Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Lessons in Journal Writing



The little spiral-bound nature notebook has lived for decades in a corner of the long middle drawer in the tall hutch in the livingroom of the lake house.  I take it out once a year, to admire and remember.   I made this with ma, the summer I was four.  My first journal.  I remember drawing the salamander and dictating my observations.  Ma learned that really regular, clear classroom handwriting at Teachers College.

Ma taught me to read and write, and write things down in notebooks, things I saw and felt and thought about.  She taught me to save the notebooks so I could look at them later and remember the things I'd seen and felt.  She taught me tidy handwriting, so that other people could read it, and I could share what I'd written. She taught me to look closely at details of things and she taught me how to use adjectives.  She taught me to use a good #2 pencil with a good clean eraser so that mistakes could be fixed.  And she taught me how to hold the pencil.  Later she taught me that a writing pen should be a good pen, but a good pen didn't need to be an expensive pen, just a pen whose flow I liked.  She taught me that if I made a mistake when using a pen, to cross out my mistake with firm lines and keep going.

2 comments:

Ms Scarlet said...

You were taught well!
Sx

kylie said...

I always loved writing with a pencil!

This is a beautiful post, Leah