Ten

In case you're wondering, I'm not quite sure where this whole series is going. I'm pretty much writing for discovery. It's like what I've told my students, if you have something on your mind, write about it, work it out. Well, okay, I don't say "work it out," but secretly I hope they do, and some have tried.

I have a group of girls in my class this year who have been friends since kindergarten. They are lovely children: thoughtful and compliant, but with a bit of an edge. As similar as they all seem on the surface, they are really very, very different, and as the teacher who reads their writing, I can see that clearly. I haven't cracked their social code well enough to know exactly who is best friends with whom, but I understand that as close as they all seem to outsiders, there is a hierarchy.

One of the girls has written several slice of life stories about another, who is in a different English class. She starts each piece by explaining that they are best friends, and then describes an incident in which she was mistreated by the other girl. "Maybe you guys should talk about this," I told her after reading the third one. "It doesn't seem good to hold on to your resentment."

She laughed. "Oh, she'll never change," she said, "but I do feel better writing about it."

Is that what I'm doing, too? Public education and I are pretty tight, but I do harbor some doubts.