The Curious Creative: Week 6

Photography Scavenger Hunt

This is the sixth exercise of The Curious Creative, weekly 10-minute writing exercises for the busy individual interested in exploring his creativity. For the complete rationale, click here.

My Thoughts: 

Composition is the placement or arrangement of ingredients in a work of art. In writing, it involves decisions about what content to include and how to organize and order it. In photography, it involves what to include in the image and where to place the subject in relation to the viewer. I love dabbling in different art forms to help me understand how a principle works in writing. Therefore, this week, we will play with composition in photography.

Your Turn!

Poet Walt Whitman kept a writer's notebook in which he wrote down specific 1-2 sentence notes about things he saw: “Where burial coaches enter the arched gates of a cemetery” and “Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees.” Instead of a writer's notebook, "jot down" pictures. Photograph anything that catches your eye: various objects and creatures around your house, yard, street, neighborhood. Try not to be too judgmental in your choice of subjects: a tiny bug well observed, an object you've had for years, an old pair of shoes that should have been thrown out long ago, the bit of dying shrubbery outside your window, dust particles suspended in a ray of light, etc.

Complete this Scavenger Hunt of photographs taken:

1.        Take an overall photo of an object, such as a building. Then take six-to-twelve detail pictures of the same subject. 

2.        Look up and take a picture of something above your head.

3.        Look down and take a picture of something below your knees.

4.        Tilt the camera and take a picture of something from underneath.

5.        Tilt the camera and take a picture of something from above.

6.        Take a picture holding the camera at a tilted angle.

7.        Fill the frame with the subject of the photograph (example, of an entire person, feet to head)

8.        Take a two-third cropped picture of the subject (example, just above the person’s knee).

9.        Take a one-third cropped picture of a person (example, chest and up). 

10.           Frame the subject with a doorway, archway, window, between two trees, etc.

Which ones are your favorites? Why? More importantly, how did you feel as you walked around and took photographs from different perspectives?

To encourage each other and grow a community of Curious Creatives, sign in from a google account, so you can share your creation in the comment boxes below. This week, post your favorite photograph. Also, if you subscribe to this blog (submit your email address in the "Follow this Site by Email" box on the right), you will get an email update whenever a new exercise is added. Thanks for playing!

The scavenger list is adapted from “Learn to Take Better Photographs” by Susan Caplan Macarthy https://suite101.com/a/ learn-to-take-better-photographs-a142953 

The Curious Creative: Exercise 5

Erasure Poem

This is the fifth installment of The Curious Creative, weekly 10-minute writing exercises for the busy person interested in exploring her creativity. For the complete rationale, click here.

My Thoughts:

Recently, "found poetry" has become a popular sub-genre of poetry, and many literary magazines these days accept it, some exclusively. To create a found poem, you must choose a text and use only the words "found" therein to create your piece. Ideally, you should create a piece that has a different topic or meaning from the original. You are not merely summarizing the text, but transforming it into something other. There are many different methods for creating found poetry, all very playful. One of the most fun ways, because it involves the inherent satisfaction of crossing out things with a thick black marker, is called Erasure Poetry.

Your Turn!

1. Find a text. It can be an article from a magazine or newspaper, a recipe from a cookbook, a letter, a page from a novel, etc. It shouldn't be too long. A page or less will do; otherwise, you'll feel overwhelmed. I chose a gardening article from Pacific NW magazine.

2. Move through the text, either circling the words you want to use, or crossing out the words you don't want to use. I looked for strong verbs and nouns that were specific, interesting-sounding, unique, or active. Die-hard found poets also circle prepositions and connecting words that will help the piece make sense. However, you can also add (make up) those words later if you'd like.

3. Handwrite the words you chose onto a fresh sheet of paper. Start to make decisions about line breaks. Do you want long lines or short lines? You can also change word order.

4. Repeat Step 2 by circling words on your handwritten draft. Pay attention to meaning as you piece together words into phrases and sentences that make sense.

5. Repeat Step 3 by copying those circles words/phrases onto a new piece of paper. Change word order and move lines around if you need to. Add connecting words and punctuation. 

6. Repeat this process as many times as you'd like. Continue to make new decisions about line breaks and word order.Create stanzas. 

I started with a gardening article about how to grow flower bulbs, and through this process, I transformed it into a political poem! Since it's on all my American friends' minds right now, I was in the mood to express the vibe of election day nearing, and how terrified we feel. Here's my final creation:

Bare the Time

A star- 

attention-seeking

so transparent

prefers mistakes.

We- 

cornered amid a fall

bare down for more.

Blast us with color

and right the space

not yet frozen!

How did you do? Did your text transform into something new? Does your poem make sense? Do you at least have some beautiful phrases and lines that you might use as inspiration for further writing?

To encourage each other and grow a community of Curious Creatives, sign in from a google account, so you can share your creation in the comment boxes below. Also, if you subscribe to this blog (submit your email address in the "Follow this Site by Email" box on the right), you will get an email update whenever a new exercise is added. Thanks for playing!

The Curious Creative: Exercise 4

This is the fourth installment of The Curious Creative, weekly 10-minute writing exercises for the busy person interested in exploring his creativity. For the complete rationale, click here.

My Thoughts:

Have you ever walked into a room and caught the smell of your grandmother's laundry detergent? Just a whiff of that scent probably went straight to your heart and a fluttering of flashbulb memories played across your mind's eye. 

Memories of our grandparents (or "aunties") are a rich source of sensory details and emotions. There's something about the way they spoiled us, the treats and unconditional love they lavished on us, that was so different from what we received from our parents. Our young minds were super awake and observant in their homes- all the strange smells, tastes, and decor! As adults, those sensory details are still within us, and have the power to deliver packed punches of memories and emotions if called up. For this week's exercise, we'll call up some of those sensory details. 

Your Turn!

1. Think of a beloved food that your grandmother (or auntie) liked to give you when you visited her. For example, my Italian grandmother always set out for me Stella D’oro's Breakfast Treats. Yum. I feel achey-nostalgic just thinking about them.
2. Imagine yourself sitting at your grandmother's table eating this treat. Write for five minutes describing every detail you can remember about this experience. Cover as many senses as you can: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, kinesthetic (what you felt inside, i.e. nausea). Describe where you sat, the details of her kitchen. What was your grandmother doing? What sounds did you hear in her house? Who else was in the house and what were they doing? Keep your pen moving for the full five minutes. If you run out of what to say, write, "I don't know what to write. I don't know what to write," until the next detail arises in your memory. The physicality of keeping your hand moving frees up your thoughts much more than staring at blank paper does. So keep writing!
3. After five minutes is up, read what you wrote. Choose one sentence that delivers a packed punch. In other words, which sentence and its details pull on your heart strings the most?
4. Open to a new page. Write that sentence at the top, and free-write again with that sentence as your starting point for another five minutes.
5. If you feel like taking your writing even further, you can repeat the process again by choosing another golden line to start from. 

After 2-3 rounds of free-writing, did you notice the frequency of lines delivering packed punches increase? You're on your way to a first draft of a narrative poem or personal essay...


To encourage each other and grow a community of Curious Creatives, sign in so you can share even a small part of your creation in the comment box below this post. Also, if you subscribe to this blog (submit your email address in the "Follow this Site by Email" box on the right), you will get an email update whenever a new exercise is added. Thanks for playing!

The Curious Creative: Exercise 3

One Little Thing You Noticed

This is the third exercise of The Curious Creative, weekly 10-minute writing exercises for the busy person interested in exploring his creativity. For a complete rationale, click here.

My thoughts:

Sensory details are how writers "show" rather than "tell" their stories. This way, the reader can take the journey with you, arriving at her own insights and emotions, rather than being told what to think and feel about your story. Good details come from good observation and good memory.

Your turn!

This week's exercise is simple. You don't need to watch a video or draw a picture. You just need a pen, paper, and 10 minutes.

