I apologize to the Slice of Life community for inadvertently breaching one of the commenting guidelines that was brought to my attention:
This month I planned to slice using SPARKS (quick write prompts) from my new book to inspire you try a variety of approaches to writing and thinking. It was not my intent to sell my book here, in fact I am freely sharing my ideas to my fellow slicers. This certainly wasn’t a pretense to be part of the Slice of Life Challenge since this is my 4th year and I’ve been committed to slicing and supporting other slicers all that time. I can certainly see why they need these guidelines with all the spamming that takes place these days and I had no intention of violating them.
Writing a book has been a huge part of my life this past year and I was looking forward to sharing that experience and my ideas with those teachers I hoped could appreciate it the most. I will continue to share SPARKS but will remove reference from my book while slicing because I do not want it to be construed as an advertisement or a pretense. I have never been good at self-promotion. I don’t think many of us are. If I was in it for the money I could quickly package my ideas and sell them on Teachers Pay Teacher for much more than I’ve earned spending a year or more writing a professional book and pouring myself , my ideas, and my stories into the pages. I hope no one felt pressured to purchase any product as a result of my slices. They were not intended as sales pitches.
I am grateful to The Two Writing Teacher Blog for hosting this challenge because I am (like they are) committed to encouraging teachers to write, to be writers. We make some amazing connections with others during this month and learn so much about and from one another. It is a great month for standing on one another’s shoulders to grow our writing lives. I am grateful to you all.
Teacher Quick Write– in the meantime here is an example of a teacher quick write from Friday in our district. I sent out a Spark with this Google Doc link to invite teachers to share an acrostic poem for March. They are to spend no more than 10 minutes with this kind of flash poetry quick write.
litcoachlady 
It was an acrostic day as I looked at snow falling and deleted four beginnings about snow. (Off my screen but not out of sight!) Such fun to see your Mindful March acrostics! 🙂
I LOVE the idea of doing an acrostic but not on the first letter… I have never seen that before. It is on my list for this month. Thank you for the inspiration — and for your generosity and grace. I am glad you are here this month! I look forward to learning from you.
Mmm… I might use this idea tomorrow with my resistant writers. What a great idea. And, while I understand why you have apologized, please know that I read your posts the last two days (I was traveling and did not respond- sigh) and did not see them as self-promotion but as sharing. We still have to follow the rules, of course, but I am grateful for your generosity, too.
Truthfully I was excited about the two ideas that you posted and hoped to have more ideas about quick writing both for staff and subsequently students. I hope you will be able to reference your important work through your writing. I know that writing has made me more proficient at teaching writing.
I will definitely be sharing ideas all month and look forward to collecting ideas from other slicers. I love this month.
Thank you so much for this post. What we do is so much a part of us that what may seem like promoting is really sharing. We don’t consider ourselves as vendors, marketing a product. I know; I walk that fine line. And perhaps I fail to promote when I should.:) Thank you so much for your candidness and for your generosity. I too have been March slicing for four years and I always enjoy your space. I will be seeing you the next few weeks. Blessings!
I so appreciate your generous sharing and always leave your posts with new ideas sparking. Right now you have me considering what I could do to promote some collegial writing at school. On another note, have you ever seen the book “The Lost Words” by Robert Macfarlane? It’s full of creative stunning acrostics with amazing illustrations, all celebrating words about nature and the natural world. I think you’d like it.
Oh thanks! I haven’t but I will check it out now!
Paula, I am interested in your Sparks for educators. Congratulations on your book and keep on filling our spaces with your teaching wisdom.
Thanks, Carol. I love learning along with all of you!
I love this, Paula! How did I miss this email?! I also love how it doesn’t need to start with the first letter. I may try this with my kiddos- we’ve done a lot of acrostic poems this year!
I’d love to see what they come up with. I left some papers in the teachers room with MARCH spelled out in colorable letters. Check it out.
Thank you for sharing! I got to meet your heart in Houston, and I know it’s in the right place.
I can’t wait to try out the Acrostic Poem in my classroom. Thank you for all your sparks in our district!
I love collaborating with teachers on a writing project. It is so fun.
You can drop in our room Wednesday at 1 if you want! We will be Skyping with an author thanks to your encouragement!
Nice! I’ll check my calendar and try to come in!
Thank you for visiting during our Author chat!!
I agree that we don’t often promote ourselves. Congrats on your book. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Patricia.