Picture a man on a journey. 

He's on a journey away from the cold, searching for an oasis from perpetual winter.

He's on this journey of mind and matter, space and time, in an airplane at 3,000 feet.

Out his window, the clouds below take on an ocean-like, wavy quality and the sun's golden warmth reassures him that his journey will not be in vain.

Briefly, he naps, cozy in his certainty.

Sensing the planes descent, he awakens to white clouds and then a dark city from above.

As the plane touches down, he wonders what the warmth will feel like. All his life, he's known nothing but cold and snow and cold and snow.  So confident is he of finding his oasis that he has left all warm clothing, including his coat, back in his frozen homeland.

He ventures down the ramp off the plane in a daze of curiosity and anticipation.

Grabbing his luggage, he stops momentarily in front of the door.

With one grand step, the door opens and he glances up.  As the frigid blast of air hits him in the face, he sees the sign, "Welcome to Lansing, MI, Twilight Zone."

Other versions of Mr. Kabodian's trip to San Antonio can be found on his blog .

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So, after awhile, I made it to San Antonio. Besides my own blog, I wrote on the Red Cedar Writing Project's blog . This is a collection of other teachers from the mid-Michigan area who also attended the National Council of Teachers (NCTE) and National Writing Project (NWP) Annual Conferences.

I heard Sharon Creech, author of Walk Two Moons, speak at the ALAN Breakfast on Saturday morning. On our class wiki (in the sidebar) is a welcome from her and a bit of her talk. In the excertp from her talk, she speaks about how her fan mail isn't always positive. She shares honest replies from readers of her book, Love That Dog, as well as her thoughts about the reading process. 

More photos of my San Antonio trip can be found on my flickr account

Though her schedule did not allow me to interview her, she was gracious enough to take the questions my students had written.  I gave her my email and she promised to read through the questions and send a reply.  When I receive it, I will share it with all my students.  I also stood in a long line to get her autograph on several of her books; check out her new book, Hate That Cat , or buy it.

Some thoughts on her talk:

Sharon Creech spoke to hundreds of English teachers (maybe a thousand) Saturday morning at the ALAN breakfast.  She entitled her talk "Love Those Stretchberries." (us)

One of the questions my students had for her was "where does get her ideas?"  She answered it as her opening.  She quoted Albert Einstein who, when asked where his ideas came from, answered "I only ever had the one idea."  That was her way of leading into the fact that we borrow from and add to the work of others.  She spoke of Walter Dean Myers' poem, "Love That Boy," as inspiring Love That Dog and now Hate That Cat.  She had basically asked the question "What would that boy (from Myers work) love and hate?" She decided his name was Jack and that he loathed poetry...but came to love words due to his English teacher, Mrs. Stretchberry's, influence.

I thought of particular students I have that seem to love words:  Ian, Maggie, Abby, even Ryan who tries to hide it.  How am I at fostering that love?  By making sure they know definitions of tough words from Flowers for Algernon?  I think not.  Once in awhile, I'll stop our reading and comment on a particularly fun word ---- persnickety or phantasmagorical.  I need to find more ways to nurture their love for words, images, ideas, and more. 

I also appreciated her thoughts on Frost's poem "Pasture."  She shared her initial confusion --- as well as her student's disgust when he said "I think this Mr. Frost had a little too much time on his hands --- and she shared her process of coming to love the poem.  She's now able to see the "you come too" as an invitation on several levels.  Placing the poem first in his book, Frost was inviting readers to take the walk/journey of reading the rest of his book of poems.  It was a gentle, welcoming way to begin the book.  And it made her acutely aware of how she invites readers into her stories, the world she creates for them.