1. Think of one little thing you noticed this morning. 
2. Write for seven minutes describing it in detail. Cover as many senses as you can: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, kinesthetic (internal feeling, i.e. nausea). Use lots of adjectives and strong verbs. For this part, don't reflect, add your opinion, or pass judgment. Simply describe what you noticed. Keep your pen moving for the full seven minutes. If you run out of what to say, write, "I don't know what to write. I don't know what to write," until the next detail arises in your memory. The physicality of keeping your hand moving frees up your thoughts much more than staring at blank paper does. So keep writing!
3. After seven minutes is up, read what you wrote, and then write for three minutes about why you think you noticed this moment.
4. To encourage each other and grow a community of Curious Creatives, sign in so you can share your creation in the comment box below this post. Also, if you subscribe to this blog (submit your email address in the "Follow this Site by Email" box on the right), you will get an email update whenever a new exercise is added. Thanks for playing!

The Curious Creative: Week 2 Writing Exercise

Literally Illustrating Metaphors 

This is the second installment of The Curious Creative, weekly short creative writing exercises for the busy person interested in exploring her creativity. For a complete description of the rationale, click here.

Last week, you played with producing a metaphor from amoving image. This week, you’ll do the opposite. You’ll be given a metaphor and move backwards to create the image. Find your art pencils and get ready to draw! Note: stick figures and cave art are totally acceptable! This is not about how great an artist you are. Remember, these exercises are for the busy Curious Creative, and should take no more than 10 minutes of your time. Of course, you can increase that time if you feel more playful. 

My thoughts:

My dear friend and former colleague, Stacy Chestnut, once shared with me a teaching idea called, “The Interpretive Card.” In this activity, students flip an index card over and over as they complete an analysis of a piece of figurative language. The physical exercise of repeatedly turning over the card aids the mental process of going back and forth between the right and left sides of the brain, resulting in a more complete understanding of the figurative language. 

One thing I have taken away from this exercise is how useful it is for my students to actually draw what they see in their mind’s eye, whether for a metaphor or a new vocabulary word. Forcing them to picture an image often fills the gap where an otherwise superficial understanding would be. 

For writers, visualizing while we create helps us form more accurate and thus evocative figurative and descriptive language. 

For those of you who are teachers, or would like to do a fun language analysis exercise yourself, I will share “The Interpretive Card” directions at the end of this post. 

Your turn!

Draw a literal picture of one of the following examples of figurative language (or choose a different metaphor you love). If it were possible, what would it actually look like? I have included two examples, one by a professional artist and one… by me.

"if you are to
understand water
you have to throw it about
like a herd of
galloping horses"
http://cargocollective.com/thomasbarwick/Plymouth-University-Marine-Building

1. “An old man whose black face shines golden-brown as wet pebbles under a street light" -Levertov

2. “dogwood...whose roots are my mother's hair.” -Charles Wright 

3. “dead leaves and dead grass like a starry sky from inside out.” - Charles Wright

To build community and support, please take a picture of your drawing and share it in the Comment box below.

Interpretive Card Instructions

1. Read the excerpt. Find an example of figurative language.

figurative language: a form of language use in which writers mean something other than the literal meaning of their words (metaphor, simile, hyperbole, personification, imagery, symbolism, etc.)

Copy the example next to #1 and include the page number.

2. Draw a picture that represents the denotation (literal meaning, dictionary definition) of the picture.
3. In your own words, explain what type of figurative language is being used, and what it means. What is the author/speaker trying to express?
4. Find another part in the same excerpt with the same tone, and copy the passage here. Include the page #.
5. What is the effect of this language on the reader and/or the larger text? Why is the author using this language here?

The Curious Creative: Weekly Writing Exercises

• Are you curious about your own creative potential, but are not sure where to start?
• Do you love reading literature, and have always wondered if this means you have a writer within you?
• Do you want to dedicate time towards exploring your creative side, but wonder how you will fit this into an already too-busy schedule? 

Over the years, several friends have expressed to me that they are interested in trying creative writing. They feel the ability might be latent within them, but they don’t know where to start. Others share my love of literature, especially beautifully written language, and I have often wondered if they have writers within. Other friends have expressed their bafflement at poetry, that they enjoy the language but often feel like they “don’t get it.” 

As such comments have built up over the years, I am beginning to feel it my duty as a Creative to open the door for these friends. I didn’t start writing poetry myself until I was charged with the task to teach it. Close study with my high school students unlocked the block for me, and I began trying my hand at the techniques we discovered. 

“You are what you love,” is one of my favorite Charlie Kaufman lines from the film, Adaptation. If you love language, underline beautiful sentences or read them aloud to yourself just to enjoy the sound, I have a feeling you have beautiful language inside you, too.

So let's explore... All you need is 10 minutes a week to awaken your creativity, to satisfy your urge to explore words, and to get you started. You will not arrive at a finished product after doing a 10-minute exercise, but that’s not the point. You are exploring a side of yourself, exercising your creative muscles. Soon you might find yourself stealing away a few more minutes here and there between errands or on your commute to write down an idea. Down the road, this might lead to a creative project. But for now, think of it as play. Creative play.

If you take 10 minutes a week to create something based on the exercise I provide, I’ll take a few more minutes each week to post a new exercise. Deal? Deal. You can do these in any language; of course, my instruction will be in English, but feel free to play in another language. To encourage each other and grow a community of Curious Creatives, sign in so you can share your creation in the comment boxes below each post. But don’t read the comments until you create your own!

Week 1 – Playing with Metaphors in American Beauty

My Thoughts: 

We will begin by exploring the foundation of all creative writing: the metaphor. Metaphors are about transferring qualities from one thing to another, to help you understand that other thing in a more complete way. Check out this metaphor from Dave Eggers’ The Wild Things:

Just then, the first light of day split the darkness like a knife prying the sky from earth.

If we unpack it, Eggers is expressing that when the sun begins to rise, only a very thin sliver of light appears, in sharp contrast to the darkness of the night sky and the earth in shadow. This light slowly widens but not easily; it’s difficult and cumbersome for the sunlight to enter because the darkness of the night sky and the horizon are joined tightly, and the darkness is all consuming. The two things being compared are the first light of day and a knife prying something open. The qualities being transferred from the prying to the sunrise are sharpness, contrast, suddenness, difficulty, and cumbersomeness.

Notice that my explanation is very long, but the metaphor implies all that in a packed punch, a kind of hyperlink to our emotions and imagination.

Your Turn!

1. Begin by watching this clip from American Beauty. Turn off the volume so you don’t hear the dialogue.

2. As you watch, brainstorm qualities of the plastic bag. Watch it several times. Jot down adjectives to describe what it would sound like, feel like, taste like, smell like, etc.

Example: crinkly

3. Generate other things/people/moments that share these qualities.

Example: autumn leaves on a forest floor

4. Write similes (a kind of metaphor using “like”), expressing some of these qualities, starting with, “This bag was...”

Example: This bag was like leaves on the forest floor.

5. Take off “This bag was...” and create a new simile from the second halves of the similes you have already written.

Example: Leaves on the forest floor are like an old man’s bones.

Beautiful! A good metaphor gives you an image in your mind’s eye and a twinge of emotion in your gut. Did you write one that does?

6. Now turn on the volume and watch the clip again to learn the simile used in the film.

7. To encourage each other and grow a community of Curious Creatives, sign in so you can share your creation in the comment boxes below this post. Also, if you subscribe to this blog (submit your email address in the "Follow this Site by Email" box on the right), you will get an email update whenever I add a new exercise. Thanks for playing!

Syria On Our Minds & in Our Classrooms

What do students need to know about Syria today? How can you help your students understand the complexities of the crisis in Syria? This 60-page resource packet includes news articles and lesson plans focusing on topics such as political and social upheaval, arts, religion, culture, and contemporary life. Several Common Core-aligned lesson plans are featured throughout the packet.

In October 2013, I volunteered with the World Affairs Council's Global Classroom to create a teacher resource packet for educators on the crisis in Syria. Though several years have passed and the state of affairs in Syria has grown even more complicated and devastating, many of the resources found within this packet can still be useful for educators as they teach students about these issues.

Compiled By: Annie Kean, Carrie Simpson, Shannon Dunn, Amy Lutterloh, & Tese Wintz Neighbor

You can find a list of links to the Global Classroom's other teacher resource packets here.