Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche asks us to reflect on the word “refresh” for her DigiLit Sunday link up. This thinking took me to the classroom, to students.
The school year is winding down. Students are letting go. I see it in their writing, their actions, their faces. They are leaving. 
Last week, students crowded around me to ask for new notebooks. I thought it a little wasteful. I started to say, don’t you have any pages left? I thought, aren’t new notebooks for beginnings? But on reflection, I realize, this is a beginning of sorts.
In elementary school, students learn to read. Reading and writing happen every day. Students have been taught to choose books they want to read, to notice and wonder, to get their thoughts on the page. They can read and write about what interests them.
Once middle school years begin, structures and expectations are different. Bell schedules, textbooks, after school activities, take up a lot of space. Reading and writing for choice can get lost in this busy world. All the more reason to give them a notebook to start their less scaffolded reading and writing lives.
In twenty days, my students leave the place they learned to read and write. Time to refresh the page with a new notebook with the expectation that they hold and carry on reading and writing.
To Read To Write To Be 