Slice of Life: A Doodle Every Day

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write on Tuesdays about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

For all of July, we in the CLMOOC community were drawing and doodling and sharing. With today’s theme of “exit” now complete, I was trying to figure out how best to grab all of 31 of my doodles together. I’m still hoping to do a collage, but this video version via Animoto will have to do for now. The use of the artistic garden animation theme seemed … appropriate.

Many of the crowd-sourced themes connected to the Write Out project, which is another open learning adventure that took place the last few weeks.

I used the Paper app on my iPad for my doodles, and making art is always tricky for me. Writing is so much easier. Words flow faster than visual ideas. These pieces were all done with fingers, not stylus. Sort of like finger-painting. So, some of these doodles I made I like a lot and some, not so much.

What I appreciated most was the call and invitation to doodle in a networked community, and to share with others, and to see how my friends took the same idea in different directions.

Day Thirty-One Exit Point

Peace (on the tip of the pen),
Kevin

 

#Writeout: The End is Just the Beginning

Where Write Out Goes

We’re wrapping up the summer portion of Write Out, after two full weeks of activity and sharing an open learning network. You can read the last newsletter — which has suggestions for video reflections via Flipgrid and a LRNG Playlist to continue the work of making connections into the school year — and the hope is that teachers find park rangers, and park rangers find teachers.

And that these partnerships help students find places beyond their schools and classrooms to become inspired to write about the world.

As the band, Semisonic, reminds us: Every new beginning starts from some other beginning’s end.

Peace (start at the end),
Kevin

 

 

#Writeout: When Students Explore History Through Writing

This is a bit of time-warp sharing, I guess. Although the two-week Write Out project formally is coming to a close this weekend, this writing camp project at our local National Park Service site — the Springfield Armory — happened just before Write Out started. But I finally got a video together to share out as we sorted out media permissions of students. Write Out is a partnership from National Writing Project and the National Park Service to connect educators to park spaces for place-based writing activities.

Our free summer camp — Minds Made for Stories —  was aimed at middle school students from a social justice middle school in Springfield, Massachusetts. Funding for the camp came from Mass Humanities. Coordination of the camp involves the Western Massachusetts Writing Project, the Armory, the school system and the Veterans Education Project.

A component of this project is a series of Professional Development sessions that I facilitated with the Springfield teachers, who then helped run the camp. We are planning more PD at the Armory for the Fall as well, thanks to a grant from the National Writing Project.

We had nearly 20 students for a full week, at the Springfield Armory itself, exploring primary source material, using the museum itself as our “text,” welcoming visitors to the program to talk about women’s roles during WW2 and the Double V campaign for civil rights as well as a soldier’s life in the Civil War, and lots of different kinds of writing.

What kinds of writing?  Some of the activities …

  • Every day, they wrote into the day in notebooks, reflecting on different topics that then framed the learning and exploration of the day
  • They conducted some research on issues related to the role of the Armory in history as a source of innovation and technology and chose from different genres to share their learning
  • They designed museums of their interest as architectural drawings, imagining themselves as architects and presented their plans to the group
  • They created an advertising campaign aimed at women during World War II after learning about propaganda and the ways words and image can come together
  • They wrote about our visitors — one women helped them understand rationing during the war as well as the role of the mythical Rosie the Riveter, another was a Vietnam War vet who talked about being a black American in the armed forces and the role of the Double V Campaign to spark the Civil Rights movement, and a third was a Civil War Re-Enactor who marched our campers through the fields
  • They reflected on their learning as they wrote out of the day in their notebooks

The video captures some of the student explorations, and one of our final “publishing” events for the camp was the creation of a public display of student work that is now on the floor of the Springfield Armory museum, giving Armory visitors a look into some of the writing that students did this summer.

All this to say, while a lot of Write Out work took place outside, and in beautiful forests and mountains and streams, there are also plenty of urban landscapes and history-rich buildings to explore, too.

Peace (in time),
Kevin

#Writeout: Hiking the Wild Mind, iteration three (video poem)

This is the third version of a poem I wrote for Write Out, using found sounds from the National Park Service sound site. The first version was a text poem, with links to sounds. The second version was a podcast, with my voice layered with the sounds. This final version is a digital poem, with image and sound and voice.

What I have been trying to get at is how to best incorporate sound with a poem. While this version is the most visually pleasing, I admit that I sort of like the podcast — the version of just voice and sound — the best, for it forces you to imagine the animals and scenery. Here, I show you the image from the sound files.

Which version do you like?

Peace (in poems),
Kevin

Curating the Second #WriteOut Twitter Chat

I could not attend the second Twitter Chat for Write Out last night, so this morning, I spent some time digging into the questions and the responses as part of my curation after the fact.

I loved the use of a haiku inspired by the work of others (that is so Writing Project, as Dave says in his tweet) and the sharing of explorations as well as the thinking around student writing and publication. It was nice to see some new folks in the mix and the conversation is another example of how networking builds connections. Which is a main goal of Write Out itself.

