiving three new students: Dillon, Chelsea, and Brandon, because a class was collapsing. Numbers had been over-projected. (Oddly, this happened yesterday as well, where I again received three students. Even more interesting, the class that collapsed four years ago was the wife of the current teacher's class who had collapsed.)

So I was fretting, sort of, and I never knew what would happen that fateful morning. Though I was not there and Kaitlyn was far from a fourth grader by then, it was a day that forever changed my life. It changed lives of my other former students as well. A few of my former students, not even in that class, knew her very well.

The event was devastating. She was walking down the street when a pick-up truck struck her from the rear. She died almost immediately after. Her younger and older brother did not know immediately, though I heard they were told within the morning. I found out when I was teaching one of my favorite writing lessons, "Delectable Dish and Deplorable Dish". I was describing spaghetti and meatballs in the most phenomenal detail I could possibly conjure up in five sentences. I recall wearing a light blue skirt with a swirly, floral pattern and some sequins as well as a black short-sleeved shirt and black flats. (Isn't it peculiar, almost, how we recall what we wear and where we were when events happened that changed our lives?) A teacher peeked into my room and asked, "Did you hear that a former student from this school passed away this morning?"

I was not aware of the occurrence, though when I passed one of the country roads on the way to work (we are in a rural area), ambulances and police cars were at the scene. I presumed it could have been from that scene, where I said a prayer for whomever was involved, yet I could not come to a deduction because I had not seen anything. She then mentioned it was an eighth-grader, and I resolved I had to have known the student because those were the fourth graders when I was in my first year of teaching.

I had to stop the lesson, momentarily, and call the front office. I asked one of the secretaries who this student was, and she told me without realizing the front office had figured out who had been her homeroom teacher. (I was her only homeroom teacher who was still at the school because she had come in third grade.) At first, she said a first name that was similar to hers along with her last name, but then I repeated the name and it was confirmed she had passed. (I found out later the front office was going to call me up there to tell me personally, but I was glad I knew then because honestly, crying in front of students is very difficult for a teacher. I kept my cool and calmly announced to my students what had happened. They looked devastated, and inside I was broken. Luckily then, I didn't know how the accident had occurred.)

That afternoon, I drove down that road, and on the side was a praise and worship memorial of sorts. A cross with numerous stuffed animals had been set up. I thought, Thirteen years old, with so much promise.  By then, I was crying, and I came across a few people I recognized, though I did not see a few I knew like her mother or brothers. I met her eighth grade Language Arts teacher who was clearly devastated. She was planning on giving her a challenge spelling test in the near future because she was clearly an advanced, very talented student.

The following day, I met my three new students, whom I grew to love. One left soon after, but Dillon and Chelsea truly brightened my class. I focused on new beginnings with these students as well as the rest of my class, which turned out to be one of my very best.

It was the funeral a few days later that changed my life. People said Kaitlyn loved rainbows, and one of the most spectacular ones I had ever seen was out. As my mother and I drove there, I started crying at the rainbow. Inside the funeral, I cried at her examples of writing and art, which started when she was quite young. I remember nurturing her as a writer-- she was one of the most sensational writers I ever had at the beginning of the school year. (I say this, even in my ninth year of teaching the same grade at the same school.) Walking around, I loved how she had written a story about hair in Spanish class the previous year as well as novels. Seriously beautiful works with exquisite vocabulary, skills, and promise. Everything was divine. Then of course, her art was more advanced as well.

She had grown up so much since I had her. Obviously, we reunited in a way that was devastating, and I even cry now thinking about it. The image remains vivid and unparalleled in my memory. Her family had put a delicate white dress on her, and her hair was beautiful. The makeup was applied just right. It was stated in her eulogy that she was a "bride of Christ", an "angel". I remember reaching out to touch her hand, and an immense chill ran up my spine. It was right then and there I realized my students really were my world, even when I had not seen many since elementary school. She was in my beloved first class, a really unique contributor to the mosaic of what made that group authentic in my heart. Even now, as the image of what happened that morning remains in my mind, it makes me feel horrific. I think of other students in her class and besides that I have not seen since fifth grade or so, and it makes me realize how rapidly time passes. One cannot take a single moment for granted. I learned that even farther when one year later, her mother passed away from cancer. (I didn't find that out until last year.) That makes me think even farther.

Later that year, the school's art teacher dedicated the county's art show in her honor. Her name was on the program. She put her massive papier-mache "turtle duck" on display from her fifth-grade year, which is still in her classroom now as a tremendous "centerpiece" of sorts. The "turtle duck" was probably three or four feet tall and perhaps three feet wide as well. She went WAY above and beyond with that assignment, which was to make a simple papier-mache animal!

This year is probably the most important dedication I will write out of all of them because Kaitlyn would have been a senior in high school this year, graduating in June 2013. This year is already bittersweet for me, as my first group of students is entering the "real world" and graduation will mean something monumental to me this coming spring. I will probably shed "real" tears in front of my class for a multitude of reasons-- for her, for their overall rite of passage, for just growing up in general as the fifth graders and eighth graders (who have obviously moved on already) move on to middle and high school. (You will hear plenty more about all of this as the year progresses.)

There have been other experiences that have changed me as a teacher, but none as much as this one. Experiences changed me farther after this happened, yet this is one that makes me teary-eyed again and again.

Last, Kaitlyn, I want you to know that I love you. I wish you were here with me right now (perhaps you are, and I just don't realize it). I tell my students now that I love them as often as I can. (Last year's class can attest to that, and this year's may even be able to mention that I have told them once or twice so far.) What I will always remember about you are your writing, art, smile, and very unique personality. You were spunky, witty, and charismatic.

Where would you be right now? Who would be your best friends? And of course this pivotal year, your senior year of high school, what would your goals be for the years ahead? Would you have applied to college? The possibilities are endless... right? I think about what your classmates are doing right now as they embrace the "endless" possibilities.

I will always remember you as I think about beautiful memories as a teacher, rainbows, trees, daisies, and awesome stories, and you'll always be valued in my heart as I teach every new group of students.

Here are a few articles and dedications from then, which I have posted before: #1, #2. The pictures still touch my heart.