Classroom of the Month: Word choice and empathy in Tabitha Cooper’s English Classroom
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Eight years ago, just before Thanksgiving 2006, my then-SMITH Mag crew, Tim Barkow, Rachel Fershleiser and I challenged this community to describe their life in exactly six words. Giving Ernest Hemingway's legendary six-word novel ('For sale: Baby shoes, never used"] a personal twist, we called this new section of SMITH "Six-Word Memoirs." We teamed up with a newish site that had an equal fondness for the short form called Twitter. And we had no idea what was coming next. I remember telling my family about it. Everyone at the table, from ages 6 to 80, immediately took to the form; Sixes were flying across the table (my 11-year old nephew: "I have one for Pop-Pop: 'Memory loss. What was I saying?'"). And the Sixes have been flying ever since. Some eight years later, more then a million Six-Worders have been shared on Six-Word Memoirs from SMITH Magazine and the concept just keeps growing in ways I could never have imagined. This past year we released a Six-Word App, announced the Six-Word Advice book, started a new live events series at the 92Y, published a workbook and launched a new site for teachers/classrooms (more on that below), partnered with Urbanful for a Six in the City project (beginning with DC), and brought Six Words to a TEDx event inside a men's prison.