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Posted on March 6, 2015 by BBCo

The Bold Lines of Fernand Léger

It was time for Section five and the creation of a project inspired by The Mozart Season. Two things struck me as funny.

One. Let's begin by saying that this little book is a sleeper, a quiet little thing. The story is set in real time and place. The protagonist is fictional but preparing for a very real violin competition. And as many times as I have explored it with various circles of readers, during the Section 1 Discussion the consensus is unanimous, ""Not capturing me." Still, it never fails that by the end of the book the readers encounter some very real extraordinary in the seeming mundane ordinary. But what I find most tremendously interesting is the fact that, hands down, the most profound Section 5 projects have sprung from this particular sleeper.

Two. As we continued our explorations of lines in art and the specificity of the master artisan's linework, Lizzy wasn't particulary inspired by the bold lines of Fernand Léger.

And this is where the magic of integrated learning and Discovery always takes my breath away.

"it was Diedre who started the song. She began slowly, BONG bong Bong bong on the three big columns, walking between them. Then she reached up high and down low, faster, and I hit one of the two columns, walking between them."

And so begins this story's music. And so it is that this passage (that continues to develop in the pages of the book) has inspired several of my all-time-favorite Section 5 projects. And Lizzy's is one.

As I watched her begin the process of bringing shape to her idea, I was fascinated that, after a close study of Léger's lines (lines that did not thrill Lizzy in the least), Lizzy began to sculpt those very lines without knowing! I pulled out the original study sheet when I recognized the familiarity and we were both amazed! In art we call this, after Léger.

So I suppose if you were to title this Section 5 project you might call it:

Lizzy's Music Maker, after Léger and The Mozart Season (2014)

-Kim

Posted on March 2, 2015September 6, 2020 by BBCo

Lovely Lines

Did you know that, when it comes to art, every line has a personality? That the lifework of the master artist has a particular voice?

When it comes to the lines of Matisse, spare, weightless, whimsical, and articulate come to mind.

Line is a foundational element when it comes to the language of art.

For this reason we invited Matisse, virtually of course, into the Guild and invited the master artisan to help our apprentices explore the rich potential of line.

You can too.

-Kim

Posted on February 27, 2015September 6, 2020 by BBCo

after Winn Dixie

I must admit that I am not an animal lover. To all of my friends whose families are complete because of their furry friends – please don’t misunderstand me. While I love our family bunny (sweetly named Comfy Cozy by my youngest son), I believe it is quite a different relationship than is shared by people who are dog-lovers.

In the heartwarming yet complex story of Opal and her dog Winn-Dixie, I was drawn into the relationship between these two characters – a girl and her dog – and their parallel desire to feel loved and needed, in spite of their histories of abandonment and loss, and the surprising opportunities for redemption through such difficult experiences.

Each week, our group of fifth and sixth graders would gather to share their insights into this young girl’s life. I was concerned about some of the life themes that my 11-year-old would be exposed to through this story, but what I realized is this was an opportunity for my daughter to: empathize with others’ pain, find meaning in some of her own painful experiences, and have a safe place to discuss and explore these difficult life circumstances that are sometimes easier to shelter her from.

Because of Winn-Dixie, our cooperative homeschool Guild (comprised of four wonderful families with eleven children between us) decided that we would throw a party – not just any party, but a potluck lunch. And not just any potluck, but an array of food specially chosen to mimic the one specially planned by Opal.

Dump punch, dump cake, and a jar of pickles are only a few of the fancy items we put out for our big event. But we didn’t stop there. The TV room was specially decorated with pink twisted crepe paper in preparation for our great party, and we all watched this movie with grand anticipation. It was the great culminating experience after having walked through the story hand-in-hand together.

I’m still not an animal lover. But this sweet dog helped tell a story of unexpected redemption and hope in a way that speaks to all—children and adults alike.

-Christian

Now go read this book and have your own celebration – and please don’t forget to share your potluck pictures with us!

