tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8799221749466807452024-02-08T03:42:50.846-08:00The Writer in the CommunityReflections from Penn State's English 497B course. Fall 2009.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-34658616497449739592009-12-14T22:02:00.000-08:002009-12-14T22:37:10.902-08:00Comics Exercises<style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> </style> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I've been wondering what resource I might recommend which wouldn't step on the toes or unnecessarily overlap all of the other wonderful sites offered up on this blog. Based on my rigorous research of at least 25 minutes, it seems like there are more legitimate online resources for poetry (prompts, examples, readings, etc) than for fiction and more for fiction than nonfiction. I assume this is due to the fact that it's easier to get away with publishing one poem than an excerpt from a collection of stories or essays. Or is it perhaps because poetry is the first genre people turn to when they think about writing groups? Perhaps it is the form which most readily lends itself to restrictions of time? I think there are other reasons, but I'm not sure how to put words to them without sounding like I'm making some obtuse assumptions. Anyway, I'm getting away from my point.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> I was thinking about genres. Then...</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <i>What about comics?</i> I thought...as an after-thought, and then immediately felt disgusted with myself for not having thought of that first. Because sadly, even though comics have been enjoying a burgeoning popularity for the past few decades (within and without academia), they still seem to occupy that after-thought space. There's poetry, fiction, nonfiction....oh yeah, and comics. On the bright side, at least people are starting to say “comics” instead of “graphic novels,” finally understanding that adding the word “novel” to a piece of work doesn't make it any more worthy of scholarly attention. What hooey. From now on, I'm going to call my grocery lists “nourishment novels” so that, by the time I get to the store, I don't dare doubt the exigence of my earlier demand for peanut-butter filled pretzels. This is serious stuff. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Again, I am getting away from my point. The problem is <span style="font-style: italic;">not </span>that poetry, fiction, and nonfiction had a head start. I refer you to the first few pages of Scott McCloud's incredible <i>Understanding Comics</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> for an argument about the age of the graphic narrative. (Or go <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/scott_mccloud_on_comics.html">here </a>to see what you would be missing by not referring to it.) Perhaps the three traditional genres had a head start in academic circles? I don't have the knowledge to make claims here. But I do know that comics is a genre which is still struggling to find its place in academic departments. Is it an Arts class? Literature? Composition? I would argue, rather unhelpfully, that the genre exists in between them. Its position remains unresolved. Maybe that's part of what makes comics so interesting.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Regardless of its place in academia, I like to make room for comics in my own field (Creative Writing) because I think a lot of its philosophies, techniques, and vocabulary translate into the language of composition in ways that only improve my understanding of the craft. I especially appreciate the kinds of connections that comics teaches the artist to create. Connections between image and language. Between concrete and abstract. Between time and real-time. Between white space and ink. Between artist and writer.<br /></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Here's the catch. While a google search of “poetry/fiction/nonfiction exercise” yields pages and pages of incredibly useful material, a google search of “comics exercise” yields top-hits that take you to cartoons about fitness and working-out. </span><i>Oh. That </i><span style="font-style: normal;">form of exercise. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Because, in spite of the flourishing world of comics, there still isn't a lot of material out there about </span><i>teaching</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> the genre; for the newcomer, this can be especially intimidating. I know. I'm a newcomer. And I'm especially intimidated. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Here's what I recommend: Read Will Eisner's </span><a href="http://www.willeisner.com/books/graphic_storytelling.html"><i>Graphic Storytelling</i></a><span style="font-style: normal;">, read Scott McCloud's </span><i><a href="http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780060976255">Understanding Comics</a>, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">read Jessica Abel and Matt Madden's </span><i>Drawing Words and Writing Pictures</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Then read “<a href="http://www.laffpix.com/howtoreadnancy.pdf">How to Read Nancy</a>” by Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik. Because it is hilarious. And because it will have you appreciating the (seemingly) smallest of decisions. The books by Eisner and McCloud explain the theory and history of comics. Abel and Madden's textbook actually gets into a pedagogical approach to the genre. If you don't want to purchase it (which you should, you <span style="font-style: italic;">really </span>should), the <a href="http://www.dw-wp.com/index.html">supplementary website</a> for this textbook is fantastic. It offers everything from sample exercises to homework assignments to teaching guides. If you've ever scoured the web for good comics prompts, you will understand how rare this resource is. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Above all, I would recommend any who are interested in comics (teaching or creating) not to fear it, not to think yourself unworthy of introducing it to a class or beginning your own because you think you know too little. The genre rewards personal experience, personal style, personal interpretation, personal taste, and personality. And while you may feel quite alone in your endeavor (thanks, google search), there is a thriving community, eager to share what they know and to hear what you have to say. You just need to start listening, start looking.<br /></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As a random side-note, Penn State University professor and comics artist, Jarod Rosello, successfully introduces comics into his Creative Writing and Rhetoric and Composition courses. A happy outcome of this is a blog he has just started (<a href="http://artonacard.blogspot.com/">Art Cards</a>) which features student work interacting with everyday environments. Check it out. Put some art on some cards.<br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And happy exploring.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><br />P.S. The title to this post is my attempt to usurp the google search results for "comics exercise" from links to cartoons about fitness. Join me in the good fight; post your own comics exercises.Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13416878944487658611noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-73239922922762854502009-12-14T14:14:00.000-08:002009-12-14T14:20:14.323-08:00A Dash of Teaching Philosophy and a Sprinkling of Sandra Cisneros<meta equiv="CONTENT-TYPE" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><title></title><meta name="GENERATOR" content="OpenOffice.org 3.0 (Win32)"><style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } A:link { so-language: zxx } --> </style> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Two years ago, as I was applying to graduate school, one of the programs requested I submit a teaching philosophy along with the usual materials--writing sample, transcript, GRE, signed waiver forfeiting my soul etc. Understand that, two years ago, I had never taught anyone anything, unless you count that time I showed my family and neighbors how to make their fortune cookie fortunes funnier by adding “in bed” to the end of each. And even that wasn't an original lesson plan. