Thursday, January 12, 2012

Going Out With Students To Write

I'm participating in the twenty-one day comment challenge at Mother Reader.  It's been terrific to meet new people! Check it out here.


        If we want our students to write, it is helpful to teach them some ideas of how to observe when they are in the world, riding home with parents as chauffeurs, riding home on the city bus, walking home with or without friends, riding the bike home.  We can travel with a small group to a park, a small shopping area, down the block from school to give them a chance to write in a different setting.  In class, we talk and talk and list ideas in our writer's notebooks that are good, actually, but nothing holds interest like sitting on a bench in a small town setting and watching people go by.  
        Every few minutes one can put down a word or two, and in between those minutes, one can imagine:  Where is that woman going dressed as if she stepped onto a modeling runway at Saks?  Who is that group of three, two older, one younger--lunch for three from the office, the younger tagging along because she just had a fight with-her husband, her girlfriend, her mother-and needs some advice.  What is that young boy doing on the side with his scooter?  Isn't it school time, shouldn't he be somewhere?  Do you see the trash under the bench?  Did you notice the cupcakes in the window?  Who is the band playing on the loud speakers?  Did you see that woman with the dog in her handbag?  Did you hear...? Did you smell?  

       Imagination can take us exactly where we'd like to travel, where we'd like our characters to travel.  Perhaps if we took students out to practice writing with imagination they would learn to carry on observing without us?


         Here's from my latest trip:



              Imagination

I found an empty Brookstone bag
At the bench-yet-I see no nearby Brookstone store.
Was it to impress—packing the chicken salad,
apple, and Dasani into the bag—with
thoughts of a friend lured into the net of
“look where I’ve been”?

Are there any who noticed?

Lunch is over; sack’s adrift, like
its owner. It’s tragic to be abandoned by a date
who went downtown instead,
the idea of a Brookstone man
dulling the senses.

photo credit: E>mar via photopin cc

6 comments:

  1. Sounds like a great writing exercise to do with a class. Exercises like this are my favorite because I really like people watching.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's a tough sell for kids, asking them to sit and observe when they've got all that electronic gadgetry caaaaalllllling out to them for their attention. But there is a huge difference in the creative process I've found between times you're bombarded with distractions and the times you're able to let yourself go and observe, or sink quietly into yourself. I like that time.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Such a fun creative exercise! I tried an observation walk for writing descriptive settings with my ELL's this summer, but I reeaaaally like the imaginative component you added. I might have to try it myself sometime just to bring that creative side of me out of hiding! Thanks for sharing some examples of what you could wonder, as well as the poem you got out of it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes, I take my summer writing camp students outside to practice observing using all 5 senses. They work independently, and then we compare what we noticed. The exercise is a big hit with the kids.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I wish I would have seen the Comment Challenge at the beginning of the month. Its a great challenge that I actually try to do whenever I go through my Google Reader. Good luck with your challenge.

    ReplyDelete
  6. One of the things that my husband and I love doing is to create stories from people we see in restaurants, or in the church (if we arrive early, and we are sitting not-so-quietly in the pews), or just about anywhere. But life right now is so rushed, I hardly hardly have the time to just sit still and watch life move past me. I should rediscover this. Thanks for reminding me, Linda. :)

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting!