Passion Quilt

When I was tagged for this Meme by A Year of Reading, my wheels began turning right away. As soon as I started looking for pictures, I saw what I wanted in about 1,000 versions, so I may post more than one picture.
Here are the rules of the Meme:

• Think about what you are passionate about teaching your students.
• Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
• Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
• Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce

My passion or the thing that I want my students to leave my class knowing more about is CHOICE! There are so many different kinds of choices, but specifically I am talking about Choice in literature. As this first picture demonstrates, I hope they learned it way back when:
My Choices are endless...
But if they didn't get the choice then, maybe they have encountered Choice along the way:
Whatever shall I CHOSE?
And I never want my students to feel as thought they need to pull one of these kinds of tricks in my class:
She'll never notice.

I am going to tag those whom I know are teachers and haven't been tagged as far as I can tell, but if anyone else wants to participate, feel free...
I tag:
Jen Barney A Teacher's Life
Amy S. My Breakfast Platter
Stacy and Ruth Two Writing Teachers
Jenny Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It
Sarah The Reading Zone

Teaching Meme

A Year of Reading tagged me for this meme. I am a good teacher because...I love what I do and I have fun doing it. I thrive on making a community in my classroom and I want the students to know they can do anything, think anything, and ask anything.

If I weren't a teacher I'd be a/an... Something in the beauty business... something to do with make-up.

My teaching style is... Student-led and very inquiry based.

My classroom is... Full of books, paper, writing, talking, working students, and me.

My lesson plans... Sometimes don't get written down. :0 They are mostly in my head and the head of everyone in the room. (We do workshops and a lot of it is the same everyday)

One of my teaching goals is...to keep as much student ownership in the day as possible. We are being pressured to get rid of that in the name of testing and it is the way kids seem to learn best. Create a classroom community as quickly as possible at the beginning of the year. -- I am keeping both Franki and Mary Lee's answers. I agree with both!

The toughest part of teaching is...You are never quite sure what your doing is the right thing until it is over and you can see the outcome. It is not as simple as "You do this...and this will happen." I love that and hate that.

The thing I love most about teaching is...When a kid comes back and says "Remember when we..." Makes me teary every time!

A common misconception about teaching is... It is 9-3 with summers off. LAWD, nothing could be further from the truth. And I am still not fully convinced that my husband doesn't think I sit in a chair and babysit everyday.

The most important thing I've learned since I've started teaching is... Students learn through example and there is no better way than to read and write in front of them and with them.

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I am tagging CookieBooky and My Breakfast Platter And anyone else who feels like doing it. I have no idea who has already been tagged.

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