Posted on February 24, 2015 by BBCo

Added Value

“Drawing is based upon perspective, which is nothing else than a thorough knowledge of the function of the eye.” -Leonardo DaVinci

We are designed to see and understand an object based on the relationship between the play of light and dark on its surface. Value is the term used to describe the lightness or darkness of an object. As light is reflected off objects, we interpret its attributes. When we draw a three-dimensional object in two dimensions, we are creating an illusion.

Over the years I’ve encouraged many a child to “look closely” by developing a specific Habit of Being—the Observation Journal.

It is always best to begin observational drawing exercises by encouraging the Observer to see the contours or the “lines” of an object. To capture natural organic lines on the page is a lovely skill.

As soon as this becomes a comfortable task, its time to encourage the Observer to look beyond lines that five the object its flat shape toward a close observation of the light and darks of an object. To accomplish this task, begin with a light contour adding a light value or tone by smudging then adding patches of medium darks and dark darks according to what the seer is seeing. The transformation is simple and stunning!

And it’s never too early or too late to start. A six-year-old executed these drawings of the wonderfully sea-tumbled mollusk. Anyone can add value to an observation.

-Kim

Posted on January 25, 2015 by BBCo

Breaking the Rules in Good Company

I have been discouraged when people don’t like my writing—when people don’t like my voice.

I'm sure this is true for all writers.

The truth is, it’s hard to be yourself when people disagree with what you personally find interesting and beautiful.

Authenticity is a lesson that is almost never taught in school but is integral to being an artist. The truth is, sometimes, people won’t like your writing.

Now, sometimes that friction between differing opinions is definitely healthy and necessary. Dozens of blog posts could be written about the value of knowing the rules before you break them, and the importance of having the humility to listen to other artists’ advice.

But, sometimes, when the choice between two kinds of line break or two uses of allusion seem substantially subjective. As writers, we have a choice between doing what people approve of and doing what they find aesthetically satisfying. One lesson that students need to learn is that, throughout their writing careers, they will have a choice between being recognized and having painfully genuine integrity.

And that is the real-life choice between being normal and being divergent, the choice between being a people-pleaser and being a literary mutant.

The good news is that the greats were often literary mutants. Literary mutants who, no doubt, knew the rules and broke them well. Think Walt Whitman, e. e. cummings, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen—all of these people were literary freaks when they first unveiled their writing. Each of these writers faced critics who thought that their writing was careless, boring, or just plain weird. These writers were extremely talented and willing to take risks, but that means that they were also ahead of their time. These writers were the hippies, the revolutionaries, the weirdos, the outliers.

But it’s hard for me to remember that being a hippie is ok when people tear my writing to pieces in the workshop.

So I have a very important question.

Again.

To what extent are we willing to let young writers raise their voice?

-Constance

Posted on November 20, 2014September 6, 2020 by BBCo

I’m Thankful for Sandra. What about You?

This is not a typical high school project.

This is a watercolor composition, a gift from a friend.

This is the prized possession that hangs in my kitchen with Mona Lisa’s ubiquitous gaze following my paces patiently, “Kim, you can.”

Lore has it that Sandra’s high school watercolor teacher offered an automatic “A” to anyone in the class who anyone who could paint an egg—a trememdously difficult task to accomplish well.

Now I’ve never imagined this teacher’s comment as a dare, but rather something more like an Eeyore-under-the-breath-utterance that he hoped might someday come to pass. I’ve never imagined snarky, or cynical, but more someting akin to longing, the longing to motivate.

And I’ve never imagined Sandra’s tackling of this teacher’s offering as anything other than a response to the Muse, a delighted response to the spark of imagination. Sandra simply said, “I can.”

The sheer whimsy of the composition is my proof. There is not one guile puddle in sight.

Thing is, you might look at this painting and respond, “No, I can’t.”

