Your future's so bright...

...you've gotta wear shades. Have you heard that song before? Perhaps our guest speaker from The Art Institutes inspired you to pursue a creative career...maybe in writing or maybe in filmmaking or something else. There are, of course, lots of other schools that offer creative writing programs and there are several different directions you might take to work as a writer.

No matter what you see yourself doing down the road, take some time to do a New Post on your own blog and respond to the following questions:

• discuss 2 interesting ideas from the presentation Monday
• ask 1 question about something discussed
• write about where you'd like to be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years and 50 years (this might include careers or work, accomplishments, family and friends, homes, possessions, emotions, etc.)
• include at least one image that shows what you see in your future
• include the word "future" somehow in the title of your post
• if you'd like to put a link in your post the way I have with the words in purple (maybe to the college you're interested in or something else) I can show you how--you just highlight the word you want to be linked, click on the icon with the little green circle and chainlinks on the toolbar then copy and paste the url/web address of the page you're linking to...I usually change the text color of that word, too, just to be consistent

When you've finished your own new post, read several of your classmates' and make a comment.

circle{s} of life

I hope you enjoyed the process of coloring the printed mandala designs in class on Thursday and then creating a circle of your own in your journal with elements from your own life that make you feel happy, centered, whole, yourself, etc.  Mandalas are important to a variety of cultures, faiths and schools of thought...

You can create some interesting mandalas at this site.  If you click on the asterisks, there is more information about the different elements.

Leave a brief but thoughtful comment on this post answering one or more of these questions:

• How or why do you think art could be used as therapy?
• Can you think of other pieces of or types of art that are connected to certain faiths, disciplines or movements?
• What elements/symbols did you include in your own mandala?
• What role does art play in your own life?
• If you could be any kind of artist, what would you be?  Why?

Thank you, Harris Burdick...

Using the artwork, title and sentence you selected from the Burdick book as your inspiration, please draft a creative piece of your choice.  Spend some time on this one and shoot for at least 500 words, more if you can to really develop your story.  Use plenty of vivid details and consider using dialogue.  You might create a fictional short story or maybe adapt a narrative from your own experience that connects to Burdick's picture or words. 

You'll have Thursday and Friday in the lab to draft and polish your story and then create a New Post on your blog by the end of class on Friday that includes both your writing and the Burdick image (looks like most of them are on Google images if you search "harris burdick").

I'd like to move on to using art as writing inspiration next week, and this seemed like an interesting transition from our study of text for ideas--it so creatively (and mysteriously) fuses both.  You can read more about The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (and submit your story if you'd like!) here.

in the news{paper}

Please post some writing inspired by our dig through newspapers yesterday.  You might have one longer piece or several shorter ones.  Include some images and a catchy title.  You could note the headline, photo, ad, etc. that sparked your idea, or you could leave that a mystery...

Take some time today to get caught up using your grade check.  Please let me know when you've added a post you were missing so I can track it right away.

If you still have time, please click through your classmates' blogs and leave some comments.  You don't have to read every piece...Just choose one or two, read and comment, and move on to another blog.

Friendly readers

We've been keeping busy posting work to our own blogs, but I'm hoping you all can begin to find some time to check out your classmates' pages and leave some brief but meaningful comments on their pieces.  You might not get to look at everyone's each day--I'm having a hard time keeping up myself but I do read all your pieces and enjoy doing so very much--but I encourage you to skip around, click on a few of the names in the sidebar of the class blog when we're in the lab and see what others are up to. 

Commenting, at this point at least, simply involves reading a work and offering positive (but sincere) feedback, mostly just to say you read it and made note of it. Friendly--like the sweet dolphin above--but with a porpoise.  I mean, purpose.  (Dolphin joke.) Some phrases you might use to get started:

• It's interesting...
• I was surprised...
• I noticed...
• I like...
• I wonder...
• You reminded me...
• We both...

Try to avoid just making silly or solely sociable comments that don't pertain to the writing or our work together.

Please try to skip around that everyone gets comments instead of just the posts close to the top. If you notice a piece hasn't been seen or doesn't have as many comments as others, please make an effort to offer feedback on those. If you have time to read and comment on your classmates' other posts, please feel free to do so.

You might have noticed when you post comments to your classmates' blogs that you have to type in a security word before your comment will show up. Most of the time it's a jumble of letters but sometimes it's a real word or phrase. This is mostly to prevent computers from leaving comments on your blog to promote a company's websites or other things like that, to ensure that an actual human is leaving you a comment.

I personally hadn't gotten many computer-generated spam comments on my own blog until lately.  I guess I don't really see it as a problem, and many people find it annoying to have to do this extra, seemingly pointless, step to leave a comment. If you'd like to disable the need to do this on your blog and make commenting faster and easier, just go to the Design link at the top of your page, click on the Settings tab, then Comments, then scroll down and click "no" on the "show word verification on comments?" section. You are, of course, welcome to make other changes or none at all.

I did read an interesting article about sometimes when you're given a word to verify in a situation like this that it's actually one from an old or even ancient text that scholars are trying to translate. Take a look at the story...fascinating.  I've been noticing a lot of numbers in the word verifications for our blogs, like pictures taken of address signs on buildings and houses, it looks like.  This leads me think that we are doing deciphering work for Google Maps or something...

As you finish making up your missing posts and doing the new work for this week, take some time to visit your classmates' blogs and let them know you've noticed what they're putting out there.  I've been seeing lots of good stuff...

Blackout

Thanks for trying the Sharpie blackout technique (scientific terminology there) in class. Please share what you came up with in a New Post on your blog. You could type the text you left on the page as a sentence or poem or story.  You could also take a picture with your phone and just post your work that way. Add an image to go with your piece, too, if you'd like.  You decide on the title.

I'm thinking you could do this same techinique with any printed material containing a good chunk of text to work with. I also think you could be inspired to write all sorts of other pieces by using your blacked out piece as a starting point.

You could visit Austin Kleon's website to see what others have come up with and even post your own work there if you're up for it. 

 

 

Another interesting Sharpie-related item you can check out here...

 

 

If you'd like to, you can also post some of the writing you came up with using the words and phrases cut from magazines--the poem you pieced together with the words you cut or maybe the story you came up with using the lines I cut out.  You could post a picture of your poem.  Just if you have time and want to add to your collection...

Don't quote me on that...

We often turn to the words of others for inspiration, guidance, or even just a good laugh. These words might come from favorite pieces of literature, song lyrics, a wise family member or friend, even movies or TV.

Please create a new post on your blog featuring some of your favorite quotations.  You can find interesting looking versions of them on Tumblr or elsewhere, or you can simply type them in (you could change up the font and colors to make it interesting).  Be sure to give credit to the writer or speaker.

I have a couple of quotes that I like:

"Love is the answer,

at least to most of the questions

of my heart."

Jack Johnson

 

Your quote may be from a person you know or a person you don't. It may be funny or serious, thought-provoking or light-hearted. Just so it speaks to you.  You might also want to jot your quote(s) down in your journal for something I hope we can do next week.

On the topic of "quotes," I'm adding a link here to a funny site that documents superfluous (extra, unnecessary) uses of quotation marks. Maybe it's only funny to me as an English teacher, but take a look: http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/. Be on the lookout for unneeded quotation marks in your world...maybe you could send one in.