Featured Student: Chance AKA Fidelis

Chance is a fine young man in every sense of the word. He is kind to his peers, polite and respectful to adults, and cares about the things that matter.

Chance is also our resident dinosaur expert. Although he loves all animals and nature, dinosaurs are his specialty. On the fantasy side, Chance loves dragons, and his favorite books are the Deltora series.

Recently, Chance started his own blog, and he has been full of questions for me on how to add features to his site. If you read comments on this site signed by "Fidelis," you might want to know that is his alter-ego. I love the name Chance has chosen, because he is truly a "faithful" friend.

You can visit Chance's blog here.

Featured Student: Holly

I knew Holly was a gifted writer when I first read her freewriting homework and poetry at the beginning of the year. She truly has the heart of a poet and knows how to put her thoughts on paper. She is self-motivated and writes from an inner drive rather than because of a class assignment.

Holly has started a blog to publish her poetry online. One of my dreams when I started the Mr. Blount's Classroom blog was to hopefully inspire my students to start blogs of their own and encourage independent writing. Holly has done that. You can visit Holly's blog, Next Great Idea With Hollister by clicking here.

This week we received notification that Holly's poem "Autumn Leaves" will be published in Creative Communications' A Celebration of Young Poets anthology. Holly had submitted her poem earlier in the year without my knowledge. I think she had forgotten about it too.

As her teacher, I am so proud of Holly for being true to herself, designing her own blog, and for getting her first poem published.