by Naomi | Nov 13, 2015 | Teaching Strategies
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The first day of any new writing class can be daunting. There’s a lot to think about. Maybe you have a new group of students to get to know, or you are introducing a curriculum that’s new even to you. The first day is a chance to establish guidelines, rules, and relationships, as well as get your students excited about the lessons to come.
Learn more about setting up your classroom for Writerly Play in Writerly Play: Transform Your Teaching with Game Based Strategies and Tools.
by Naomi | Oct 28, 2015 | Creative Life
Every year, the Litquake staff put together a special event to serve students in San Francisco during their literary celebration. This event, Kidquake, provides an assembly where kids meet and learn from authors such as Jim Averbeck (
In a Blue Room, One Word From Sophia). Also, a few classrooms are chosen by lottery to attend a writing workshop. And for the past two years, I’ve had the honor of providing one of these workshops, using
Writerly Play.
Now, I know play works. I see it work every day in my classrooms—helping kids move from stuck to story.
So, why am I always surprised after a sequence of games, when each and every student hurries to his or her seat to pour ideas onto the page?
If ever there was a moment that Writerly Play wouldn’t work, it would be at Kidquake. The kids are out of their school environment, on a field trip, and meeting me for the very first time. I don’t know their unique quirks and I only have one hour to create a meaningful experience. They may expect to have fun, but they’re also guessing the workshop will be stressful—they’re going to have to write. They are usually young, in first, second or third grade. Even though their teachers prep them for good behavior, the odds of true focus are pretty low. And then, in these circumstances, I ask them to “stand up, push in their chairs and imagine with me.”
I have to admit … I was worried. But, then, as I witnessed their grand success, I was reminded of some key of the reasons play works.
1. Play is efficient
While teaching a Writerly Play workshop, I facilitate the physical movement activities with a series of questions. I could, instead, ask similar questions and discuss the various students’ ideas while all the rest listen. Even though kids do learn from listening to examples from their peers, if the immediate reaction to the question is application—movement—to show the first idea that comes to each of their minds, they all engage simultaneously. Then, as the questions help them deepen their surface ideas into more layered concepts, they continue to learn while playing. Play bypasses resistance, and students learn without having to wrestle through their fears, frustrations or perfectionism.
2. Play creates an atmosphere of suspense
During a game, kids don’t know what’s coming. Ask any marketer, author or screenwriter and they’ll tell you. Suspense is one of the best ways to keep an audience with you. Writerly Play engages learners in an experience filled with an absorbing question: What story might be hidden–like buried treasure–in my mind? With each answer, more of the treasure is revealed, and writers are compelled to keep digging until they find the full picture.
3. Play leads to discovery
Our brains are busy focusing on playing the game, and while we’re distracted, ideas spring to mind. Nearly everyone has had the experience of being asked a simple question, and not being able to come up with the answer. Being put on the spot is one of the most sure ways to shut the human brain down. So, it makes sense that presenting the invitation to create in a fun and nonthreatening way would lead to better results. Rather than panicking at the blank page, writers can let go of their inner critics and their need to know every detail as they play. We can’t know how the story will turn out as we start, and that’s frightening. We need a process that allows us not to know as we develop the idea past its fragile beginning into something that feels more solid and steady.
I learn something every time I play. The higher the stakes, the more I learn. Even though I was anxious about how the class would go, in the end, when the students arrived, I let go of all my worried thinking and threw myself into the game. In fact, I allowed myself to truly play too. To model the map-drawing activity that the students would do, I drew my own large-format map using their input. They threw out all kinds of ideas. Some were simple to draw. Others, like the dog or the dog-bone bush weren’t so simple. I felt myself hesitate. I don’t know how to draw a realistic dog. Rather than stalling out, I just drew the first shape that came out–which in my own defense, did have rather dog-like ears. We laughed over it together, and when it was the kids’ turn to draw, I noticed they didn’t hesitate either, even when they didn’t know how to draw whatever they were about to create.
Play allows us to do what would otherwise feel beyond us–which makes it a powerful tool. What about you? Has play allowed you to do something beyond your own skill set? Share in the comment section below, or on my
Facebook page. I’d love to hear your stories.
by Naomi | May 28, 2014 | Creative Life
When you set out to do something, truly commit, you can’t have any idea what’s around the corner. That’s the beauty of a journey, I suppose, maybe even the reason for a journey. We want to strike out into new territory for better or worse. We want to grow.
If you’ve been reading along these past few months, you know I’ve set out on a Hero’s Journey, and that about a month ago, I transitioned from the first stage of Ordinary Life to the stage of Listening for the Call. Some practices I intended to put in place in order to listen included yoga and a specific kind of prayer called Lectio Divina, a prayer that acknowledges the need for silence and listening after reflecting on sacred words.
