10 Things I know to be true

“It’s not just the adage ‘write what you know,’ it’s about gathering up all of the knowledge and experience you’ve collected up to now to help you dive into the things you don’t know.” I got this idea for a writing starter from a fabulous TED talk by American poet and teacher Sarah Kay. In this talk she talks about spoken poetry and the power it has for teenagers to find their voice. She talks about a writing exercise she uses with her students. As we were struggling for speech topics I decided we would also write a list. Here is the combined list with help from my year 10 class. 10 Things I know to be True 1)Dogs will forgive you immediately, cats not so quickly 2)Reading is the key to success. (775million people can’t read, 152million children do not attend school) 3)Facebook is not for NCEA credits 4)Keeping in touch with friends is important. 5)Life is hard(so you need to work hard) 6)You can survive a whole English lesson even if your cellphone is on the teacher’s desk. 7)There’s never a bad time to eat chocolate or ice cream. 8)Tomato sauce is one of the major food groups. 9)Two socks go into the wash, only one returns 10)When you can’t find something, your mum always can. Here is the link to Sarah Kay’s TED talk http://www.ted.com/playlists/77/new_to_ted.html