Brookwood School It Starts Here.

This year we have been using some School Meeting time to highlight the writing workshop/writing process work that is happening in our classrooms as part of our whole school literacy program.

LOWER SCHOOL

Kindergarten is celebrating winter, and we are celebrating Kindergarten writers! These poems and the accompanying illustrations show some of the accomplishments of our young writers. In them, we see clear evidence of how children live "the writerly life" by looking closely at the world around them, how they draw to inspire and enhance their work, and how they use the sounds letters make to put words on paper. We're very proud of these poets!

UPPER SCHOOL

We recently recognized 7th grade writers work with memoir. Our thanks to Addie for representing her classmates with her memoir, Bring It On.

Bring It On
“The only thing you have to fear is fear itself.” Yeah right.
Because when you’re about to be hooked up to a piece of wire and plummeted to your death, well, if you were me, you’re gonna be scared out of your mind.
Stop thinking like that, I told myself. Jamie and Annie have done it before and they were… never the same again. No, that’s a lie; they were both fine when they got off. You have to uphold the tradition and do as they did. Everything is going to be… is that the zip line?! I stared at the thin cable that stretched from halfway up the green slope of the mountain all the way to the ground. Biting my lip, I started listening to the guide.
“Hello my name is Eric. How are you all doing?” Those of us that could understand him through his thick Australian accent murmured that we were fine thank you. “Great. Now, we’re each going to go on the zip line the three times.” Three! I have to get killed three times! Isn’t once enough!? “So let’s get started!” Eric cried. The group and I made our way past the dark green trees to the base of the mountain where I stopped, confused.
“Wait,” I said to my brother Jamie, “where’s the ski lift?”
“Didn’t you hear the guide? We’re walking up,” he said, smiling.
“I doubt they even have ski lifts in this part of Australia,” my sister Annie said. “I mean, it’s not like they get much snow here. It’s too warm.”
“B-but won’t it take a long time to get up there?” I asked.
Jamie laughed. “It looks a lot higher up than it really is. It only takes about five minutes to get all the way up to the top. Of the zip line, that is.” I decided to take it from them; they had done it before. This however was the first year that I was old enough to be able to go on.
By the time we reached the top of the mountain, my knees were actually shaking. The following are my thoughts:
I am going to die.
I am going to die.
I am going to die.
I am going to die.
I am going to die.
I am going to die.
Oh my god. Am I first in line to go?
I squeaked, and slid behind Annie. She squinted at me, eyebrows raised, but didn’t object. I watched as she got saddled up, and then stepped off, casual as anything. Strangely, her landing safely on the ground wasn’t at all reassuring.
I am about to die.
Jamie nudged me, and I realized that it was my turn. I walked to the pole attached to the end of the zip line the way I thought a man about to be hung would walk to his noose, taking in the sweet air and staring at the bright blue sky. The saddle pinched my thigh as Eric put it on me and hooked me up, but what did it matter? I was going to die anyway. The thought occurred to me that I should try to make my last act graceful. So when I was told to go, I raised my arms above my head like a bird in mid-flight, took a deep breath, and stepped into empty air.

I grinned as I raced up the mountain for a second time. I couldn’t wait for that flying feeling again. But it was more than that; I felt like I could handle whatever challenge life threw at me. I knew of the expression “pride comes before the fall,” but this wasn’t pride. This was confidence that yes, there would be some rough spots, but I would be able to get through them, dust myself off, and keep moving forward.
Bring it on.