Friday Follow: Blogs Edition #sol19

For the month of March , I will be participating in the Slice of Life Challenge (#sol19) sponsored by Two Writing Teachers. I will be slicing each day for 31 days inspired by my work as a literacy specialist and coach, my life, and my fellow bloggers.

Friday Follow:  Blogs Edition #sol19

March 8, 2019

As a literacy coach,  I am often creating my own professional development on the fly based on what I think might be helpful to my learning community or things that I seek to make a closer connection to through deeper thinking.  However,  there are only so many hours in one day. Each day I take time out to read blogs even when it is not March. Instead of recommending blogs to you, here’s a few ways that blogs move my practice forward.

In all started with twitter, but that is a story for another day.  I will say that I find some blogs I follow because they are posted on twitter feeds.  I recommend you post your blog on twitter and also repost other blogs you find interesting and helpful on your twitter feed as well.  You can connect your twitter to your linkedin and twitter under the sharing bar.

Blogs are where I up my game.  I read a lot of literacy related blogs, both book reviews and professional practice content.  Many of our fellow slicers are published authors and their blogs are full of their amazing ideas.  I am sure you all follow Two Writing Teachers year round and soak up all their delicious ideas.  There are many other professionals through out our community that also blog about their practice, their latest reads, and other people they follow.

These blogs that I have followed either in my Word Press Reader or through email, also send me down the road of other bloggers.  Bloggers are generous folks and often give credit where it’s due when they find an interesting concept to expand upon or another blog that inspires them.

As I have said in many comments over the last week,  blogs are wonderful mentor texts.  Like all mentors, the more you read, the more you learn about them as a craft.  There are short tight ones like Brian Rozinsky’s, blogs that chronicle family time like Stacey’s slice or Jess’ or Darin’s.  There are amazing practiced slices by wordsmiths like Alice Nine.  Poetry, photos, and now a cartoon.  Brilliant mentors who inspire me when I am uninspired and fill me full of ideas.

My radical suggestion is to read the entire list of blogs on the slice list one day.  Some you will just read through and offer a like. Some you will notice a sparkling turn of phrase, an interesting metaphor, a technique you haven’t tried.  Others will spark a memory of family, of childhood, of experiences past that will have you thinking for days.  You will find some blogs to follow.  Blogs that speak to you,  teach you, inspire you.  Just waiting to be read.