Go to the curating Twitter Chat

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

PS — I pulled out just the haiku poems

#Writeout: Hiking the Wild Mind, version two (audio poem)

The other day, I use some found sounds from the National Park Service website to inspire a poem I called “Hiking the Wild Mind.”

But I didn’t feel satisfied with it in that version. It was text with links to the sounds. What I wanted to do was have the poems and the sounds together, as a podcast.

So this second version — an audio poem —  is all about sound — of my voice mixed with the landscape.

I’ll be doing one more variation of the poem in the next day or two.

Peace (sounding out),
Kevin

 

 

#Writeout: Hanging Out to Talk Writing Out

WriteOut Hangout2Last night, the Write Out project had its second Google Hangout, and it was a full house of educators and park rangers. Dorothy and Vicki did a masterful job of coordinating the large group of participants.

We celebrated some of the work already being done in various spaces, explored ways we might get student writing published and connected during the school year, and then we focused a lot on partnerships between National Writing Project sites and National Park sites. The Write Out venture, now in its second week, is designed to help connect teachers and park rangers, and to encourage place-based writing (even if you don’t live or teach near a National Park.)

I joined in the discussion, too, with my NPS partner  and friend – Scott Gausen — from the Springfield Armory. We shared our summer camp for youths and the professional development we do for teachers at the Armory itself, as we explore themes of social justice and civic action with primary source materials at the historic site.

Here is the recording of the conversation from last night:

Note: there’s a Twitter Chat tomorrow (Thurs) at the #writeout hashtag, starting at 7 p.m. EST.

Peace (hanging out),
Kevin

Slice of Life: Get Out and Wander Around

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write on Tuesdays about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

I’ve been part of the Write Out project, and although I have in the past spent quite some time at our local National Park Historic Site — the Springfield Armory — mostly the past week, I have been wandering our local neighborhood on foot to pay closer attention to nature.

Yesterday, I started a walk before the summer rains returned. In the early morning, it was downpours for long stretches of time, following on the heels of rain the day before. I wanted to see the river, and boy, was it flowing! I had wanted to get a few more pictures, but the rains drove me home.

After the Rain

Recently, I wandered on foot to the nearby city-protected watershed area. It’s a beautiful place, and I startled a Blue Heron on my walk and then watched it float effortlessly and seemingly with patience right over the reservoir. I didn’t get the heron on camera because I didn’t want to interrupt the moment.

Walking the Watershed

Finally, the nearby bike path is also a protected Greenway Space, so I spent time along there the past few days, too, poking my way off the foot trails.

Mill River Greenway Walk

What have you been seeing in your world?

Learn more about Write Out, a partnership between the National Writing Project and the National Park Service.

Peace (in the world),
Kevin

From Possibilities to Connections

Write Out Map, wk 2

We’re entering the second week of Write Out, where the themes do a natural shift from “mapping possibilities” to “mapping connections” as we urge educators and park rangers to make plans and efforts to connect with each other.

We have nearly 85 pins on our GeoLocation Map (which has been viewed now more than 1,300 times) and this week’s newsletter is now out with all sorts of invitations for you to think about. While the hope is that teachers will write with rangers, the larger aim is to make connections so that students will also have those opportunities.

As with the first week, we have broken down possibilities based on time you have available, so whether you only have a little bit of time (you might Wander) or a significant amount of time (you might Camp Out), there are possibilities for you to consider.

Read the second Write Out Newsletter

See you on the trails! (Live events include a Connect with Me Google Hangout session on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. est and a Twitter Chat on Thursday at 7 p.m. est).

Peace (outside and in),
Kevin

 

#Writeout Soundscape Poem: Hiking the Wild Mind

from National Park Service Sound Gallery

 

For our Write Out project, Ranger Cris Constantine of the NPS Northeast Regional Office shared out a wonderful page of park resources for teachers, which included a link from the Park Service of collected sounds from various park sites. I soon found myself immersed in the audio. I decided a day of approaching rain was a good day for an imaginary hike in the form of a poem, with embedded audio clips after each stanza. The source link for each audio file is down below. — Kevin


 

Hiking the Wild Mind

This morning, we heard
the rain fall
after many days
of sun
(audio link)

 

Stuck inside,
imagine yourself
on a journey

of sound
(audio link)

 

Eyes closed:
Hike the hills
Sneak behind the rock
of the mountain top
to watch nature
play its terrible games

of BigHornRam collision.
(audio link)

 

In the distance,
the pack always hunts,
calls, careens into the bush:
coyotes on the prowl.
(audio link)

 

At night,
another world of
the wilderness
comes alive:
what is it that
flies above you
below the stars?
(audio link)

 

Again, by day,
the unknown unfurls its wings
sings a song of
the wild edges,
places you have yet
to imagine
(audio link)

 

And there, beneath your feet,
where the rains have loosened
the earth, where the moisture
has woken up
the sleepy-eyed creatures of the season,
you startle that which startles you
(audio link)

 

So settle down,
stake a tent,
claim some ground:
listen until the morning
arrives, and wonder if the sun
still follows the stars
(audio link)

 

Gather up your world
and head back
home.


 

Peace (in the sounds),
Kevin

PS — Sources via National Park Service Natural Sound Project: