Journaling, theme songs, open mic, oh my!

Both demos on Friday gave me so much food for thought and lots of great new activities for my classroom. I enjoyed the specific sacred writing rules that Tiffany uses in her classroom and I think I need to adapt similar rules for my class. Oftentimes during journal writing time I would see students half-heartedly write for maybe a minute or two and then spend the rest of the time looking off into space. I think having those parameters and starting them off with only 2 minutes or so of writing for each prompt is easy and low-stakes.

I like the idea of devoting a whole day to journaling writing in response to different prompts. I'm so grateful for Tiffany posting all of our prompts that we came up with! I think my students would also love coming up with their own prompts and adding to them throughout the year.

I loved how Wendy's demo started with something we are all familiar with: TV theme songs. I think it's a great way for students to start thinking about themes. I also really enjoyed how we were then to come up with theme songs for each super short story. I love how it causes us to think in so many ways (what's the main idea of a song and how does it apply to a work of literature). Looking at a genre through the lens of another type of genre! And students would be so excited to share the songs they know and love--which made me think of how it's tapping into their interests and culture (something that Delpit encouraged in her piece).

Thanks Sarah for sharing the details of her Romeo and Juliet playlist! I teach Romeo and Juliet as well and I want to use this next year!

Then the discussion about the concept of universal themes and whether or not they are even universal was very thought-provoking too. I don't think I had really questioned the validity of "universal" themes and how much they are socially constructed. Even when we think about emotions like love, there are counterexamples of societies with arranged marriage that do not subscribe to our Western idea of romantic love. Lots to chew on.

And it was so wonderful to hear the different pieces everyone has been working on in their writing groups. Poignant, hilarious, reflective.

I can't believe it's our last week! I've learned so much about writing, teaching writing, my own identity as a writer. And I have so much to bring back to my classroom!