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Recently, an adviser encouraged me to begin developing a statement of my teaching philosophy. Apparently panic-stricken, blind flailing doesn't count. Anyway, even though I now have three semesters of teaching experience and, admittedly, should have some clue of my teacherly intentions, this suggestion has gotten me thinking the exact same things I thought two years ago when confronted with the same request. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">When I think about my teaching philosophy, I don't think about my teaching experience. Shameful, right? I think about my student experience, instead. Perhaps this is because I find very few philosophy-inducing epiphanies in my recollections of teaching (note to self: Writing/reading may not necessarily be your students' first priority and you need to be okay with that. Note to self: not everyone will love Annie Dillard and you need to be ready to face that. Note to self: do NOT make fun of <i>Twilight</i>.) Or perhaps this is because I have no way of judging the success of my “lessons” because I am not on the receiving end of them and because I evaluate a classroom's success in strange ways. What matters to me (and what mattered to me as a student) is investment. Interaction. Excitement. The best classes I ever took—the classes that stayed with me—were those in which the teacher nurtured my excitement for the material. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">So if writing/reading is not a student's first priority, I want them to write/read a phrase that pierces them, that makes them realize the power of the written form. I want them to write/read a line that gives them sheer pleasure—from the beauty of the language or the sheer loveliness of thought. I want them to be excited. That's the first step to interaction. And interaction produces investment. And investment fosters a desire to extend the class beyond the perimeter of the classroom, past the limit of the semester's end. I don't care whether students love my class, or whether they come to love writing/reading throughout my course. I care that some seed has been planted. That they might grow to love literature. That they might aspire to create it. Wow, I realize as I type: Wow, that is painfully idealistic. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Anyway, probably because I am a young teacher, I have difficulty encouraging excitement about texts/prompts in which I, myself, am not excited. I've heard from many colleagues that it can be incredibly painful to introduce your class to a writer you love, if only because the students may not love him/her (case and point: Ms. Dillard) or, worse yet, may not love him/her as much as they love the <i>Twilight</i> series, and may therefor put you in the very uncomfortable position of informing them just how incredibly wrong they all are. Or, worse yet, they may make you question your devotion to the writer in question. Goodness forbid it!</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Regardless, I have recklessly introduced my students to texts that are very dear to me for very personal, illogical reasons—the hardest kind of loyalty to put up to so much scrutiny. Fortunately this shred of bravery has been rewarded. I have had the most success (i.e. my students have been most excited about) those texts in which I am most invested. But my reckless bravery has not stopped there. I have used the same prompt in the classroom (with 18-23 year olds) and in an extracurricular Writers' Group that I help facilitate, and which is made up of 10-14 year olds. Understand that 10-14 year olds are even more willing to admit their disinterest for any particular piece of writing. 10-14 year olds are even more willing to declare how much better <i>Twilight</i> is than all this Literature nonsense.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The prompt (again, not an original—my 9</span><sup><span style="font-size:100%;">th</span></sup><span style="font-size:100%;"> grade teacher assigned it) is drawn from a chapter of Sandra Cisneros' exquisite little work </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>The House on Mango Street. </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Composed of what I would call flash fiction vignettes or prose poetry chapters delivered through the voice of Esperanza Cordero, the book tells the story of a young girl's life on run-down Mango Street. It is an exploration of life delivered through a voice so lyric and deceptively simple that it is not easily forgotten. My favorite chapter (and what my teacher once used for a writing prompt and what I now use as a writing prompt) is “My Name.” It's easily available <a href="http://theliterarylink.com/mangostreet.html">online </a>(but buy the book! You won't regret it.) </span></span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I recommend slowly reading this aloud in your session, maybe even bothering to read it twice because of Cisneros' attention to the musicality of language. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Take a few minutes to discuss the sound of the sentences, the voice, and the comparisons Esperanza makes to her own name (e.g “It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.”) Talk about how names have stories, how they have meanings, how they fit and do not fit who we are. After this, direct the writers to compose a short piece which emulates Cisneros' style and organization:</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">For the sake of a prompt, I'd avoid asking this many questions, lest they be too controlling. Just a few questions could be launching points for some incredible writing.</span></p> <ol><ol><ol><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What is your name? What does it mean? What color would it be? What does it sound like to you?</span></p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Where did this name come from? Do you own it? Does it own you? Does it have a history? What story does your name tell?</span></p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Do you like your name? How does each syllable sound to you? </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">(Most important part, I think) If you could change your name, what would you change it to? Be imaginative! Explain why this new name is a better fit.</span></p> </li></ol></ol></ol> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This prompt was very successful in a group of 10-14 year old writers. Partly this is because they already had all the material they needed to have in order to write, and partly because there are so many different ways to emulate Cisneros' style. Each child found a different part to latch onto—for one it was the examination of sounds, for another it was the examination of her name's story, for another the freedom to re-choose a better, wilder name for herself. A name that she could own.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A quote that has stayed with me:</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: normal;">I can remember walking down the street, saying my name over & over, until all of a sudden, it didn't sound like my name anymore. It didn't even sound like a word at all & then I stopped & the silence rushed in & whispered words that sounded more like my real name & I smiled & thought to myself how surprised my parents would be when they found out what a mistake they had made.” - Brian Andreas</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></p> Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13416878944487658611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-61306962857466583092009-12-13T15:03:00.000-08:002009-12-13T15:32:53.241-08:00Poor, fun writingly things.http://writebadlywell.blogspot.com/<br /><br />I'm sure by now we've all come upon this site. It's a fun blog to scan through, even if the earlier posts are better than the recent ones. Anyway, the site has posts demonstrating, in a ludicrous and over-the-top manner, ways to write poorly, focusing each time on someone's (indeed many people's) writing pet peeves: spell check reliance, mixed metaphors, excessive dialogue tags, et cetera.<br /><br />I have an as yet untested idea for how to use it as a template for a writing prompt. Simply, take one of these posts (some surely will work better than others) and let students have a go at replicating the bad writing. Students, if this lesson works, will first be able to then identify what exactly the problem is, and then, by doing it in an over the top style, identify why they are problems. I imagine this would be a fun activity. A natural follow-up could be fixing/revising to eliminate the issue.