Category: Writing Workshop

What do Man with a hoe, by Jean-François Millet and Starbucks have in common?

Being an avid follower of Van Gogh (who created a drawing inspired by Millet's Man with a Hoe), I recognized at once Starbuck's nod to these great artists. Brilliant.

Millet was a thoughtful artist who cared deeply about the dignity of the commoner. As I stood in line waiting for my pumpkin-spiced latte, I whipped out my phone to consider Millet's wisdom via Google and consider why in the world Starbucks would echo his painting (a painting that I've stood before on many a trip to the Getty). This is what I discovered:

This: "Sometimes, in places where the land is sterile, you see figures hoeing and digging." "From time to time one raises himself and straightens his back, …wiping his forehead with the back of his hand." 'Thou shalt eat thy bread in the sweat of thy brow.'"

And this: "Is this the jovial work some people would have us believe in?" "But nevertheless, to me it is true humanity and great poetry."

And this: "To tell the truth, the peasant subjects suit my temperament best; for I must confess, that the human side of art is what touches me most."

And then Van Gogh's voice chimed in: "I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."

And I thought: Persona Poem, yes, yes, yes!

Personae, in Latin, this form of poetry is a terrific opportunity for pretending on the page. Several years ago, when I was teaching the feudal system and medieval art, I had children pretend to be stationed in various social roles and to create persona poems to help them explore daily life in medieval times. The persona poems were brought to life in a collection of short films.      

So, what do Man with a hoe, by Jean-François Millet and Starbucks have in common?

For me, two words come to mind: Important Work.

This year at the Guild our persona poems will be inspired by Millet, Van Gogh, and yes, by Starbucks.

Stay tuned.

-Kim 

The exchange always goes something like this:

“I can’t teach writing.”

“Yes you can! If you have ever been inspired by words on a page, then you can teach writing.” 

If you can read and ask questions when you read something that is not clear, you can be a writing mentor. Whether we are reading a newspaper article, a scientific journal, a novel, or a poem, who wants to read words that are void of ideas? 

Great writing begins with an idea crafted to words on a page by a courageous writer.

Madeline L’Engle in, Walking on Water: Reflections of Faith and Art, confides, “I am grateful that I started writing at a very early age, before I realized what a daring thing it is to do, to set words on paper, to attempt to tell a story, create characters.”

The most important thing we can do when it comes to teaching a child to write is to value their imagination and to teach them to do the same.

In my book, Habits of Being: Artifacts from the Classroom Guild I’ve collected snapshots from my experience teaching my own children and students in my Guild to demonstrate just what happens when they engage their curiosity. 

Ask yourself, “Do I want my child to write formulaically or to write for real?” 

Teaching children to write for real begins by teaching them to believe that their ideas are important enough to do the work of shaping words on a page.

Teach your children to become storytellers. Regardless of domain—fiction to non-fiction—great writing tells a story. Writing is a wonderfully tedious process. Provide writing opportunities that teach children the cardinal rule of real writing: Imagination first. After all, imagination is the seat of great ideas. When children discover that their imagination is valuable and relevant, they will work diligently to refine their voice. Purpose helps writers develop habits of being that motivates them to move through the writing process:

1. Come up with an idea
2. Write your idea
3. Re-read and refine your idea
4. Have someone else re-read and refine your idea
5. Polish your words on the page

Moving from reading and recognizing ideas, to engaging in personal expression through writing, develops an awareness of the world at large. When students are encouraged to engage in the process of writing, they will discover the power of words.

Great writing is work connected to the soul. Great writing brings shape to imagination. Great writing evokes, engages, and inspires human curiosity. 

Students who engage in the process of real writing will develop confidence in their voice, strengthen their ability to communicate new ideas and become keen observers of their world. Authentic voice is a one-of-a-kind fingerprint. And those are words on the page that are worth reading.

-Kim

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

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