But you probably said that about tying your shoe, reading The Cat in the Hat, or adding five apples and three plums. But you can, right?

Not all children will grow up to paint like Sandra. Not all children will grow up to hypothesize like Einstein.

But many children who might have will not because they are not inspired to try. All children have precious potential. And this is why I spend my days encouraging children to press into their important work.

Children who are encouraged to engage in the right kind of practice over time develop Habits of Being and habits of being give us the gumption to say, “Yes! Yes, I can!.”

Who would have imagined that, all these years later, a teacher’s nudge and Sandra’s creative response would continue to resonate, “You can.”

I’m so thankful for my dear friend Sandra.

-Kim

Posted on November 15, 2014 by BBCo

A Telephone of Cardboard.

Thanksgiving is a terrific time to connect with friends and family across the miles. But it's also a perfect time to help young writers creatively communicate thankfullness. Visit our Pinterest page and let the writing begin:

Telephones come in all shapes and sizes.

Imagine a telephone.

Now, imagine a telephone made of cardboard.

Imagine someone trying to make a call, but the only telephone is a telephone of cardboard.

Does this person realize that the telephone is made out of cardboard? Does s/he want it to be made out of cardboard, instead of being fully functional? Why? Does the narrator know why this person is using a cardboard phone? Or is s/he just as confused as the reader? Or, what if the character in the story or poem happens upon the phone, picks up the receiver on a whim, and the cardboard telephone actually works? Who is on the other end? Is that person using a cardboard telephone too, or a standard phone?

Imagine the possibilities and then craft your ideas into a story or poem.

Example:

The Girl with The Cardboard Phone

There is a girl who talks on a cardboard phone

every day during recess.

Past the thwacking of jump rope

on cement, past the many grabbing hands

at the monkey bars, below the cracked tube

of the playground slide,

you’ll find her clutching the cardboard receiver,

stroking the thin fringe of its ripped edge

with a white finger. We used to wonder

what secret messages were being passed

into the thick brown strip, soggy with dew

and wet leaves, and whether

anyone was replying. We wondered

until one day, we wandered by and caught these words:

“I love you too”— accompanied by a smile

like a warm cup of tea on the greyest day.

-Constance

Posted on November 8, 2014 by BBCo — 4 Comments

A Shape Full of Thanksgiving

Concrete poetry is not child's play but rather the intersection where typography and poetry meet to play. Sir Ken Robinson reminds us that “…imagination is the source of every form of human achievement.” Concrete poetry is an invitation to imagine possibility.

So how do you begin to craft a shape poem? Of course there are many wonderful resources online, but the best place to begin is to remember that what seperates all poetry from prose is, first and formost, its shape. Each and every poem has a very specific arrangement on the page because white space, to the poet, is an extension of punctuation, directing the reader's eye to pause, move, breathe. Concrete poetry takes shape a step further into the realm of representation. For example, if your poem is about a blooming garden, your poem might be flower shaped. If your poem is about sorrow, it might take the shape of a teardrop. What I love about Constance's poem below is that the simple window shape draws me, the reader, to come near, to peer through the panes and contemplate the complexities of thankfulness with each drop drop drop that fabricates the window frame.

Concrete poetry is not child's play.

So here's my idea. This week, when I introduce shape poetry to my young writers, I'm going to begin by exploring Constance's poem with them—a single statement with repeated words to form a shape. I'll invite them to meet me at the intersection where typography and poetry play. And together we'll imagine the shape of thanksgiving. Imagine the possibilites.

Why not join the fun? After all, "…'tis the season to be thankful!" We'd love to hear from you. Feel free to post your poems in the comment section of this post.

Thanksgiving

The first rain of the year announces its presence by every thick

drop drop drop

on the glass drum of our kitchen window: a rain that, with kind

drops drops drops

they say, is mother to the stale cracked skin of godforsaken lands.

