Celebrating World Teacher's Day with our Giveaway Winner

When I picked today for the announcement of our latest giveaway winner, I had no idea it coincided with World Teacher's Day! How fitting it is, then, to announce the name of our winning teacher:

Tanya Norris, a sixth grade teacher at Castleberry ISD.

I'm posting late in the day because I'd hoped to hear back from Ms. Norris before sharing the good news here. But I didn't want to keep you in suspense any longer.

In her contest entry, Ms. Norris wrote:

"My sixth grade class really enjoyed this activity! Last year I did this at the end of the year, but it worked well to do it at the beginning of the year -- it gave me some insight to the students. They came up with some clever memoirs like:
'Babysitting -- someone get an ice pack!'"

Thanks so much for sharing your experience with us, Ms. Norris. I hope you'll share a few more of your students' memoirs.

And thank you to everyone who entered our contest. We'd especially like to commend Ms. Peirce, a first-year teacher who tried our Writing Workout with her third-grade class. Ms. Peirce expanded the activity. After spending two days reading other kids' memoirs, her class wrote theirs. Then they published them to the wall in their hallway, alongside the author's photo. Hooray for Ms. Peirce, and her students!

Ms. Norris has won her choice of:

A) a 30-minute SKYPE author visit from one of three TeachingAuthors:

April Halprin Wayland, Esther Hershenhorn, OR JoAnn Early Macken 

OR 

B) a basket of TeachingAuthor books.

If you didn't win, be sure to come back on Friday when we announce a brand new giveaway contest!

Out and About

September was a busy month for me. Some of the highlights:

• I started teaching a new 6-week writing class called "Craft and Critique."
• I gave a workshop for young writers at the TT Patton stationery store in Barrington, IL.
• Esther Hershenhorn and I presented to a great group of teachers who are members of the Illinois Reading Council's South Suburban Council. You can see us in the photo below, with the council's president and president-elect.  

Jill Liapis, Esther Hershenhorn, Megan Wrzesinski, and me

That's all for now. I hope to post more after I hear back from Ms. Norris, our winning teacher.
Happy World Teacher's Day and Happy writing!
Carmela