In the span of the first day that I posted a call for Six Word Days in a Sentence, my blog was hit with 20 submissions. That says something about the power of the six words and the power of the Day in a Sentence format, doesn’t it? And the words kept coming the next day … and the next. By Saturday, I had more than 30 sentences in my blog bin.
Thank you to everyone who lent us your words this week. I have been very protective of them, but now, they can be released into the world. I won’t say much this week in terms of introductions, as the six words (give or take), capture what the writers were trying to say. My own words would just jumble up the experience.
What I did decide to do, however, is to group them according to some common themes that seemed to emerge (sorry if you don’t quite agree with my categories) and then it made sense to me to create a Bubble.Us concept map, color-coded along those themes.
It’s that time again — we’re looking for your Days in a Sentence and since so many of us in North America are entering summer vacation/break (but not everyone, of course), I thought we could return to the Six Word Story format in an effort to keep things brief and to the point.
So, please consider boiling down your week or a day of your week into six words. You can use the comment feature on this post and then I will collect and redistribute the Six Word Sentences over the weekend as part of our growing network of writers.
Here is my Day in Six Words:
Thunderstorms wreak havoc on family activities.
I look forward to your words this week.
Peace (in brevity),
Kevin
PS — If you are interested in guest hosting Day in a Sentence, please let me know. I love having other folks take it on from time to time.
This week, Bonnie will be the host of Day in a Sentence. We hope you will join us on another adventure with words this week in which teachers from around the world reflect on their past few days and share out their thoughts.
Head to Bonnie’s Blog
for more details for this week’s Day in a Sentence.
Peace (in words),
Kevin
PS — And while you are there at her blog, consider joining the Photo Fridays project, too.
Our very-much pregnant friend, Nancy, has agreed to host this week’s Day in a Sentence (Will she write her sentence on the week of the baby?) So please join this week over at Nancy’s Blog and follow her suggestions for this week’s submissions.
I look forward to your words.
Peace (in rainy days here in New England before the blast of summer about to arrive this weekend),
Kevin
Thanks to everyone who submitted their Day in a Comic. It was quite amusing to get them in my email bin. I struggled with how to present them all — I tried making a little movie but the text became too small and unreadable. I tried a slideshow but the new Edublogs platform doesn’t seem to want to have the flickr slideshow that I used to use.
So I am providing you with a link to the Flickr Slideshow and I hope you travel there and get a chuckle and/or insight out of the comic creations of this week.
Or, you can follow these contributors names to their comics:
If you want to make a comic, the tools we used were either Make Beliefs Comics or ToonDoo or the Read-Write-Think Site, but there are plenty of other sites out there that are easy for us and our students to use.
If you sent me a comic but I did not get it or post it, please let me know. And you can still link to your comic in the commenting section of this post, if you were a bit — ahem — tardy or occupied with real life this week.
Yes, in a comic. But not if you don’t want to. In recent workshops with teachers, and with my own students, we have used this very easy-to-use site called Make Beliefs Comics. It has limits, but ease of use is key.
So, for this week’s Day in a Sentence, I ask you to consider creating a Day in a Comic. You can use any format you want. If you do use Make Beliefs Comics, however, be sure to email your comic to me (dogtrax-at-gmail-dot-com) so I can collect them.
As a matter of fact, you can email me any of your comics, whatever the format. Or post a link to them here, if you can upload them yourself. I hope to collect and post them all together, in some format (any ideas?)
And if the idea of creating a comic is not quite your thing, feel free to just submit your day as a sentence in the traditional way via the comment feature on this post.
Anne M. creatively decided to use PowerPoint as the coloured backdrop (notice I used the non-American spelling there) of PowerPoint to cast our words against the colours of our days. I took that powerpoint and made them into pictures so I could share here. (you can also view it as a Flickr slideshow here)
Come on back later this week and join us for another round of Day in a Sentence!
This week, Anne M. from Australia takes over the Day in a Sentence challenge and she is adding her own little twist (which is what I love about sending the Day out into the world with guest hosts — they have the option of making it their own).
Anne would like you to incorporate some aspect of “color” into your sentence. So, close your eyes and imagine your world in color and please head on over to Anne’s blog for this week’s writing adventure.
