Defining Writing

Yesterday's post touched briefly on how I define writing. I began to question this early in the summer when I participated (at least to some extent) in ds106. That course had me telling stories through images, sounds, design, and more. It pushed the way I view telling a story or creating meaning. I began to wonder what this could mean for my students.

Then I spent four weeks with brilliant teachers in NVWP's ISI. The room we were in from 9-4 Monday through Thursday and on Friday mornings was a cave. It is a basement room with no windows. The walls were lined with lockers, cabinets, and drawers full of maps and other things used by the geology department. It was crowded. One participant referred to it as a bunker. A friend and I decided before the ISI even began that we would have to do something to make the room feel comfortable and like we belonged there.

We hung up quotes from writers and work we did each day. On the first day we looked at several different short texts in unusual genres and had blown-up versions of each one. Those were hung up for the lesson and remained up til the end. Another day we each wrote haikus on post-it notes. Those went up and stayed up. We made a graffiti wall where we wrote quotes from the summer, said by participants and presenters. Some were serious. Some were not.

We also set up a mind map that said, "What is writing?" in the center. This didn't get much attention. It clearly didn't capture the interest of most of the participants. It went up because that question has been burning in my mind. I still don't have a good answer. If you have thoughts I would love to hear them. If you've read something on this idea I'd greatly appreciate knowing about it.

What does it mean to write something? Does it require paper or a computer? Does it require words? Does it have to convey meaning? Are there other ways to view writing that will still help a person become better at the traditional idea of writing?

Does any of this make any sense?

To Choose or Not to Choose

As I reflect back on the Northern Virginia Writing Project's Invitational Summer Institute I have a few big idea take-aways that will directly impact the choices I make as a teacher this year.

The first one that stands out as I reread my notebook from the past four weeks is student choice. I never tell my students what to write. We do study different types of writing (narrative, instructions, letters) and they must write in that genre at some point, but that's the most prescriptive I get. This comes out of a firm belief in the importance of choice, especially for kids.

I still believe that and I still intend to give my students plenty of choice. That said, I also want to do some more structured writing, similar to writing to a prompt. I found myself trying completely new things as a writer this summer when forced into a structure or prompt. I also heard a lot of stories about students who felt a need for this support rather than completely free choice. I'm not yet 100% sure how this is going to look, especially with first graders.

One thing I want to try early in the year is listening to music and drawing pictures. Most first graders can't write all the ideas that come into their heads from the music they hear, but they can draw it. Then we'll put those pictures into their writing folders (or just draw directly into our writers' notebooks) and use them to help generate writing ideas throughout the year.

One possibility is having them pull small items out of a bag and use them in a story or a piece of writing. This will likely require some oral storytelling initially to help generate ideas and organize them. Again, drawing pictures will likely help them tell their story as well.

I also want to think about how to push their composing of writing through means other than pen and paper. I worry that my students become stifled as they try to write all the great ideas in their heads and they can't spell the words and even forming the letters can be such a challenge. I want to make sure creating stories orally or through some of the tools and ideas from ds106 is an option for them.

Oddly enough, my hope through offering some choice and forcing some writing is that they will feel a new freedom as writers. I hope they will discover some new possibilities through what I force on them and it will encourage them to stretch as writers in all the writing they do.

I feel like I should be putting the word writing in quotation marks. For me, more and more, it means the composing of a story or text more than it does the physical act of writing it on paper or a computer. However my students 'write' I want them to be doing so as well as they possibly can.

ds106 Audio Assignments

I spent a good portion of one day working on ds106 assignments, just sitting at my computer, thinking, planning, searching, recording, rejecting, and trying again. Somehow, just sitting in that way was rough on my back and by dinner I could barely walk. (I've had lower back problems in the past, but usually for more justified reasons.)

That evening I created a ds106 radio bumper and focused on pain, not shockingly. I opened with an odd monster sound, just because it seemed like an interesting opening and it showed up when I searched for pain. Then I used a sound that was created to simulate someone falling down the stairs. I think, in context, it sounds more like a door opening. Finally, I ended with some maniacal laughter.



Another audio assignment I attempted was the One-Man Play. This was one of the first to catch my attention and I knew immediately what part of which play I wanted to use: the opening moments of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. It may not be a play many folks know, but it is one I love, especially the opening. Stoppard writes brilliant dialogue. The down side to that is I am no actress so I do not do justice to the words. I did have fun trying to make myself sound like both a 13 year old girl and a 22 year old man.

I didn't add much beyond my voice. The scene takes place in Thomasina's home, during a lesson with her tutor. I added a bit of pages turning as the two were working and some pen writing.



I'm still working on the Suess It assignment but Audacity and I are not getting along well at the moment. I'm trying to copy and paste some sounds but when I paste, nothing seems to happen. It thinks it did, because I can 'undo paste' but that's not impressive when the sound isn't there. I haven't given up yet but at the moment Audacity is winning.

More ds106 Visual Fun

A ds106 assignment that intrigued me was Newspaper Blackout Poetry. It's a three star assignment and that seemed excessive to me, at first. Turns out, it is pretty challenging.

I looked at several articles and tried to plan out some possibilities. I actually wanted to avoid this one because it seemed to serious, too raw, too painful. But in the end it was the one that worked best for me.

Here's the original article:

Here's the poem once I blacked out a bunch of words.

rape

weeping

seething

harrowing

not usual

critical pain

And with that emotional end, I wrap up the visual assignments piece (a tad late, but it's done!).

