Exercise
I want to be the flexible person who goes with the flow, lays back, finds the silver lining, enjoys the moment. Instead, I have moods. I have sides, as in, “I have never seen this side of you” or “I do not like this side of you.”
Aging forces me to deal with limits I did not used to have. Once I could run without injury. Now, in the 50’s, I have injuries. And those injuries keep me from exercising. Exercising releases endorphins. Endorphins put me in a good mood. Lately, without them, I am in a bad mood.
Tagged with: center, exercises, process, truth
Laura Nyro
I recently downloaded some Laura Nyro songs from her final album, Angel in the Dark. The producer’s notes mention how important the imagination was to Nyro—it was the “ultimate, the center of spirituality.”
In working with first year college students and their writing, I notice their motivation rises when I give exercises or assignments that invoke their imaginations.
Tagged with: audience, exercises, learning, narrative, quotation
Letting Go
Today students came to class having read an essay called “The Box Man” by Barbara Lazear Ascher. Ascher explores concepts of loneliness and solitude through anecdotes about a homeless man who sets up boxes like furniture and two women whose habits reveal a certain emptiness. Ascher theorizes that the homeless man has a better handle on the human condition than the two women, who have homes.
I asked students to do three fast freewrites exploring definitions of loneliness, solitude, and homelessness. Then I asked students to take some time finding passages in the essay that revealed Ascher’s particular slant on these concepts.
Tagged with: exercises, learning, struggle, students
Scales and Sketches
This semester has been an experiment for me—asking my students to do the equivalent of playing scales and drawing sketches. Instead of requiring a series of 3-5 page papers, I have required a series of exercises. We are on our last project: a summary of an article and then the application of its thesis to the student’s own observations. The experiment has taught me about teaching. I hope it teaches my students about writing! Even a little? We’ll see. The semester is almost over.
Tagged with: discovery, exercises
Sentences
I have assigned my students a series of four summary paragraphs. Each paragraph must introduce the author and title of the essay, identify the main idea of the essay, and then go on to detail supporting evidence.
Yesterday, students brought draft paragraphs and read them aloud to a partner. The partner then read the same paragraph back to the writer. After that, the pair chose one sentence from the paragraph to rewrite. Once each of them had rewritten a sentence, they shared their results.
Tagged with: discovery, exercises, students, words
Imitate
This week students practiced imitating sentences. I pushed them to imitate in exact grammatical structures.
For instance, from George Orwell’s “A Hanging,” the sentence:
“When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide.”
Tagged with: exercises, imitation, structure
Discussion
Using the ideas I wrote about in posts from August 15 and 17, I conducted my first days of class. I have two sections of the same first year class. And as usual, each section is completely unique. Even though I will presumably talk the same talk in each section, each group personality is decidedly different.
Still, the questions I pose in my August 15 post went over very well with both groups. On the second day of class, I paired students and had them use the questions as discussion points. I gave them approximately 20 minutes to discuss and come up with three thoughts/ideas/observations/questions that grew out of their conversations. I then collected these. I plan to use their responses as my opening into our next class meeting.