I Already Know

I did a double take and rechecked what I read on the classroom bulletin board. It was something I already knew, and it gave me a warm feeling inside.  The poster that caught my attention had royal blue letters that spelled out FANBOYS.  Wow!  FANBOYS goes way back.  The last I used it was during the 2011-12 school year, when there was a reduction in staff.  My job as a reading specialist was no more, and I was back in the classroom teaching sixth grade Language Arts at Four Points Middle School.

And then, I see it today more than ten years later in a fourth grade reading classroom where I was substitute teaching.  How crazy is that?  FANBOYS is a cool acronym to help students learn how to use conjunctions in their writing.  The letters mean F for for, A for and, B for but, O for o, Y for yet, and S for so.  

My FANBOYS posters are no more.  I left them behind in a giant drawer for storing poster board and other large papers or maybe I even left them in a file cabinet.  You see, I retired from teaching three years ago and took nothing with me.  There was no need.  I would never use it again.  That part of my life was over, but the memories will always linger.  

I can’t believe it.  I’m substitute teaching and a teaching Anchor Chart I used is staring back at me.  I learned about FANBOYS the summer I spent two weeks in a New Jersey Writing Project course.  The year was 2002 and September 11th was strong in our hearts.  Our celebration slogan was “Celebrating Our Freedom to Write”, and we had this printed in red on t-shirts and tote bags along with a blue background of the statue of liberty.  

I’ve known FANBOYS for a long period of time, and its longevity confirms its effectiveness when teaching kids.  I already know how to teach writing because I took tons of staff development (New Jersey Writing Project, Cypress Fairbanks Writers’ Workshop, 6 Traits of Writing, Written Composition, Writing Success on TAKS), and I taught it years ago to junior high, middle school and elementary kids.