(If you want to guest host this feature, please please please let me know. The more people involved, the better, and it is quite simple to do.)
This week’s Day in a Sentence was narrowed down to Day in Six Words, and the words came from all over the blogosphere this week. There were many new voices (partly as a result of the 31 Day Comment Challenge), plenty of veteran writers, and an incredible collection of tales told in minimalistic creativity.
I am going to keep my own narrative intrusions in check this week and allow your voices to come through on their own (because, well, they don’t need any help from me). But I did do something a bit different with your comments/words this week as yet another way to bring us all together in once “voice” and you can find that experiment at the end of the post.
With further ado, here you go:
Seniors graduated Friday. A bittersweet celebration. — Cynthia
Learned lots from Will Richardson seminar — Anne M.
Not getting out produces distorted viewpoints. – Christine
Wet weepy spongy soggy rainbow day — Mary
With friends and sunshine, then rain. — Illya (who has been experimenting with six day memoirs on Twitter for the past few days, and I have been trying to keep up, too)
Did that Simon says no comment. — Ken (who originally let me know: Oil C wot oil do.)
Sydney Wednesday. Melbourne Saturday. Perth Tuesday. — Kathryn
Two-on-two, full-court — DUMB! – Larry (who admits that the full court game was a bit too much for him)
It’s that time…awards, honors, accolades. — Delaine
Telling students they’ve failed is excruciating. – Nina
Graduation ends K12; creates new beginnings! — Tonya
Last Wednesday class today!! Time for ….!?!?!!!! — Illya
Wondering if any “boilers” could hear me all the way from California hooting and hollering Wednesday night as many of the teachers and students in my filmmaking project headed onto to the stage at our regional SEVAs to receive awards and recognition?!? – Gail (more than six words but Gail also has leeway on my blog)
powered by ODEO
Meanwhile, at a Technology Across the Curriculum Conference on Saturday, I had participants in a podcasting workshop record their own Days in a Sentence. I did not limit them to six words, but you can listen to their voices (and I added a second sentence for this week, too).
PS — So, friends, I took your six words, mashed them all together, and created this found poem of your thoughts. It was an interesting endeavor and I believe all of you are represented in some fashion or another. What does the poem mean? The poet remains silent.
Six Words As Collective Thought A Day in Sentence Found Poem
In bittersweet simplicity:
the quilt of students we once received
now graduate
but just one soul creates celebration/importance;
Just one soul produces sunshine;
to dream a whirlwind of mud-covered
friends who encompass a “response” in these Days
and arrive wildly happy with honor,
then (in digitalstory festivals) I project rainbows of wolf-children wearing hats, two by two –
hooting and hollering like the spongy virtual frogs of Will Richardson
as these viewpoints arrive through the recognition that
learning always honors teachers (even with crazy kids encircled in whirlwinds).
I’m mulling this:
Does this stage of summer create new beginnings?
Or end the time of today?
Let go. Let go.
Hell yeah!
This week’s Day in a Sentence returns to a popular format — the Six Word Variation. I had been thinking of this for a few weeks now, but then Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach (at her blog, 21st Century Learning) used the technique this week on Twitter, asking folks to submit their Six Word Memoir.
Once again, I was moved by how powerful the writing can be within the six word limit (and see the book called Not Quite Was I Expecting for a collection of six word memoirs — great stuff).
So, I ask you to consider joining us this week with a six word recap of either a day from your week or your entire week. Here is how Day in a Sentence works:
Boil down your day or week into six words
Use the comment link on this post to submit your six words
I collect all of the comments and then post them all as a collection on Sunday
Feel free to use podcasting, video, plain ‘ol writing, hand signals (no wait, that won’t work)
Everyone is welcome!
And since one of the tasks of the 31 Day Comment Challenge is to use comments and submissions from visitors in a blog post, this works out nicely. So I am tagging the challenge here, in hopes that some new folks will wander in and take part in the activity.
Here is my Six Word Week, and I am experimenting with Odeo Studio for a podcasting workshop this weekend, so let me give it a try with my words that relate to some state standardized testing this week that has kids and teachers on edge:
for more details for this week’s 
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