-Kim & Constance

Posted on November 8, 2014 by BBCo

Mimicry or Artistry

So many films for younger audiences, from Finding Nemo to The Incredibles to How to Train Your Dragon, teach them to take pride in being different. So many children’s movies tell kids that it’s important to “be yourself.” It’s ok to be a mutant or divergent. Today, in children’s films at least, individuality is being pushed as a positive virtue for young minds.

You are special.

Be yourself.

Yet, in real life, how often are children allowed to be themselves?

What about the real life world of education, are we really encouraging children to be themselves?

I remember dropping out of an English class in middle school because I was having trouble adhering to its rules of writing. The reason? The problem wasn’t that I had little motivation to produce interesting, informed work. The problem was that I was using seven-instead-of-five-adjectives-per-paragraph. That I had one-too-many-sentences in my papers. That I wasn’t-using-enough-transitive-verbs.

The problem was that teaching me to mimic an example paragraph was easier than engaging me in the work of discovering my unique writer's voice.

This situation isn’t unique to my experience—it’s embedded in every textbook that would rather teach the rules, instead of the art, of writing. It’s encoded in every lesson that finds it easier to teach MLA formatting than the musicality of diction. Sometimes even well meaning educators turn unquantifiable aesthetic sensitivity into calculus, artistic standards into rules.

This struggle didn’t become quite clear to me until I entered college. I remember sitting in a creative writing workshop during my freshman year, listening to two honors teachers discussing concrete poetry.

By “discussing” I mean “cutting to bits.”

I distinctly one of them saying, with a short laugh, “Oh, shape poetry! If you’re not in fifth grade, don’t do it.”

I then distinctly remember thinking of my high school writing teacher, who was a lover of shape poetry. Due to her influence, John Hollander’s “Swan And Shadow” is one of my favorite poems of all time.

Now, here were two artists whom I admired greatly, who wrote spectacular stuff and definitely were aware of what qualities made writing great. I was stuck between two opinions that seemed equally credible. I had no idea of what the rules were because there seemed to be two competing sets of rules.

That was the moment that I realized the importance of being myself.

In that moment, I realized that no one was going to tell me the “right” thing to do. In the end, I'm going to face many sets of legitimate opinions that clash over certain issues. And, in the end, it will be up to me to decide what I want to do with my writing. It’s up to me to decide whether shape poetry is worth consideration or not. (Spoiler alert: I believe it is.)

In the end, it’s important for us to teach children that after learning the rules, there will be moments when they will have to break them in order to assert their own voice. After learning the importance of using a certain proportion of adjectives in a paragraph, I should have been taught that Hemingway steered clear of adjectives and Fitzgerald brought them to the party in hordes. And, of course, students should be taught that in those moments when they don't even know what the rules are, but they sense something that just must be crafted to words on the page, they can confidently follow the creative impulse into the murky unknown knowing that the likes of EB White's Elements of Style will be waiting on the other side.

Remember, writing is a process and when it comes to writing the most important thing is to raise your voice. The most important thing is to be authentic, to be yourself.

And I mean it.

-Constance

Posted on October 29, 2014 by BBCo

Snail of Orange.

Imagination is just the thing to inspire young writers.

To get started, visit our Pinterest: Snail of Orange

Juxtapose the grotesque and the delicious, the crude and the dainty by drawing inspiration from this snail—usually not considered the most beautiful or appealing creature-—created from an orange.

How can you create a beautiful concept out of something unexpected; something strange and slimy like a snail? Or vice versa?

Unexpected images are just the thing to quell writer's block. Think .

Here's another bit of fodder from Les Miserables: “One morning [Bishop D—] was in his garden, and thought himself alone, but his sister was walking behind him, unseen by him: suddenly he paused and gazed at something on the ground; it was a large, black, hairy, frightful spider. His sister heard him say:– ‘Poor beast! It is not its fault!’”

Example Haiku:

An Art Lesson

stamps of greasy lips

and fingertips on napkins are

unexpected flowers

-Constance