I loved reading about Cindy Minnich’s Top Ten Joys, because they were not all predictable.  I won’t list them all, but you can find them here. http://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/my-top-ten-joys-by-erica-shipow/

The one I appropriated for myself was this one:  The joy of listening to someone else’s words.

I was enjoying hearing the written words of my students last night and realized that this excitement often drains off as the year progresses. As I read Cindy’s joy I thought, how can I make this excitement last through the semester? What was stirring me now that I should remember later?

One student was writing about kickball with a deflated ball. That was all they had when played that day in a vacant lot with car floor mats for bases. I loved the spirit of making the most of little, and I loved that the student would share a story like that. She had understood that kickball was more than the equipment.

I asked how could they play like that, she went into detail about how her brothers were huge guys who could make even a deflated ball fly. And the kickball tradition carried forward into years when the ball was more inflated. But she treasured the memory of the deflated kickball game. Sweet.

Another student read a story about stealing flowers from neighbors’ yards for bouquets for their mothers and the terror she felt when an imposing elderly lady caught them and soundly lectured them. And the terror that she would tell her mother. And suddenly I was in the mind of a seven-year old girl, whose worst fear was that her mother would discover her to be a thief.

Another student told about risk-taking, riding his bike across a frozen pond with one arm in a sling. He showed us the arm that had been shortened by surgery as a result of the painful fall.  It was all about impending catastrophe that reader sees so well, but the protagonist dismisses.

This is the delight of listening to the first public written words of students in your class. It’s like an invitation you didn’t expect. What if I listened and read with the same delight all semester? What if I returned feedback with the same wonder and hope for what would follow? What if I was not merely a teacher, but a listener?

So I am making note of this joy early in the year, so I can keep it alive as long as possible. I can be the audience that my students may have lacked and the coach they need at this moment in their writing lives. The energy a good listener conveys fuels the writing process. I want to be that energy.

The joy of listening. Note to self: cultivate it.