Looking forward to reading about what you're cooking up in your groups. One tip: you might consider incorporating I Search topics or ideas into an upcoming writing group meeting, in order to help each other and to support each other's searching process. Your writing group can morph into a I-Search group, perhaps...
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Post-Spring Break
Hi Writers! It's mid-semester, so I thought it was time for a new thread, though I want you to simply keep doing what you're doing here on the class blog. Following your writing group meeting this week, designate someone to post a reflection. Tell us what you did and why it mattered to you as a teacher and as a writer. And, please feel free to interact with each other here--you can respond to people's posts in addition to posting your own reflection. I don't want the exclusive rights to responding.
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Welcome back to school :) Hope everyone had a fun spring break!
ReplyDeleteMy group's last meeting was full of comedy and daydreaming (in a productive way!). Stephanie used chapter 5: "Triggers: Lines, Bits, Lists, Questions" and had us write Bucket Lists! Each of us made long lists of everything we want to accomplish before we die. Sure we included college degrees, but we had some laughs with all the different ideas we came up with.
Mary's golden nugget, to me, was to perform on Broadway. SO AWESOME! I could see her doing that and our group would need to get front seats! Chris wanted to go sky diving - Wild and crazy, but thrilling. Stephanie wanted to extend her family with more children, so sweet. I chose my own golden nugget as: to sleep in an igloo.
It was a really fun meeting and we all traded off ideas and extended our lists. I think this activity would be an excellent ice breaker for any age group of students because everyone has some kind of bucket list in their mind - why not share?
Okay, so this week Chris went and chose Chapter 4: "Thirteen Drops of Wine" in Ralph Fletcher's book. We actually snuck a bottle of wine into the library and each had a couple glasses.. JUST KIDING!
ReplyDeleteAnyways, Chris kinda went off of our previous meeting and again we made lists. Instead this time, our lists were for most of us short paragraphs of a distinct memory that had vivid details. Chris talked about all the guys in his family sitting around the dinning room table getting trashed and how it was the best time with his family (and probably the only time he will get that drunk with his dad!) Mary remembered naptime at her house when she was younger, and squeezing her eyelids shut so her mother would think she was actually sleeping, while she listened to her sister play in the next room.
Again, we had a successful and fun week. It was really interesting to hear different memories and such vivid details from group members. I thought this was an excellent lesson, because it gave us the freedom to write about one memory in paragraph form, or simply list one-liners with simple, yet graphic details that we could all picture or feel. I think this would be a great lesson for students in both middle school and high school because they would be able to develop and remember details in distant memories.
This past week Shawn led our writing group. He brought a specific question as a writing prompt for us, but also used the Fletcher chapter on "Triggers: Lines, Bits, Lists, Questions" to spark discussion and give us a choice of what to write about. It was nice to be given the choice, as it can sometimes be difficult to respond to something very specific in a given amount of time. The question that Shawn brought related to his I-Search topic: "If you woke up one day and an alien race took over your language and you could only keep one word, what one word would it be?"
ReplyDeleteWe all chose to write about his question. We had a spirited discussion from sharing what we had written, that touched on how language, identity, and emotion intersect. It was such a difficult thing for all of us to choose just one word, that the point about the essential quality of language to our beings was really made apparent. Many of the same types of words came up for us - those having to do with emotion, love, relationships, gut reactions. It made me realize what an opportunity we have, and what a luxury it is for us to be able to set aside time and have other people to discuss such things as words, language, meaning, and crafting modes of expression. Though I've written things collaboratively, I have never had the opportunity to be involved in a writer's group that existed for writing's sake. Writing can be a solitary task, and I can see how having a group can spark inspiration and provide motivation to push oneself in one's writing. I could see how this question could be effective with students to get them thinking about the importance of language, and issues around native language/mother tongue, second languages, and multiple language communities. It was also interesting to see how it prompted self-reflection not only about language, but about the process we were engaging in as a group as well.
Since we have begun our weekly meetings, the four of us have repeatedly expressed our individual desires to "write creatively." While we have all agreed that this is awesome, we have also been faced with one big obstacle: We have yet to attempt any truly bold creative writing in our writing groups!!!!! Thanks to Jen (the leader of our group this week), our creative fantasies have now begun to grow into realities. This week we made our first leap into the intimidating, outside party judging, and self-conscious world of "original ideas." Jen asked us to create lists of creative writing that we have always wanted to do--with emphasis on particular ideas. This was a really fun assignment and gave us our first opportunity to release some of the unique writing thoughts that had been locked up in our brains. I really thought this was a "break through day" (please refer to our picture from class). As Bryn stated in class, we forced her to share her idea, and it was really cool--so cool that we didnt even make fun of it after she left, instead we offered suggestions and asked questions to her. Something that happened for each one of our ideas.
ReplyDeleteI do think that as teachers we need to let down our guards. I wouldn't feel right asking a student to do something that i myself was unwilling to do. Risks are productive, and with risks like this, usually you find out that they are not even risks at all! Fun writing day Jen. Thanks.
This week when we met, David shook up our meetings a little bit by having us exchange journals - which is something we had never done before. The journals have always been our own little safe-haven that the other group members haven't been able to read or really look into. The first time we exchanged we wrote a word on another group member's page – any word we could think of. Then we exchanged them again and wrote a sentence containing the word that was written. When we exchanged a third time and had our own journals back, we wrote with that sentence as our beginning. I think it was a really good exercise because it broke us out of the mold of writing by and for ourselves. It opened my eyes to exercises that can make use of a small group structure. I know we’re not SUPPOSED to write a “play-by-play” of exactly what we did but I think it’s useful with this activity because it was really fun, creative and original and it’s something I could see using in a classroom and I think other people might see the value in it as well. I think that this type of activity would work really well as, like, an introduction into writing groups. If it were the first thing a writing group did together it would help the students get to know each better through something silly and fun. It would also relieve pressure and anxiety that comes with writing because each piece feels like it was created by 3 (or more) people and so there is less at stake when it comes to sharing out.
ReplyDeleteIt reminded me a little bit of this blog: http://www.writeinmyjournal.com
It’s about a man who has strangers he meets write about themselves or what they think/feel in his journal. I really love the idea of sharing writing opportunities with other people. It turns strangers into PEOPLE and the results are usually pretty amazing.
In a recent group meeting, Leah provided the group with various pictures and allowed us each to pick one. I picked a picture of a watermelon, Sophia picked a picture of a beach, Ashlee picked a winter-themed picture and Leah chose a picture of a desert. She then told us to look at the picture for awhile and write whatever comes to mind: we could describe the scene in detail or write about something completely different that we associate with whatever the picture is. For my picture, I wrote about the cool refreshing taste of watermelon on a hot summer day. Ashlee wrote about ice skating on an outdoor pond on a cold winter day. Sophia described the feeling of seeing a beautiful beach while standing in a dark and scary forest. Leah wrote about the dry heat of the desert. This writing prompt encouraged using the senses, descriptive words and memory. Each picture contained so many associations and memories and targeted these specific feelings. I found it interesting that our only guidelines was that any of our writing should stem from the picture and that any type of writing was allowed: a story, a description or a poem. The pictures provided were creative and unique and provided us each with a great deal to say!
ReplyDelete