<br /><br />The closest thing I have done to trying this involved revising cliches with my Eng15 class. It didn't go over perfectly, and I was put in a tough spot of trying to encourage creativity and participation while also explaining why many of the sudents' offerings were not much better. Having good examples of revision ahead of time would be good. For example, "his heart fluttered in his chest" could be "his heart smacked his ribs like a bumblebee at a window." (I think that was Chabon).<br /><br />So there are potential problems with this idea: the age of the group, level of comfort between the participants and the teacher, participants being so ingrained with bad habits from trash books that they like writing badly more than correcting it. There's also an issue, perhaps, in so resolutely and concretely designating something as "wrong." I'm not saying it would be an easy lesson, but for the right group, I'd imagine it would be useful. At the very least, the writingbadlywell blog outlines some of the more irritating writing errors, things for which you can then write your own lesson.White Flashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13766529201353108194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-6082913581571626892009-12-12T10:52:00.000-08:002009-12-12T10:56:00.335-08:00Finishing Thoughts?Now that the semester is just about over, our group has finished working at the youth center. And so I’ve become, as one tends to at the end of things, introspective and retrospective. Outrospective? <br /><br />I’ve been thinking about the words we use. “…our group has finished working…” <br /><br />“Finished” has such a finality to it, along with an implication of a task being completed. As in, <span style="font-style: italic;">I finally finished that paper</span>. I see the word there and, for me specifically, it lacks an appropriate sense of accomplishment. I recall racing through tests as a kid and slapping it down on the teacher’s desk, saying, almost yelling, “Finished!” I would do that smiling and happy, but the glee was more from completion than the journey. “Finished,” then, strikes me as a combative word. What else could I say though? <br />I’m <span style="font-style: italic;">done</span> working…<br />I’m <span style="font-style: italic;">through</span> working…<br />I’ve <span style="font-style: italic;">terminated</span> working…<br />I’ve <span style="font-style: italic;">ceased</span> working… That might work, but the sentence then feels like we faded away, like an over-irrigated stream fades into the desert. “Concluded” could work, but it’s awfully sterile. I know I’m being picky, but the though process is the point.<br /><br />“Working” has been more problematic all semester. I resist using the word “teaching” because that carries more weight than I’m comfortable with, and often what we’ve been doing resembles leading them through activities. Some might say that’s teaching, or even better, facilitating. That’s better (the kids, by the way, will not like the idea of the group being a class), but it still feels off. I’ve been having a lot of feelings lately. <br /><br />I’ve settled on calling them, generally, “sessions.” Not classes, meetings, or otherwise. People have asked what we do at the youth center.<br />We have sessions…<br />We do sessions…<br />We have a writing group…<br />We lead a writing group…<br /><br />I had to stop myself several times from saying “volunteering.” We don’t get paid, of course, which is the main definition, but we do this work for a class. Even though one we elected to take it, there work is ultimately mandated.<br /><br />The kids (students? members? attendees? So many word choices!) understand this, I believe, in a strong but unspoken way. Ultimately, the method for getting the writing group to work was simply showing up continually. This raises more questions, especially with continuity and the end of a semester.<br /><br />But I want to talk, only briefly, about the last activity/thing/lesson/work we did. We did a Pass-around, six simultaneously. Each person wrote a line or two to start, and then passed the paper to the left. Each person added a line or two, and this process continued until we got our originals back. Then we each finished/ended/whatevered the story we began. <br /><br />It rocked. It was a great way to end, as it reinforced the idea of a group, even as we prepared to leave. It also mirrored how we began 10 sessions ago, which was a communal poem about Pennsylvania (see earlier post). It was also, finally, the right balance of levity and work. Even the unevenness of having 6 different writers of different ages and style and skill added positively to it. It’s an exercise I wouldn’t recommend for an introductory or early session—people need to be comfortable, and the kids need to trust you. Once again, those things don’t happen at the beginning, even with a true volunteering relationship. But it’s a great way to finish.White Flashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13766529201353108194noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-52721920753241154202009-12-10T10:48:00.000-08:002009-12-10T11:01:40.647-08:00Writing resource: the Favorite Poem Project<a href="http://www.favoritepoem.org/">http://www.favoritepoem.org/</a><br /><br />Based at Boston University and run by former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, the Favorite Poem Project culls poems and commentary from people all over the United States. In the three books that the FPP has published, the poems appear alongside the commentary, which usually consists of a memory or personal attachment that draws the submitter to the poem. As a teaching tool, the FPP presents poetry in an accessible and comfortable way--I think reading the chosen poems alongside the comments of the submitter would show new poetry readers an entryway into poems otherwise confusing, cryptic, or new. The website also includes a magnificently rich section just for teachers (and publishes a teacher's guide to one of its books, <span style="font-style: italic;">An Invitation to Poetry</span>): <a href="http://www.favoritepoem.org/forTeachers.htm">http://www.favoritepoem.org/forTeachers.htm</a>l. Here, you'll find lesson plans for students at both the middle and high school level, some of which are written by American public school teachers. The DVD/audio recordings of Americans reading their favorite poems are also available online in parts.<br /><br />I'd recommend this resource for any teachers/community instructors working with writers new to poetry. Though the lessons are written for adolescent students, I think they could be easily adapted to suit an adult audience.rachel mennieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324545898229366335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-15135681598722252382009-12-08T20:16:00.000-08:002009-12-08T20:27:35.551-08:00911 Writer's Block!A great online resource for writing (and writing exercises) can be found here:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.webook.com/911writersblock">http://www.webook.com/911writersblock</a><br /><br />The only disadvantage is that it requires a computer and internet to bring it into a writers' group, but I intend to show it to the youth of our group, anyway--using saved internet tabs if necessary.<br /><br />The link above goes to the directory, which offers 'help' on the following subjects, many of which can be used to generate random writing prompts or assists, others of which are just fun:<br /><p>Dial 1 for Settings</p> <p>Dial 2 for Characters</p> <p>Dial 3 for Dramatic Entrances</p> <p>Dial 4 for Dialogue</p> <p>Dial 5 to Commiserate</p> <p>Dial 6 for Verbs</p> <p>Dial 7 for Calisthenics</p> <p>Dial 8 to Kill a Character</p> <p>Dial 9 for Endings</p><p>Much of this can (and should) be used on your own; dialing five repeatedly brings up a variety of quotes from famous (and less well-known) writers concerning writers' block--many of them less than sympathetic. 6 will over you a random verb. Keep dialing to cycle through. Dialing 8 will offer an option such as the following for the death of a character: 'Deep-vein thrombosis on a 22 hour flight to Bombay.'</p><p>Buttons 1,2,3,4, and 9 can easily be the basis for a writing exercise in-class. Take whatever results you get from the button and write a story based on it. If necessary, you can press the button and copy down the results beforehand, but it would really be best if the writers could bring up their prompts in real time. 7, Calisthenics, is specifically designed as a writing exercise ('Bring these elements together to make a story').<br /></p><p>I'd recommend you check it out. Regardless of everything else, just cycling through the offered story-components is fun.<br /></p>Curranhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02731992350469189628noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-62691186601911585172009-12-07T21:46:00.000-08:002009-12-08T06:25:14.744-08:00Online Resourcehttp://writingthelifepoetic.typepad.com/writing_the_life_poetic/2009/10/the-write-direction-october-poetry-prompt.html<br /><br />I thought this website looked a little different than most of the other websites advertising writing prompts. This website has a lot of links which lead to other poetry resources. If you click prompts from the the list on the right hand side, you will get two prompts and one invitation to an e-zine. I'm hoping the e-zine has more of the concrete exercises and less of the fluff that also seems to haunt this site. Still, it is full of poems and aspiring poets talking about poems and it seems to be a place that gets enough regular traffic where people might continue to post prompts of superior quality. As I've been searching the web, I've found that there are a lot of sites out there promising prompts, but the exercises they provide are not very helpful, or their origins are suspect. Since some of my peers already found some great sites that offer useful prompts, the potential pool of resources has been diminished. But I think the prompts from this website might be of a higher quality, since it is a community of poets and writers. I think it has potential at least. Snoop around. See what you think.Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17880384709766251723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-88251053650807460732009-12-06T19:36:00.000-08:002009-12-06T19:50:21.332-08:00Finding PurposeWhen working with the Creative Writing Group for International Women...<br /><br />At first I thought that our workshops were important because writing is important in its essence—it's fun, makes us think, helps us learn. But then I thought our workshops were particularly important because the women need practice with English. After a few weeks passed, I had to reevaluate. It was hard to judge if we'd brought writing into anyone's life in a meaningful way, if anyone had become friends outside of class, or if we'd improved anyone's English. All this kept leading me back to the questions, <span style="font-style: italic;">What are we doing here? What are we accomplishing? </span><br /><br />I couldn't answer these questions, but I thought our experience with the blog might have something to do with our overall purpose. In our last post, Lucy wrote about our blog, mentioning how two of our writers' poems can be found there. The women were very excited about the blog. When we asked for permission to post their poems, one wrote, "it's my pleasure! It's a big encouragement." I started to feel something more significant in our purpose, but I couldn't articulate it.<br /><br />On November 2nd, I attended a lecture on immigration by Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco. He is the Courtney Sale Ross University Professor of Globalization and Education and the Co-Director of Immigration Studies at New York University, Steinhardt School of Education. He has received millions of dollars in grants for his research. His brief NYU faculty biography states, "[h]is basic research is on conceptual and empirical problems in the areas of cultural psychology and psychological anthropology with a focus on the study of immigration and globalization."<br /><br />At one point in the lecture, he talked about interviews that had been conducted with immigrant children living in the United States. When asked who the most important people in their lives were (besides their nuclear family [and God]) they'd say someone like a godparent. And if you asked where that person was, you'd find (s)he was back in his or her native country.<br /><br />All of a sudden I realized how heavily I rely on a network of people who are local. I thought of how much time I spend thinking about people in this network, talking to people in this network, and talking about people in this network to people outside of it. And so I realized that maybe these women, when asked what is important to them right now, might respond saying our group is important. When asked what happened this week, they might mention attending our group in a list of activities. They might say their poems were posted to a blog.<br /><br />Not only does this reaction to group seem worthwhile, this seems more worthwhile than my initial desires for a writing group. Writing is wonderful, English proficiency is necessary, as are friendships, but being able to claim something local as a thing that is important to you, that's truly valuable. Understanding this value reinvigorated me for our workshops. We have been pushing all the women to share their work with us in writing, so we can make a booklet. We want them to have something tangible that they can keep at home and feel proud of. I know we are proud of them.<br /><br />(For more information about Professor Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco's work, visit this site: <a href="http://www.academicwebpages.com/preview/pathways/">http://www.academicwebpages.com/preview/pathways/</a> )Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-24723232215023310402009-12-01T08:38:00.000-08:002009-12-01T08:39:30.985-08:00Resource for Creative Writing Promptshttp://www.creativewritingprompts.com/<br /><br />This website provides 329 creative writing prompts. They employ techniques such as sensory visualization, listing, word sets, first lines of stories, mini-plots, word-play, and prop-based activities. They cover poems, short stories, and non-fiction. Some are very cheesy, but others are really creative. Most of them are open-ended enough that they could fit any age group (or be easily modified to the needs of a particular group). Some of my favorites are:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Prompt 41:</span> Write about a time you hid from someone, or a time you disguised who you really were.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Prompt 4: </span>Fairy tales have happy endings. All of us know what happened in that mushy fairy tale, Cinderella. Yeah, it’s romantic, the prince actually finding Cinderella. They lived happily ever after. But happy endings can sometimes be… well, boring. No zing. So predictable. So…happy. What if the shoe fit one of the sisters? What happens then? Play with your imagination here. Be funny if you like. Or serious if you feel like it. Or be an Alfred Hitchcock. Whatever you are into, write your ending to the Cinderella story—but this time, make it so she shoe fits one of the icky sisters. What does Prince Charming do? How does Cinderella cope with it? And what about the Fairy Godmother? Start your story here.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Prompt 11:</span> Below are three sets of words. Use all the words in each set to write mini-stories of 300 words or less: <br /> Set 1: paper clips, principle, lunchbox, swing, girl with a pink ribbon<br /> Set 2: biology, class card, foreign student, leaf, blood sample <br /> Set 3: typewriter, filing cabinet, puncher, clerk, carbon paper, janitor<br /><br />If you’re in a pinch for a writing activity, this website seems like a good place to start.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-77516615796167144782009-11-30T11:34:00.000-08:002009-11-30T15:03:23.428-08:00Building Community and Encouraging Creativity among International Womenby Lucy Green, with Emily Anderson and Sarah Maloney<br /><br />In Korea, during the first snowfall of the year, couples meet outside and walk together in the lacy air. In Turkey, people own Van cats, know for their excellent swimming ability and almond-shaped eyes of different hues—one blue and one green. In China, women who split from their boyfriends or husbands will often wear their hair curly instead of straight as a symbol of their freedom. <br /><br />Over the past two months, our creative writing group for international women has evolved into a place where women not only have the opportunity to write and creatively express themselves in English; it has become a forum for cultural exchange, candid discussion, and the development of an open and supportive community. <br /><br />Nine women of four nationalities have attended our creative writing group for international women, about five of whom have become regular attendees. Our struggle to recruit more women and to publicize our group has been ongoing, but we’ve made some encouraging strides in the creation of writing activities.<br /><br />Upon the request of one of our group members, we started sending out assignments before meetings and asking attendees to bring photographs and other items that could serve as inspiration during our writing activities. This has had several positive effects: our members can spend time brainstorming outside of class, they can translate words they might need from their own language into English, and they can use visuals to share their cultures with others in the group.<br /><br />Another breakthrough was inspired by Marian MacCurdy’s essay “From Trauma to Writing” in Writing and Healing. MacCurdy talked about using right brain visualization to allow access to traumatic memories for the purpose of writing about them in order to heal from them. She reported that these activities enabled her students to write stories with “sharp imagery, clear sensory detail, and thematic sophistication.” We were curious whether we could achieve these results by using visualization—not just in describing emotionally charged events from the past, but in creating memoirs, poems, even fictional stories.<br /><br />We were delighted by the results of two visualization activities which we conducted in our group. During the first, we asked everyone to visualize a room that belonged to a relative—a grandmother’s kitchen, an aunt’s living room, a brother’s bedroom. We took time to close our eyes and evoke memories from that room for each of the five senses. Then we wrote down what we saw, heard, smelled, tasted, or felt. We told the women that they could write in English or their own languages, and everyone wrote furiously after each segment. Afterwards, we shared some of our memories, which contained some of the richest imagery the women had created so far. For the second activity, everyone chose an animal that she thought represented her home. Then, while listening to a series of questions, we closed our eyes and imagined those animals transforming into ourselves. Afterwards, we wrote descriptions based on our visualizations. All of us greatly enjoyed discussing the cultural mores surrounding pet ownership and learning about Van Cats, rhinoceros beetles, flying squirrels, anoles, and grackles.<br /><br />We have also had success designing our meetings around a theme. We held two meetings around the theme “What is woman?”, which led to both thought-provoking conversation and beautiful writing. We were fascinated to learn about the different conceptions and expectations of women in the different cultures that were represented in our group. We began by sharing what kind of womanhood was demonstrated in our homes growing up. Gender roles in all of our cultures have changed from our grandmothers’ and mothers’ generations. We also talked about how wonderful women are—how they can multi-task, balancing work, home responsibilities, and family. Still, tension exists for us all in trying to balance these roles. We discussed the women we see as role models—our mothers, professional athletes, politicians. We even talked about the way that hair styles communicate a certain persona, and how over the course of history, cutting a woman’s hair has evolved from a symbol of shame and powerlessness to a symbol of empowerment. This conversation was the kind of conversation that teachers strive to inspire among their students, that academic colleagues strive to have with each other, and that friends long to feel safe enough to share. It was honest, open-minded, full of thoughtful questions and genuine insight.<br /><br />Out of our discussions came some incredibly perceptive writing. We each selected pictures of two different women from magazine clippings and wrote imaginative personality profiles of these women. Then, we constructed split-voice poems: poems with three columns, the left and right containing separate descriptions of the two women, and the center column containing statements that were true about both women. Many of the poems captured the tension between having a career and being a mother. All of them employed powerful and evocative images. Two of these poems can be seen on our group blog http://www.personal.psu.edu/sbm162/blogs/the_speaking_self/writing/ . <br /><br />We still have to work hard to overcome language barriers and the accompanying self-consciousness, but the trust that has developed within our group has taken us long way. Every week, we (as teachers) learn from our failures and rejoice in our successes. Every week, we (as writers and as women) leave enriched by a community that finds beauty in differences and solidarity in similarities.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-37440718156673555382009-11-24T06:15:00.000-08:002009-11-29T08:18:02.758-08:00Poetry ResourcesPoetry Daily at <a href="http://poems.com/">http://poems.com/</a><br /><br /> Rather than reading my horoscope, I check <span style="font-style: italic;">Poetry Daily</span> (PD) for a poem that might shape my mood for the day. PD is a good resource for finding interesting contemporary poetry without picking through all the tiny literary journals. While a new poem is posted each day, PD also has an extensive archive of contemporary poetry written in English as well as in translation.<br /><br /> While working within a writing group, I might use PD to locate a new poem to bring into class by browsing the archives and clicking on titles or poets that interest me. Here is a link to one of my favorite PD finds (<a href="http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14408">http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14408</a>). I would consider using Laura Treacy Bentley's “Dowsing” with a writing group as a starting point for writing poems that involve instructions. This might be appropriate with teens, adults, and children if adapted. Here is the poem. Ideas for a writing group follows.<br /><br />“Dowsing”<br />by Laura Treacy Bentley<br /><br />Cut a forked branch.<br />Strip it clean of bark,<br /><br />and holdfast.<br /><br />Seeking water,<br />it leads you to places<br /><br />you've never been.<br /><br />The unseen<br />pulls like a ten pound trout<br />bending your branch earthward,<br /><br />reeling in<br />the hidden spring.<br /><br />(originally published in <span style="font-style: italic;">Lake Effect</span>, found on <span style="font-style: italic;">Poetry Daily</span>)<br /><br />Writing Group Ideas for instruction poems*:<br /><br />*Note: sometimes making or doing something requires not only expertise but faith in the process. Instruction poems might also hint at an awareness of the mystery in our lives.<br /><br />1)Ask writers to make a list of things they do often that they might make the subject of a poem. Maybe they knit, cook, paint or draw, fish, play a sport, etc.<br /><br />2)Read “Dowsing” as a group and discuss. Talk about what the poem is instructing the “you” of the poem to do. I might explain what dowsing (otherwise known as divining or water-finding) is. We could discuss the practical nature of using a forked stick to find water and the more spiritual nature of this poem.<br /><br />3)Spend some time writing poems.<br /><br /><br />You might also check out Poets.org site “Poems for Teens <a href="http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/394"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/394</span>” </a><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20785%20"></a>Rachel B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14330503508663817227noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-87253674966508324832009-11-21T08:30:00.000-08:002009-11-21T11:53:59.537-08:00Teaching Style to Teenage Writers<span style="font-family:georgia;">For the past two months we've been meeting regularly with older teenagers at a local youth shelter. Our goals have been fluid, our approach plastic, and we have tried many different types of exercises to engage the youth who attend our group. At one end of the spectrum, we have wanted merely to get the youth interested in language and excited to use it. At the other end of the gamut, we have wanted to demystify the various literary techniques, attempting to make our youth feel comfortable and empowered with the tools of language. Their base interest level has fluctuated so much from group meeting to group meeting that at times the former approach seems patronizing and the latter overly complex. We have had more successful weeks and less successful ones, but it has been difficult to tell how much the prompts are at fault and how much the youth's sometimes capricious attitudes are affecting class meetings. Still, we have continued to treat this as a learning experience for us as well, and have not let setbacks discourage us from striving for our various goals. So, after two weeks of dealing with metaphor and evocative photographs, and with a hopeful heart, I wanted to lead a discussion on style.</span>
