Author Archives: dogtrax

Write Across America: Hawai’i Writing Project and the Concept of Mo’olelo

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Write Across America

The National Writing Project just kicked off its annual summer writing adventure called Write Across America, in which various NWP sites host online gatherings and share place-based prompts to spark writing. I missed the first session from the Hawai’i Writing Project, but the presentations are archived, so I went in to see what had been happening.

One of the prompts had to do with the native Hawaiian concept of Mo’olelo — a way to be spiritually connected to the native world — and it was described here. I liked this ending of that post: “Everything in the world was alive with a presence, vitality, and meaning that our worldview does not recognize.”

I am not suggesting that I completely understand the concept. I am not a native Hawaiian and my roots to my land seems less connected that I would like. But I used that idea of connection to the spirit of the land for a poem response.

Here’s what I wrote:

we
don’t listen
we
barely hear
we
forget noticing
we
lose ourselves

we
the stories
of the world
embedded in this place
remain undiscovered

we
wander this terrain
of rock and soil
and river

we
need to linger
longer in the quiet,
listening for

us

we
should listen
we
can hear
we
are noticing
we
find ourselves

here

Peace (and Roots),
Kevin

Book Review: Big Tree

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Big Tree

Whenever Brian Selznick puts out a new book, I am always an eager audience. Ever since The Invention of Hugo Cabret blew my mind when it came out, I have kept an eye on what he is doing. Not all of his books have landed as emotional for me as Hugo, but they are never dull literary experiences.

His recent book — Big Tree — is another glorious Selznick work of art — with a mix of silent pencil sketch drawings and a story about two little tree seeds on a journey of a lifetime (or many lifetimes, perhaps, given the span of years that book covers). In his afterword, Selznick tells how the story was started as a possible movie script with Steven Spielberg and then later, become the Big Tree book.

Informed by science about plants, animals, and the ancient world, Big Tree follows a sister and brother seed of a Sycamore tree in the time of the dinosaurs through the modern day, and along the way, the two seeds have adventures that bring them into contact with all sorts of wondrous creatures, including mushrooms that act as “ambassadors” of the forest through the interconnected fungi networks; rockweed (seaweed) under the ocean, where the seeds are trapped inside a shell; and more.

If you know his books, then you know to expect meticulous, beautiful, evocative pencil drawing and the artwork in Big Tree is no exception, as the story unfolds both in texts and in artwork, and the way Selznick brings the reader into the story through his pencil strokes — where you flip page after page after page, like a stopmotion scene unfolding on paper — is an interesting experience. (See excerpt)

This book has a central environmental theme coursing through the narrative, about how all of us have an obligation and a means to do something positive for the planet, even if we feel small and insignificant in the larger world.

Peace (and Plants),
Kevin

 

Poem: A Museum Of You/A Museum Of Me

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This poem comes via a one word prompt — Museum — and went longer than my usual morning small poem writing activities.

This museum of you
contains dust and
debris, and artifacts
worth remembering,

like: half-written
poems and unsung
songs and essays
you meant to throw
away, but never did,

scribbled etches
on paper from
an imaginative kid,
and notes you wrote
to someone you lost,

receipts of objects
where you circled
the cost, gewgaws
and baubles
you didn’t want
anyone else to see,

but still – I looked in
and wandered around,
for there, on the inside,
on the scattered grounds
of the museum of you,
I discovered a mirror:
the museum of me

Peace (Wandering Through),
Kevin

Poem Shards

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Poem Shards for Terry

I sent my friend, Terry, a book about catching moles, adding elements to it of a sharing activity he and I have been engaged in via the mail, and he responded with a poem in a post. I wrote a poem back.

Peace (and Pieces),
Kevin

ETMOOC Annotation: Final Video Gathering

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ETMOOC VideoAnt
I admit: I missed every single live Zoom session gathering for the ETMOOC exploration of Artificial Intelligence. After teaching all day, the last thing I needed in my brain was a a Zoom session overload (so I engaged in other ways, mostly early in the mornings, and it was constructive for me).

But I wanted to find a way to watch the sessions later, and maybe have an annotation conversation from the side. Unfortunately, Vialogues — a site we used a lot for CLMOOC — bit the dust, but VideoAnt seems like a possible replacement.

Join us if you want — you will need a VideoAnt account to comment and be part of the conversations. (One thing that VideoAnt does NOT have that Vialogues did is an email notification when someone responds to your comment. Which is too bad.)

Peace (marking it up in the margins),
Kevin

A Little Bit Loopy Space

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This began as a DS106 Daily Create, inspired by a comic sketch from my friend Tyler Weaver, which led to a gif by Alan, which led to a Gif Loop video by John, which led to me making a loop soundtrack and layering it in, and then adding a dancing Jim to the end.

Typical DS106 remix … ’nuff said.

Peace (and fun),
Kevin

Poem: This Machine Eats Writers

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It Eats Writers

This morning’s Daily Create prompt for DS106 connects back to Ethical ELA’s prompt some time back for a Sijo poem. I still have the inquiry around Generative AI in my mind, apparently.

This machine
eats all our words
and spits them out

neither asks
our approval
or permission

It only
edges us writers
into extinction

Peace (and writing),
Kevin

Using AI To Animate Drawings

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I came upon this site via ETMOOC2 and wondered about it’s potential for play in the classroom. It’s called Animated Drawings and is fueled by an AI engine via Meta (uh oh). It’s very simple to use: upload a drawing, and follow the steps, and get your drawing put into small bits of motion — dancing, walking, jumping, etc.

I did two experiments. One with a large face with small body and one with a saxophone body. I tried one with a starfish drawing but it just didn’t work. It was really weird.

Peace (and Motion),
Kevin