Reading these 100-word gems along with a summary of the process behind their creation reminded me of something I first encountered in Bruce Pirie’s Teenage Boys and High School English: students are able to learn a lot about writing simply by watching someone else model the process. In the classroom, I guess that ’someone else’ should be me. Modeling writing is not something I have done before, as I have usually organized in-class writing time so that I can conference with students, check notes, or answer questions. (And have thereby neatly avoided the certain embarrassment that would come from fumbling with words in front of a class of teenagers.)

Therefore, my personal challenge this semester is to model writing for my students. It’s not nearly as interesting as 100 words a day, but it is still daunting for me. Our semester-end culminating activity will be a multi-media project based on the “This I Believe” essay, so my plan is to create my own project along with students.

Wish me luck.