Name of the Game: Synesthesia Timing: This game is best played once writers have drafted a text that rich and lengthy enough for review. Goal: Adapted from a Gamestorming game by the same name (say that three times fast), this game challenges writers to examine character, plot, setting, theme, or any other element of a selected piece through their senses, enabling a more somatic experience of the text. The intent is to surface new insights…
Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist, tells us that, “Nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original. Some people find this idea depressing, but it fills me with hope. As the French writer Andre Gide put it, ‘Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.’” He reminds us that, “If we’re free…
“I know what I want to say, but I don’t know how to say it,” she sighed, sitting back and sinking deep into her chair. “It’s like I have too many ideas. They’re all little bits and pieces and fragments of thoughts, swirling around in my head. I don’t even know where to begin.” If you’re a writing teacher, I’m sure that you’re no stranger to this frustration. It’s one that I’ve always found particularly…
Over the last several years, my work at the WNY Young Writer’s Studio has helped me discover that serious play is the work of writers , and gaming the process is one of the more powerful approaches that teachers can invite writers to employ. Over the next few weeks, I’ll explore some of the greater challenges that writers typically face and detailed descriptions of specific games that have helped those I know meet those challenges…
This photo captures the thinking behind the most inspired moment of my week. I spent yesterday Gamestorming with a group of local English teachers in order to surface, prioritize, and resolve their emerging curricular needs. Once our work together was complete, we situated the games inside of a completely different context: lesson design. The anchor chart above reflects how we practiced using Post Ups, Clusters, Affinity Mapping, and Forced Ranking to help readers make…
Read anything awesome over spring break? I did. My favorite read was actually a reread, and I have a feeling I’ll be referencing it deep into the future. Sunni Brown, Dave Gray, and James Macanufo wrote Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rule-Breakers, and Changemakers. If you’re responsible for helping people generate ideas and solutions in any capacity, you will love this book. You might also love the app, which I spent this morning test driving as well.…
Jody Shipka’s Toward a Composition Made Whole has been good company this month. If you’re in the process of reexamining your understanding of what it means to write or teach writing well, you will appreciate her wisdom. It runs deep. I couldn’t help but reflect on this reality as I was reading, too: So often, our efforts to get beyond print in our writing classrooms and workshops are complicated by misguided understandings and applications of…
I’m an instructional designer and an independent education consultant, as most of you know. In that latter role, I am typically hired to facilitate opportunity chasing and problem solving. I usually work with K-16 writing teachers who tend to be a highly creative bunch, and it’s rare that I don’t find myself learning more than I teach inside of any situation that finds me in rooms with these people. I get to have a lot…
Those of us who are privileged enough to publish books and engage a platform that grows a little (or by leaps and bounds) each year must take care to protect the commons. Those commons are filled with talented people who share not for profit, but because they know that when we share, we all grow better–together. Each time I publish I book, I make it a priority to elevate the voices of those teachers whose…
When my youngest was still in elementary school, she began the countdown to summer vacation with so much eager anticipation that one would have thought she hated school. She didn’t. She just loved summer, too. This was evidenced by the fact that each year, on the last day of school, she would step off of the school bus and promptly burst into tears, right in the middle of the street. “I’m going to miss my…