On Saturday, I co-presented on the topic of video games and digital writing at the Western Massachusetts Writing Project. My co-presenter did a fantastic job of showing how an immersive game experience can spark various kinds of writing in the classroom while I focused on the links between game design and the writing process, and how kids can create (not just play) games.
Here is my presentation:
Some writers just leave me gasping for breath. I can’t put the book down and feel as if life is intruding on an intimate space that the writer, the characters and I inhabit. I was thinking of this as I finished up Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick (whose The Invention of Hugo Cabret remains a solid favorite of mine), shifting towards the end of a twining narrative of words and illustrations that had me hooked from the very start. Selznick is one of those writers who is also an illustration, and who has come to understand the way to merge those two ideas together, so that the pictures are not just complementary tokens to the story. The illustrations are the story itself.
Or in this case, one of the stories. Here, in Wonderstruck, Selznick skillfully uses his line drawings to tell the tale of a deaf girl, and the pictures are like a silent movie unfolding on the pages. We don’t hear the sounds. We don’t hear any dialogue. We only see the world in a veil of silence, and through the eyes of the character. The effect is pure genius.
And then there is the other part of the story, as a young boy named Ben tries to find his father after his mother has died in a tragic car accident, and he too becomes deaf (by a lightning strike). Using a museum as a setting for the middle of the novel, the two narratives of these characters in Wonderstruck slowly come together in a wonderful way, which I won’t give away here, except to say that the panoramic model of New York City is a delight to see, as are all of the hidden reasons for its importance.
I’d like to share this quote from the book:
“Ben remembering reading about curators in Wonderstruck, and thought about what it meant to curate your own life, as his dad had done here. What would it be like to pick and choose the objects and stories that would go into your own cabinet? How would Ben curate his own life? And then, thinking about his museum box, and his house, and his books, and the secret room, he realized that he had already begun doing it. Maybe, thought Ben, we are all cabinets of wonder.” (574)
Is there a better phrase than that? Maybe we are all cabinets of wonder? I love that idea.
Don’t be put off by the size of this book (630 pages) nor the price, and be sure to read through Selznick’s notes at the end of how he came to write this story and how he researched the elements. Just like the video that he made for Hugo Cabret in which he talks about how he made that book (which I show every year to my young writers), Selznick here pries open the veil of the writing and drawing process for the reader to see and understand.
(Note: In a presentation around gaming and writing yesterday at the Western Massachusetts Writing Project, my co-presenter began the session by dimming the lights and putting on the soundtrack to the immersive game, Riven, and asked us to be inspired and write. The sounds were of the ocean. Here is what I came up with as I listened.)
I’m drifting …
caught here in the center of this wave
as my toes drag across the bottom
of the sea …
wondering where you are right now
and if you can feel
this pull of gravity, too,
or if you see the moon as I see it
above me
shining
with invisible forces …
I’m drifting …
hidden in the white noise
as thoughts lay scattered like seashells
on the sands …
wondering where you are right now
and if you feel
this push of gravity, too,
or if you see the moon as I see it
below me
shining
with invisible love …
We’re almost at the end of our start-of-year digital story project, which is called Dream Scenes. Here are a few that came to the finish line on Friday.
Here is a version of the workshop I gave yesterday at the New England Reading Assocation’s conference on using mentor texts to inspire student digital composition. We had a great session, with lots of sharing and writing and questions. My last topic — gaming as a form of mentor text — sparked some interesting curiosity about how to bring that passion of some students into the classroom setting for writing and learning. We didn’t have answers, but we did have a lot of wonderment. That’s a start! Mentor Texts in a Digital Age PDF Version
Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin
This is one of the handouts that I will be using in my session today at the New England Reading Association Conference. I am exploring Mentor Texts and Digital Writing, and how we can use traditional texts to inspire digital composition in our students. Mentor Texts and Digital Writing
Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin
Yo – you may have heard about teachers in the curve using words as a way to connect, reflect and dissect the fragile moments of their days, so let me say to you today that the space is open wide across the geographic divide and I extend a hand to you to come on inside the Day in a Sentence with a moment, a slice, something sad or something nice, something that gives you pause and when you do, listen for the applause across this great big wide world. I have spoken – Day in a Sentence is open! (listen to the prose poem invite)
I was thinking again about the many overlaps between the cyclical process of writing and the iterative process of designing a game, and where they so often overlap, even if we use different terms. Neither process is linear, so my chart is not quite accurate as a flow chart. I created this as part of a presentation around gaming and writing that I am co-presenting this weekend for the Western Massachusetts Writing Project.
(I just found out that in gmail, you can set up canned, or prewritten, email message replies. I was thinking about what teachers would add to their list of canned replies to parents. – Kevin)
A Teacher’s Canned Messages
I’m sorry I missed your email. I’ve been shut up in my house for hours with all these five paragraph essays. Five paragraphs times 100 students is a whole lot of reading. I’ll get back to you when my eyeballs return to normal and my own family is talking to me again.
If you have a question about the curriculum, contact the superintendent. I had nothing to do with it.
I’m not available right now. I’m busy building a giant converter box that turns letter grades into standardized assessments. Leave a note if you want to use my new invention, too, when I am done.
The school day has ended. For once, I decided that my working day has ended at the same time. I’ll respond to you tomorrow. Go toss a ball around with your son or daughter. That’s what I’m going to be doing.
If you are wondering about the quiz we had in class today, it wasn’t too difficult but it was designed to make your child think and use their head. And, no, they could not study for it. The question was a real-life scenario that called for real-life problem-solving. I’d like to think that that’s what school is for. If they struggled, that’s perfectly fine. Don’t worry about it.
I’ve received your email but I have decided to go on digital sabbatical. You will need to come see my in person if you want to talk. If you need directions to our school, ask your child, My classroom is the one just off the hallway from the nurse.
I now see where your child’s lack of spelling, punctuation and vocabulary comes from. (note to self: keep this one on the shelf)
Thank you for being such supportive parents. It makes my day how much you care and I want you to know I appreciate the ongoing partnership between you and I about your child. I only want the best for them, and it is clear that you do, too. I’m busy right now but will be back to you soon. Have a wonderful day, Mr. x/Mrs. x.
I’d like to think that last one would be the most used.
Somewhere, I read that today’s is National Comic Day. I don’t know what that really means. But I thought I would share this video talk from Josh Elder about using Comics for reading instruction, and the relationship between the writer and the reader when it comes to comics. Elder is also a leader of Reading with Pictures, which is publishing an interesting anthology of writers remembering how they began to learn to read with comics.
“With a comic, the moment you open it up, you’re in that story … you’re in that world.” — Elder.
