Pure Manaʻo

Writers- teachers - lovers of the Big Island, there are 26 days to submit your pieces to the local gallery Na Leo o Hawaii http://galleryofwriting.org/galleries/88467 Gallery Title: Na Leo o Hawaii - Voices of the Big Island Gallery Description: This gallery will highlight the voices of the Big Island of Hawaii - from our kupuna (elders) to our keiki (children) - from the fishing village of Milolii to the town of Hawi. This gallery is about living on the Big Island. If you'd like an easy tutorial to submitting your work, please watch the how-to video below: How to submit your writing

In celebration of the October 20, 2009 National Day on Writing, and with the help of NCTE (National Council for Teachers of English), we now have our own local online gallery that is a part of the larger National Gallery. Na Leo o Hawaii , the voices of Hawaii, is for all of us who live on the Big Island. Please help me to get the word out to your colleagues, your students, your kupuna, and please submit your own piece. We are looking for any kind of writing about growing up or living on the Big Island - from eating ice shave at Kawate's, camping at Spencer Beach Park, shoveling snow into your pickup truck from Mauna Kea and making "ice men" in your front yard, or spending New Year's at grandma's house with all the cousins. More information and a flyer will come out when school starts, but the site is up and ready for your own submissions, as well as your family's submissions. Instructions: Go to http://galleryofwriting.org/galleries/88467 Create a login Add p...

Did you have a journal? Were you a writer as a child? Did you lose that passion when you grew up? How long has it been since you, as an adult, have written for yourself -- not because you had to, or it was expected of you, or you were grading papers, but for the pure joy of writing? Cathy Song, Hawaii's own "poet laureate" started writing at a young age. She says, "our family travels started my writing. I guess I was around nine years old when I decided I wanted to be the family chronicler." My own journey started with a Holly Hobie journal given to me when I was seven as a way for me to fill in the empty spaces left from my parents' divorce. My mother gave me a journal every year for the next 30 years. Are we nurturing that passion for writing in our students? Or are we killing that passion with our focus on writing for testing, formulaic writing, and the unhealthy balance of reading first? Choice Literacy, working off the text "Unlucky Arithmetic: Thi...