We Can Just Keep Going and Going

As I was trying to think of how best to reflect at the end of my first SOLSC, I realized that my first graders had summed up much of what I was feeling. While I learned a lot about myself as a writer and the importance of belonging to a community of writers, bits of doorway conversation best reveal my thoughts.

This morning, as my kids came into the classroom, giving hugs, jostling past each other and filling me in on their lives during the 17 hours since I had last seen them, N. squeezed me tight and said, "Mrs. M.--we did it! We passed the challenge!" Her face was lit up and she bounced up and down with excitement and an obvious sense of pride.

A. overheard and wandered over, shoulders slumped, his brown eyes thoughtful. "But it's kind of sad too, right?" he said, "that it's all over."

J. barely looked up as he moved past A. to get to the coat hooks. "We can still slice though! There are new books (we had slice booklets) and we can just keep going and going."

A. followed J. to his desk, and seeing a new blank book just for slices, hurried away to his own desk. He sat down, tossed a smile my way, and began to dig through his desk for a pencil.