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<br />There is some dispute as to whether you can actually teach style, and I agree with some of the opposing arguments to some degree. 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font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:georgia;font-size:12pt;" > So, I compiled a sheet of seven different writing samples. They were 2-4 sentence excerpts taken from <u>Harry Potter</u>, “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” <u>Fahrenheit 451</u>, <u>The Bluest Eye</u>, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “John Wayne: A Love Song,” and “The Road.” I tried to get a good mix of styles—resigning myself to the fact that it is impossible to capture the complete range of writing styles on one page. I tried to make sure that I used male and female writers—considering ethnic background but making it secondary to diversity of style. I also represented young adult as well as more mature novels, but I kept to passages that used vocabulary which would be understood by nearly every 15-18 year old. We ended up only reading the Rowling, Thomas, Hemingway and Morrison excerpts, which was probably a good thing.
<br />
<br />I wanted to read the passages and discuss whether we liked them and why. Did we like the words that were used? The sound of the passage? The images? Did we notice the similes or metaphors and like or dislike them? Did we like the voice of the narrator? My plan was to engage in discussion of each, determine everyone's favorite and then for the freewrite have everyone continue one of the passages in emulation of the author's style. Perhaps Eliot and his "Tradition and the Individual Talent" was working in my subconscious here.
<br />
<br />Although the youth showed much disinterest and lack of attention during the discussion, the two responses that were read were really great. The one student who selected the Rowling passage and continued it showed more narrative arc, character development and effective use of dialogue than in any of her previous responses. She even read in a British accent! It was really fun and everyone provided positive feedback for her. Another student who had only recently begun attending sessions also responded. Although he had written and shared something tremendous last week, he had not synthesized our lessons of metaphor yet into his response. He had already demonstrated rhythm and rhyme and created an emotionally tense scene, but this week he employed two descriptive similes. They were really fantastic. Despite the problems with the discussion, these two responses made the session seem like a success. </span><span style="font-family:georgia;"> </span>Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17880384709766251723noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-83533483914842685222009-11-18T13:12:00.000-08:002009-11-18T13:15:58.921-08:00Teaching Resource<a href="http://www.uoregon.edu/~leslieob/pizzaz.html">Pizzaz! Creative Writing and Storytelling Ideas</a> <br /><br />This site is run an ESL instructor at the University of Orgeon. It contains a collection of poetry, fiction, and miscellaneous ideas for writing activities. Though the explanations may be geared toward instructors working in ESL settings, most of the activities could also be used in other community settings, particularly with kids.Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02608421232179032744noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-59204316707276313512009-11-16T11:09:00.000-08:002009-11-16T11:15:38.410-08:00Writing with Teens: Encouraging Risk-Taking<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Crnb139%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Crnb139%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" 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mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >We conducted this activity with our small writing group of local teens. We’d been looking for ways to encourage them to take risks with simile and metaphor, hopefully leading them towards making odd comparisons that go beyond what they are taught in school about “correct” writing. With this type of exercise in particular, I hoped they might find a way to work through or maybe challenge the constraints and pressures of their daily lives. We met in a room darkened by daylight savings time and continued a discussion from the previous week on simile and metaphor.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;">
<br /><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >I waved around a copy of Lynda Barry’s <i style="">Cruddy</i> and said that sometimes I go to books with unusual narrators for inspiration for my writing. I mentioned that I like the risks Barry takes in this novel and specifically the risks she has her main character taking both in life and in her story-telling throughout the book. Jennifer Weiner stated in her review of the book, “Like <i style="">Push</i>, and like <i style="">Catcher in the Rye</i>, this is a survivor’s story. [<i style="">Cruddy</i>] is a tale of how a teenager can live through a world of hurt and emerge as someone whose voice you become addicted to, whose stories you need to hear.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >I gave the group lines </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >from <i style="">Cruddy</i>, three pictures to inspire them, and the following instructions: </span><span style=";font-family:";" >Choose one of the sentences and one of the pictures below as your inspiration. Write a brief short story or poem. You may use the line from Lynda Barry or not. Take risks in describing your characters, setting your scene, and creating dialogue. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><i><span style=";font-family:";" >
<br /></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><i><span style=";font-family:";" >Unusual Metaphors/Descriptions from </span></i><span style=";font-family:";" >Cruddy <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" >[Her] breathing was squidding out horror fumes in my direction. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" >You could have poured a gallon of water into that face and not a drop would spill out. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Super-heated rancid grease air blasting out of vents with dust tentacles waving.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><i><span style=";font-family:";" >
<br /></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><i><span style=";font-family:";" >Other Cool Lines from</span></i><span style=";font-family:";" ><o:p> Cruddy
<br /></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><i><span style=";font-family:";" ><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" >When you are lost you can follow the telephone wires. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" >I have learned that concentrating on the smallest things can prove a distraction, an escape hole to disappear down. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >We found it helpful to talk about some of these unusual metaphors and asked what sensory details they brought to mind (for example: “[Her] breathing was squidding out horror fumes in my direction” smelled like morning breath mixed with coffee, tuna-fish, and onions to us).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >The pictures pulled from the web were of: 1) coffee shop scene of two people at separate tables writing/reading, 2) two people reading on a train, 3) a woman standing in front of an empty gas station with mountains in the background. She is holding a doll of some kind. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >The pictures were in black and white and we asked them about each image, noticing the clock in the coffee shop, what we thought the characters were reading/writing, and what it might look like outside the coffee shop or train. With the gas station image, we asked them what colors were the mountains in the background that seemed to overshadow the gas station and whether the woman in the picture seemed pleased or upset. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Having multiple types of images helped the young writers tap into their specific moods (some darker than others) and create characters who strained at the limits of their daily lives. Overall, this was a really fun activity. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> Rachel B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14330503508663817227noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-76077980833158777052009-11-10T07:12:00.000-08:002009-11-10T07:13:03.038-08:00Discourse & Expression; PromptsFirst thought: it's good to know, from Chp six of Writing and Healing (which I dabbled in) that writing out one's thoughts can be useful in people's personal lives in more than just an 'expressivist' way. It always seemed to me that certain models--models that suggest that when we work within the stereotypes of the time we do nothing more than reify them and program ourselves--have a rather dim view of human potential and mental adaptability. We've learned more about such adaptibility in further chapters--eight and nine, for example--nine especially, with its focus on creating narratives, based on pre-existing myths, which allow us to integrate the self back into our own harrowing experiences. I found persuasive chapter six's example of individuals who use prevailing modes of discourse to both work through their problems, and to present situations to the outer world in a way that reflects on them to advantage.<br /><br /> Fortunately, we've been writing in a more relaxed manner in our writing group. The better of the two prompts I've used so far was involved using a set of 'assorted words,' a series of 18 words including: lock, shadow, chest, dusty, beam, detail' of which I asked them to use any nine. The exercise seemed to both inspire and allow freedom for our writers. Perhaps because the words chosen (chest, lock, dusty, spool, acorn, ink, detail, polish, interior, lift, unfasten, scent, nebulous, stone, corner, shadow, beam) all followed a certain pattern, our writers produced broadly similar, but distinct, pieces. I believe the balance this exercise, of allowing freedom while giving enough concrete suggestion for young writers to work off of, may be important to producing good prompts. Further prompts perhaps demonstrate this. A ghost-story prompt, for example, and one based on animal poetry, both seemed to work well along the lines described, offering students a comfortable lead toward producing good writing. However, a prompt using a series of evocative images ('what ideas might the images relate to,' I asked, showing images of space, a stone statue, and a fiery, human-shaped figure) proved either too specific or too abstract to be entirely succesful, producing more stunted writing, and a few nonstarters.Curranhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02731992350469189628noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-34031955814419116722009-11-03T07:44:00.000-08:002009-11-10T18:24:30.909-08:00Writing with Children: Poems about their Home State<div style="font-family:georgia;"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We conducted this activity with a small group of mixed-age students ranging from fourth to ninth grade. First, we read Carl Sandburg's "Pennsylvania," a short poem which is rich in images and concrete referents to Pennsylvania's landscape and towns--elements we felt would make the poem accessible to young students with limited and varied knowledge of how to read poetry. In our discussion of the poem, we focused on these images, and talked about what made them specifically Pennsylvanian. The students related to the coal, mountains, miners, and rivers present in "Pennsylvania." We then asked our students to write about their own Pennsylvanias--for them, Bellefonte, a small central PA town not far from Penn State's campus--in isolated sentences that focused on images from their experiences. They came up with some rich stuff, including family rituals and landscape description, food and cultural details. We read our sentences aloud and began the process of combining our sentences into a found poem of sorts, one that would stand as representative of our collective PA.</span></span></span></span></div> <div style="font-family:georgia;"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:georgia;"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This activity could be easily adapted to suit any town, city, or state. I've discovered that strong resources for poems about place come from anthologies organized by region, though "Pennsylvania" came via some past reading experience with Sandburg and, admittedly, some intrepid Googling--in my opinion, an inestimably helpful teaching tool! We found that the students' enthusiasm for their hometown and home state contributed quite positively to the writing experience and to the quality of the overall discussion. For reference, here's the Sandburg poem:<br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Pennsylvania</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I have been in Pennsylvania,</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In the Monongahela and Hocking Valleys.</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In the blue Susquehanna</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">On a Saturday morning</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I saw a mounted constabulary go by,</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I saw boys playing marbles.</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Spring and the hills laughed.</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And in places</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Along the Appalachian chain,</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I saw steel arms handling coal and iron,</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And I saw the white-cauliflower faces</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Of miner's wives waiting for the men to come home from the day's work.</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I made color studies in crimson and violet</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Over the dust and domes of culm at sunset.</span></span></span></span></span><p style="font-style: italic;"></p> <span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></div>rachel mennieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324545898229366335noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-16750930769994434872009-11-03T07:40:00.000-08:002009-11-03T07:42:17.666-08:00“This Is Just To Say” ActivityPrepared by Lucy Green<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">I. Read “This is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams</span><br /><br />I have eaten<br />the plums<br />that were in<br />the icebox<br /><br />and which<br />you were probably<br />saving<br />for breakfast<br /><br />Forgive me<br />they were delicious<br />so sweet<br />and so cold<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">II. Discuss poem</span><br /><br />1. Are there any words you would like to know the meaning of?<br />2. What is happening in this poem?<br />3. How do we know that the plums weren’t his?<br />4. Who do you think this poem was written to?<br />5. Where might the poet leave this poem, if it were a message for that person? (kitchen table, empty plate)<br />6. He apologizes, but is he really sorry? Would he do it again if he had the chance?<br />7. William Carolos Williams is known for his use of imagery, or sensory detail, which means he likes to describe things you can see, taste, smell, touch, or hear. What sensory details exist in this poem?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">III. Assignment:</span> I’d like you to write your own version of “This Is Just To Say.” Have you ever done anything you shouldn’t have, but that you really enjoyed? Or have you ever wanted to? We call this being mischievous. <br /><br />Show yourself doing something mischievous, and show the reader you’re not really sorry. It can be something that really happened or something you made up. You can use the idea of eating something that belonged to someone else… but it also doesn’t have to do with eating. Maybe you took your husband’s favorite pen, because you like the way it writes. Maybe you made a mess and left it for someone else to clean up. <br /><br />Pretend this is a note, or possibly a phone message, you’re leaving for someone. <br />Try to use imagery—the way something looked, smelled, sounded, tasted, or felt. