Day #212 Writing Through COVID-19: What a Year(book)

It was a good Thursday. My yearbook staff is THIS CLOSE to finishing the 2020 book. Tomorrow at 9 a.m. we will run the index and hit submit!

The deadline was last July, but I refused to finish the book without students, who'd basically fallen off the face of the earth on March 13. 

Let me say this unequivocally: the #1 job for each of us during the spring of 2020 was to isolate and get through the day. I do not fault last year's students for not finishing their assigned pages. I do not know the pressures and difficulties they experienced during this time.

But when school resumed this fall, my new staff was tasked with finishing last year's book. I am beyond grateful for their willingness to pick up where the pieces left from last year. Here's a picture of the amazing team that FINISHED THE BOOK!

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Tonight I Zoomed with English teachers across the state who would have (in a non-Covid year) been meeting at the annual Iowa Council of Teachers of English convention. 

It was a lovely, healing gathering. One woman played the harp for us. One told of her plans to attend a weekend crafting retreat.

The poem shared by the group's organizer touched my marrow. Again and again, poetry turns the pain of human experience into something beautiful. Here is Covid, reimagined through a poet's lens: How Will This Pandemic Affect Poetry?

Tomorrow is Friday.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison