Chapter 16: On Being Ms. Lutz

“Hi, Ms. Lutz!” Laura said as she bounded into my classroom. A determined student who valued her good grades, she grabbed a laptop for a lunchtime writing conference. As she read her piece aloud, I had to decide how much to nudge her toward the story I knew it could be and which approach I would take to help her get there. It was only October, so I did not know many details about her personal life, but it seemed as though she did not want to add any thoughts or feelings in this piece perhaps underneath that vacation were some tricky family relationships. I also knew that she would not tolerate an insufficient grade and this omission was going to affect it.