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">IV. Write poems and share them.<br /></span>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02608421232179032744noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-82563457190127986522009-11-03T07:36:00.000-08:002009-11-03T07:40:44.853-08:00Creative Writing Group for International Women -- Introductionby Emily Anderson, with Lucy Green and Sarah Maloney<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Will we approach and present writing as an act of self-expression, to the exclusion of form and stylistic convention? Or will we approach and present writing as a rhetorical act, a way of engaging with an audience, to inform, enlighten, entertain, and emotionally impact? How will we present the vocabulary of creative writing to groups that have never learned that vocabulary? </span><br /><br />Ten weeks ago, before our first class meeting for The Writer in the Community, I asked myself those questions. I was not sure how we as a group, or how I personally, would approach the teaching of writing in community settings. <br /><br />Together with two of my classmates, I am teaching creative writing to a group of international women; they are a mixture of the wives of graduate students and students themselves. We chose to work with this population because they tend to be a rather invisible group here in State College, particularly those women who are married to students or faculty rather than directly affiliated with the university. Often they have come to this country knowing no one but their husbands. We hoped to offer the women a chance to express themselves through writing, to improve their English skills, and to make friends and feel part of a community. <br /><br />One of my classmates lives in Penn State’s graduate student housing, and she was able to reserve a room in the community center of the graduate housing complex for our weekly meetings. Before our first meeting, we put up fliers around the complex, in some campus buildings, and in a few locations around town, namely the international grocery stores and one supermarket. We also set up a free webmail account and included the email address on the fliers. We got a few emails, and three women attended the first group meeting. For that first meeting, we started with a couple of introductory questions and talked informally for a little while, and then we did a writing exercise from a photograph.<br /><br />We passed out copies of a photo from a magazine; it was a picture of an immaculate room with a single pair of shoes in the middle of the floor. As a group we discussed the picture, pointing out different items and features, trying to provide some vocabulary so that everyone could write about it. Then we all wrote about the picture, giving the option to either describe it or make up a story about a person who lived there or something that happened there. Two of the three women were willing to share their writing; although the overall level of English knowledge may not have been what we expected, we felt like the first class went well.<br /><br />For the second class, we decided to do a food theme. Our introductory question asked everyone to describe a favorite meal; this worked better for some people than others – one of the women told us she didn’t know the English words for the ingredients. Then we did a poetry exercise based on the William Carlos Williams poem “This Is Just To Say.” (A template for this exercise is posted separately.) We read the poem aloud and discussed it, focusing both on the vocabulary and on the meaning of the piece, then we each wrote a poem in that same vein. For our second exercise that day, we listed all the items we could think of that were in our refrigerators, and then, picking one, wrote about a situation in which we would use that item.<br /><br />After this second class, we asked the women what they’d thought of the exercises, and one mentioned that it was really useful to talk about everyday sorts of words, like those pertaining to food and cooking. We took this as a direction for the next few classes and decided to focus our themes on everyday situations and vocabularies such as family, weather, animals, etc. We will write more about other exercises in a future blog post, but we hope this gives an overview of the type of community in which we are working. In most of our meetings, it has often felt more like a peer group than a teacher-student interaction; although my classmates and I have initiated discussion and led writing exercises, quite often, and quite pleasantly, it has felt simply like a group of women sitting around a table talking.<br /> <br />In spite of the generally positive tone our meetings have had, we have had some difficulties, and we have been forced to re-examine some of our expectations and goals. The first issue we encountered is simply how to deal with a wide range of language abilities; our participants range from those who are fluent in English to those whose familiarity with English is very low. We have attempted to keep the instructions for our writing prompts simple but open-ended, and we have also found that talking extensively about the prompt has really helped to provide some vocabulary and to let everyone start thinking about the topic. In addition to a range of very different language abilities, we have also struggled with attendance; our group meetings have averaged only two or three attendees even though we have received emails of interest from many others have had several women attend only one or two meetings. We have tried to think of ways to raise our numbers, and we’ve definitely tried to analyze what we can do to get the women to come back every week. <br /><br />Finally, we are constantly revising our expectations and what we hope to accomplish in the group. When we first started planning, we’d thought it might be nice to put together a small booklet at the end of the semester or possibly do a small public reading; while that may still be a possibility, our expectations have evolved to focus less on a goal and more on the process. Each week we learn more about what exercises are effective, what topics are interesting; and when we plan for the next week, we incorporate those lessons. We have also shifted our aims slightly. We see real social benefits to the group, and we’ve also received positive feedback as to how the group is helping the women with learning English. Because of that, I think we’ve grown less concerned, and less stressed out about, producing a certain type of creative product. As MFA students, my classmates and I are used to focusing intently on the craft of writing; each week in our group meetings we get a chance to step back from that and just enjoy talking and writing with a group of women. <br /><br />In looking at the questions I had asked myself at the beginning of the semester, I feel that we are approaching the writing we do each week in this group as a rhetorical, communal activity. The Writer in the Community experience for us has become much more about the community than the writer.Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02608421232179032744noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-73449020113274037592009-10-27T21:26:00.000-07:002009-11-17T08:50:44.532-08:00Teaching Resource<a href="http://blogs.bedfordstmartins.com/bits/author/jhann/"><em>Bits</em></a> is a multi-author weblog that provides instructors with teaching ideas from leading scholars, authors, and editors. <strong>Joelle Hann</strong> moderates the <strong>Teaching Poetry</strong> blog, which features teaching tips and amusing—if not downright helpful—stories from poetry teachers across North America.<br /><br /><br /><br />I hope you find it helpful!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-879922174946680745.post-43504664723264432012009-09-08T07:50:00.000-07:002009-09-08T07:57:40.929-07:00WelcomeWe are a class of nine students in the Masters of Fine Arts Program at Penn State. In this blog, we hope to record our experiences and puzzle through questions of pedagogy as we teach creative writing in various community sites in the State College, PA area.<br /><br />It is our hope that this space can serve as an extension of our classroom conversations, a sounding board for our theories and observations, and a repository of information for educators interested in nontraditional classrooms.<br /><br />We hope you will visit us again and join the conversation!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0