(This is for the Slice of Life feature at Two Writing Teachers)
Each day, I receive an email notification from The Daily Create (an offshoot of DS106) about an activity to get the brain and thinking mind moving in new directions. It’s really such a great idea, these short assignments that push boundaries with humor and creative passion, and every day is something interesting or odd to consider. I don’t mind odd. In fact, I embrace oddity when it comes to digital composition because I think that diving into the odd will push boundaries. Yesterday, the Daily Create assignment was to sketch out an imaginary map of your mind.
This one hung with me all day, as I took my son sledding and as I set up the ping-pong table for some ferocious paddling, and as I read my books, read aloud to my son, checked my email, wrote a few tweets and began the first day of our February vacation (not technically our first day, since we had two snow days to end last week, extending our time away from school). All day, I kept thinking: map my head, map of my head, map it out.
If you know anything about me, you know I can’t draw worth a darn. Which is why I so often turn to digital tools to help me, and finally, as I watched my son and his friend barrel down the huge hill on sleds, screaming the entire way, it dawned on me how I could do this assignment. As a comic. And I would do it in the style of Mad Magazine’s Sergio Aragones, who makes all of those little comics in the margins of the pages, with little characters doing funny things in small spaces.
By the way, today’s Daily Create is to make a video of you or someone unboxing something. Anything. Make it dramatic. Share it out. Odd, right? See what I mean? The Daily Create rocks.
Peace (inside),
Kevin
This is so cool!
I will need to check out the Daily Create!
You should!
This is way cool, Kevin! I’d love to know what tool you used to create your mind map. I could draw, maybe, but I’d love to try this, and I know a whole lot of kids would too! And I want to check out the Daily Create.
It is Bitstrips for Schools, and we do use it with the classroom. Students love it.
I always wondered what was going on inside your mind! Thank you for (another) marvelous tool. I’m putting it in MY toolbox!
Definitely going to try The Daily Create. My OLW is humor so your post is just what the Doctor ordered. Thanks!
Oh I like that idea. I had heard about The Daily Create and then forgot to look it up. Thanks for posting this. I am off to connect with them now. By the way I love your mind map. Wonder what mine would look like!
Love the map you made and the assignment! At first thought, a map of my mind would be a very messy and chaotic place, ha. You’ve got me thinking about how I would represent that. Thanks for passing the creative spark!
Thanks for the reminder that composing can look many different ways! I was just talking with a colleague about the beauty in not handing out graphic organizers – this is a good reminder.
Ha! Love your mind map! My mind feels like that, too. Like there is a bunch – and I mean a BUNCH – of little me people running around in there.
The Daily Create sounds cool. Thanks.
Hmmm. Im thinking about that create. So cool… Dman!
BK