Poetry Reading for ds106

The audio assignments for ds106 have intimidated me a bit more than the design or visual assignments. As a result, I started with Poetry Reading because it didn't scare me as much as others. This poem, The Country, by Billy Collins is one of my all time favorites.



If you enjoy the poem, you can also hear Billy Collins read it.

ds106: Wiggle Stereoscopy

I've been a bit MIA at Camp Magic Macguffin for the past week as the family has been in San Diego having a wonderful time. Oddly enough, even on vacation with my family ds106 has not been far from my mind. Walking around Legoland I had many thoughts about assignments, both current ones and possibilities.

We took in Miniland, an area full of cities and creations made of Legos. It's really quite impressive. I took a few pictures of this Lego steamboat with the purpose of creating a wiggle stereoscopy image. I ended up only using two of the images after trying to get one that worked the way I wanted.



I'm finding as I work through ds106 assignments (slowly, but still) that I don't fully understand why I think things work or don't work. Hopefully as I continue with this process I'll hone my eye and begin, to a bit at least, to be able to explain my thinking.

Draw It: Next Visual Assignment

I'm still struggling with Warhol Something so I was concerned the Draw It assignment might stump me too. Instead, it went swimmingly. This isn't the first picture I tried, but it's the one I'm happiest with how it looks. I was worried about the business of the background but it worked.

The original picture is of our principal talking to one of my students at our writing celebration.

Here it is as a drawing.

Love: In Three Frames for Father's Day

As I attempt to catch up on ds106 I'm trying some visual assignments. For Father's Day (a day that always slips past me as it falls right at the end of the school year*) I gave Love: In Three Frames a try for both my husband and my father.

Here's the collage for my children's father.

And the one for my father.

Neither of these is what I want them to be, but I think that may be because I can't really put into words what I'm trying to say here.

*A recent conversation with a single father friend has me convinced we should have one 'family day' rather than Mother's Day and Father's Day. Children missing a mother or father have a rough time on those days. One day to celebrate parents would be better.

ds106 Design Assignments

My goal with participating in ds106 (in whatever way that played out) was to learn something. I've only scratched the surface but I've learned quite a bit about GIMP and Photoshop today. In addition, without putting in much effort (as I probably should have done) I am looking at design differently, more aware of choices made and how those decisions impact the overall view of an item. Again, lots more to learn but I've gotten started.

I had to make some lame workarounds to create my CC poster because I'm not yet proficient enough in GIMP or Photoshop. That said, I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out. Here's the original picture from Mean and Pinchy on flickr:

Here's my take on Creative Commons:

The next assignment I attempted was If Movie Posters Told the Truth. I'm less pleased with this work because I know if I had more patience I could fix the 'bad script' part to look more a part of the poster. Unfortunately it's late (for me) and I'm not a patient person in general. 

I picked a movie I can't stand because that seemed more fun. It required inventing a new word but it captures my sentiment pretty accurately.

Finally, I tackled Iconic You. As simple as this looks, it took me a while because I kept trying to make it do too much. I could not come up with one thing to illustrate me and I wanted to create something that included a lot of the ways I define myself. This design came pretty quickly but I spent a lot of time trying to add more to it. I thought about using the top of the music note to be waves and add something to symbolize biking and running in order to show my participation in triathlons. I thought about adding some little faces to the apple to symbolize my children and husband. After trying some of these out and not liking anything, I got back to the simple. It may not show everything that matters to me, but I like it.

Getting my ds106 Game On (Maybe)

School's out for the summer.* I've dedicated at least part of today to ds106 work, finally. I'm working on a Creative Commons poster, but I'm stuck trying to put the CC icon on there. I haven't given up yet but I did decide to take a break.

Instead I did the One Story/Four Icons assignment. I've enjoyed seeing the work of others on this assignment and it seemed doable. I may try some other movies soon as well. The Noun Project made this pretty simple.

*The kids are done but I still have three days next week of meetings and packing up.

Daily Creates

It's not much, but I've managed to do the last four Daily Creates for ds106.

On Thursday the assignment was to take a picture of something that you are envious of (physical or metaphorical). I snapped this shot at recess that day. This little girl is not in my class (although I do know her and adore her) but was outside when we were and amazed me on the bar. It may not be clear but she is hanging upside down with her legs away from the bar. The strength and balance were what I envied!

Friday's assignment was to tell a story about your most random job. Mine can be heard at this link or below.

On Saturday I had to download PhotoShop's 30 day trial and test it out in order to take a picture of the oldest building near you; use filters to make your photo look even older. I really don't know what I'm doing with this but it was interesting to try. I took a picture of the, now closed, Lorton Prison. It opened in 1916 so I figured it qualified.

Today's effort doesn't impress me but it does prove that I'm thinking about the Daily Create all the time. The assignment was to take a picture featuring rope or knots. During our weekly family fitness class (an absolute blast) we used ropes with a partner. As soon as the exercise was being modeled I grabbed my camera and got a picture of my husband and younger daughter working together. I cropped it down to focus on the rope.

Stretching Out of My Comfort Zone

In a burst of insanity I registered for ds106 this summer semester. The theme this time around is Camp Magic Macguffin. I've been following ds106 for a while now but never felt an urge to participate. It seemed out of my realm of competence. We'll see if I was right then or if jumping in was a smart choice.

So far, it's hard to say. With only a few weeks left in the school year and a sprint triathlon tomorrow morning I haven't been able to find the brain space for ds106. Writing this post is the first step in breaking through that wall. I intend to at least try some of the Daily Creates in the next week. That and commenting on others' creations is likely all I can handle right at the moment. I hope before the summer is over I will have achieved much greater things.