PWLA Writing 1

I am attending the Plano Writing Leadership Academy and having lots of fun! I am learning lots that I can do with my students in school.

Our assignment was to look at an excerpt from The Great Gatsby (they gave us the excerpt). Then we were to model our writing after that. Here is what I came up with:

This is my South West—not cacti or tumble weeds or barren endless sand, but memories of my life, biking in a suburban neighborhood down to Bob Woodruff Park, a green, open, luscious place, where dogs run and people chase Frisbees, people fish and where children feed the ducks and are chased by geese, where balloon festivals were held, where nature trails meander and my husband proposed and feelings of happiness, peace, amazement, beauty, nostalgia and contentment prevail. The southwest holds memories of walking to the neighborhood 7 11 to buy an excess of candy in 100’ blue skies, playing Barbie with a neighborhood of friends. It is camping with my family or with Girl Scouts, night hiking, riding horses on a wooded trail, singing camp songs happy and sorrow-filled and haunted, raccoons eating peanut butter at night in our cabin, sleep walking down wild trails, stepping on a snake…barefoot, teen-age pranks in the night, wild temperature dropping from 80’ to 30’ in 4 hours, almost earning our Polar Bear Badge in tents, sitting in warm afternoon air working on cross-stitching a yellow rose of Texas, learning to bead from a Choctaw woman in the woods. Whether golden leaves falling, branches bare and clanging, yellow-green leaves budding or summer leaves blowing in the wind, always friends around…That, is my Southwest.