I’m taking part in the weekly Slice of Life Challenge sponsored by  Two Writing Teachers, where teachers write and share each Tuesday. Join in yourself or head over to check out what’s happening with other slicers. If you’re taking part in the SOL, leave a link to your post. I’d love to read it.

I jumped into Teachers Write yesterday.  Jo Knowles invited us to reflect on finding beauty in our writing with her Monday Morning Warmup.  I’m still thinking about that one.  I suspect her words and ideas will resonate for a long time.  I’ve not written directly about her invitation, but thoughts of it are underlying my writing this week and beyond.

Kate Messner provided a powerful minilesson on adding a deeper layer of sensory details.  This is something I know.  It is something I taught my students again and again through the year.  But it is still something that blows me away with its power and simplicity when I remember to do it myself.

I started out sitting on my back porch and writing about what a haven that space has become for me this summer.  I completed a quick description and brainstormed more details.  Before I could incorporate those details into a revised draft, I got interrupted.  I haven’t gone back to that piece yet, but last night at the county fair a rainstorm kept us trapped in one of the buildings.  Here’s my writing from the fair.

First draft:

Not even a thunderstorm can keep people away from the first full night of the fair.  Lightning cracks and thunder booms.  Rain splatters and blows across dirt, gravel, and pavement.  People crowd into the wildlife building to escape the downpour.  Conversations swell around me.  A stroller parks infront of me, green and yellow ballons tied to the handles.  Children skip across the concrete floor, stop and point at the taxidermied critters behind the fence.  Empty wasp nests dangle from the ceiling.

More details focusing on each sense:

• Sight:  bright green fake grass, wood paneling. bags, rulers, and t-shirts advertising the local hospital and political candidates
• Sounds:  patter of rain, laughter, shrieks, country/bluegrass music
• Smells:  buttery popcorn, deep fried poptarts and pickles and Twinkies, sweat and swam from the turtle tank behind me
• Touch:  smooth hard bench, cool pricks of rain blowing in

Revised version:

Not even a thunderstorm can keep people away from the first full night of the fair.  As lightning cracks and thunder roars, rain splatters across the gravel and pavement between the buildings.  I sit on a hard wooden bench in the wildlife building.  Cool pricks of rain blow against my arm as people crowd in to escape the downpour.  Conversations swell around me.  A lawyer running for prosecutor greets adults as the walk by.  Children laugh and shriek as their feet splash through puddles.  They stop and point at the taxidermied animals posed between a fence and paneled walls.  A beaver, badger, mallard, otter, skunk, snapping turtle, raccoon, and deer stand motionless on a bright green carpet of artificial turf.  A stroller parks in front of me with green and yellow ballons tied to the handles.  A little girl with the straps of her tank top falling down clutches a bag of buttery popcorn and twirls away from her mom’s outstretched arms.  The rain lets up as quickly as it began.  The building empties out and we follow the smell of deep fried pickles out into the rest of the fair.

Now I’m off to try this morning’s quick write!