This morning’s Daily Create was to listen to the radio, and grab some lyrics, and then make a poem. I used an online radio streaming site, bounced around, and grabbed some words.
Peace (and sound),
Kevin
Monthly Archives: January 2024
A Closer Look At 20 Years Of Invented Words
I shared out the other day that my sixth graders were donating new words to an ongoing Crazy Collaborative Dictionary Project. The project – which began in 2005 and continues to this day — contains more than 1250 words, with new ones added each year by students. It is part of a unit on the Origin of Words.
The 20-year mark must mean something, right?
So I started to think about how to share some of the work out in a more visual way. Thus, a few charts.
First, the new home for the dictionary is here at a Google Site. It’s had many homes over the years, starting on paper, and then in Wikis, then blogs, and now Sites. We also have a folder of audio files, of students reading their words and definitions.
I was curious about which letters had the most words so I did the counting. “S” by a longshot! “V”? Not so much. But every letter has at least some words.
Then, I got curious about the longest word ever submitted, and the shortest. Some years, some students try really hard to make the longest word imaginable, and then have fun trying to pronounce it for our audio files.
Overall, the project has provided a curiosity for my students and families, but also, a showcase for how language changes, and how words are created to fill a niche in strange ways (and how much this is happening more so in the age of social media, where the viral nature of things impact our language).
Peace (and Words),
Kevin
Gathering Poems: Write Across America (Baltimore)
I have shared some of these poems during the days I wrote them, but I wanted to gather them together. These are all inspired by the National Writing Project’s Write Across America: Baltimore marathon. I mostly ignored the official prompts and instead, focused on the artist and their work.
Peace (and poems and place),
Kevin
Jazz Music and MLK Jr.: A Found Poem
My wife and I were at a music club last night, listening to two very fun jazz bands. One of the band leaders noted that in 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the Berlin Jazz Festival with a short speech connecting Jazz music to Civil Rights, and the power of the arts and expression. The band leader read a few lines of the speech and I was intrigued, so I found the speech this morning.
Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down. – MLK Jr.
I used a section of the speech for a found poem with a blackout poem platform, for this Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Peace (and poems),
Kevin
Audio Response: Signal2Noise2Synth
My friend, Terry, wrote a poem (and then fed it into ChatGPT for analysis, which disappointed him, to little surprise) and I was taken by his poetry (as is usually the case), finding myself centered on one particular line.
don’t touch that dial if the signal is wild
So I took that and used it to inspire a short piece of music, and a collection of AI art (I used the line as the prompt.)
Peace (is all signal),
Kevin
Invented Words: 2024
My sixth graders are just completing the final activities in a unit on Word Origins, and they are have all invented new words with definitions — including one word they will donate to the Crazy Collaborative Dictionary Project (now in its 20th year and more than 1200 words strong!). The word art contains their newly invented words. I love how weird and creative they get with it.
Hover over the words here to read them, or take a listen to the audio files, or see the entire list of words and definitions this year, soon to be added to the larger project.
Peace (and language),
Kevin
PS — The Crazy Dictionary is hosted here for now but I will be moving it yet again.
CLMOOC Silent Sunday
Poetry: Clay Face
Here’s another in a series of short poems inspired by the National Writing Project’s Baltimore stop for its Write Across America project. This poem is inspired by the clay sculpture work of Paula Whaley — learn more about her with this video.
Peace (smoothed out),
Kevin
Poetry: Inspired By Tintype
Yesterday, I shared a few poems from the latest National Writing Project Write Across America Project (focus: Baltimore artists) and today’s poem is another piece inspired by that same collection. This time, it’s about Elena Volkova, who works with tintype photography on her Anacostia Portrait project.
Peace (Sitting and Waiting),
Kevin
NWP Write Across America: Baltimore
The National Writing Project’s Write Across America place-based adventures continues into the school year, and I continue my practice of using the resources — when the resources get shared beyond the Zoom sessions that I nearly always miss — for some morning writing. This week, the project focused on artists in Baltimore, and it is a pretty fascinating collection.
Here are three poems (so far), inspired by three Baltimore artists and their work.
The first was from the work of Kathleen Fahey, who does old cranky-style videos, which are spooled stories that someone literally cranks to move along. Pretty cool and gives a story a forward motion.
The second poem came after exploring the work of Joyce Scott, who works with beads and glass and fabrics and more.
The third was focused on visual artist Ernest Shaw Jr., whose work is inspired by West African tradition and who does a variety of styles of art, including street murals. I listened to a video profile, taking notes on his words and then remixed his words into an art-themed poem.
Peace (in explorations of art),
Kevin