I have started working with these practices, but what has overshadowed this month more than anything was the sudden death of my aunt. Listening hasn’t been about holding practices out at an arms length. I’d been thinking of listening as a quiet, settled activity, one that would allow me to breathe deep and soak in some kind of capital T truth. Or some kind of capital Q quest. Listening hasn’t been anything like that this month.
It started with a phone call when my husband and I were out for dinner. My phone didn’t ring, but I saw a message pop up from my mom, unusual for a Friday night. Unusual enough that I listened to the message, and from the sound of her voice urging me to call tonight or tomorrow, I knew I needed to call right then. Listen.
I called and she told me the news about my aunt. It was a month and a day after my uncle, another of my mom’s siblings, had passed away. She assured me that all would be okay, and yet I heard underneath that she needed me. My upcoming week was full of preparation for a full-school musical I was directing, but when I sat down to tell my husband the news, he asked, “Do you need to go home?” Listen.
Yes, I needed to go home, right away. The next morning, I woke up early and was on the road, driving to Portland as the sun rose. Friends and colleagues covered me so I could be with my family. On Sunday, Mother’s Day, I felt the tiniest of nudges: Go for a walk. Go to the Gorge. Listen.
My mom and I went for a walk to get coffee, and we talked the whole way. After taking care of a little more business, we went to the Columbia Gorge and watched water pour off cliffs, mist filling the air with energy, freshness, life. We were on the edge that day, so close to death and so aware of the life around us, the beauty just waiting to be noticed. Had I been home, I’d probably have been fretting over the musical or the multitude of other details about life. Listen.
After a few days, I came back home and dove in to help finish the show. A little less than a week later, I stood in the auditorium watching the kids take their bows, and then the auditorium burst into song, singing to me. Happy Birthday. Listen.
I’ve been struggling to name the call, to wrap my mind around something that is so simple it’s difficult to label. It’s the starkness of seeing what’s left when a life ends, and yet tasting the richness of being present, of seeing one’s work right here, right now. What am I being called to do? What is the work of this journey?
One could call it many things. Settling into my skin. Being Naomi. Becoming an artist. It’s definitely not about working harder or accomplishing more. The call is about how I life my life, not about what I do so much as about who I am. Maybe once I set off on this journey, the call will crystalize, become even more clear. I like the word “becoming.” For the past ten years, I’ve worn a butterfly ring, a symbol of the process of transforming, a life theme for me. I think I’ll set out with that word in mind.
I’ve also realized I need a ritual, some kind of marker to help myself pass from stage to stage. It’s hard to know when one stage is done and when the next is ready to begin. I do think it’s been the right choice not to force each phase to last a month. Some will be shorter and some longer. That’s only natural. However, a tangible act is needed to mark the passage. Were I on a real journey, I might mark the path with a special rock, or write what I’ve learned on a paper and toss it into my bonfire. Probably I’d keep one copy, too, so as to keep track of what had come before. Maybe I can find some kind of replica of this in my real, everyday life, since I’m not hiking trails or cooking by bonfire each night. Something will come to me, I’m sure. And then, I’ll move through the next stage, Crossing the Threshold into… who knows. Whatever it is, I know it will give me opportunity to grow, to notice the richness of life, to be fully present right now. Listen. Each moment matters.
photo credit: Alaskan Dude via photopin cc
by Naomi | Aug 24, 2012 | Creative Life
In honor of the upcoming release of Brilliant Hues, the fourth book in the From Sadie’s Sketchbook Series, I’m hosting a Sketching Challenge.
If you’ve read the first three books, you know that sketching becomes a way for Sadie to explore and ultimately better understand her new life in Michigan. Many of us are starting new, with new classrooms, new teachers, maybe even new schools or towns. Why not do what Sadie does… and sketch?
There’s something joyful in searching for a scene to sketch. As you search, your mind will start to take mental snapshots. You’ll notice just how vivid the orange clouds are at sunset, be surprised by a dragonfly’s blue-green wings, or burst out laughing at a puppy wriggling on his back on bright green grass. The ordinary becomes so much more interesting when you pay attention.
Consider carrying a camera with you. Snap real shots of moments you’d like to sketch, so you have all the details when you sit down with pencils and paper.
Start by just noticing, even if you don’t sketch yet. Vivian would say that “Learning to see is the first step in learning to draw.” If you sketch something you love, email the pdf to Naomi with a title for your image. I will post many of your images here on the blog. For the next month or two, check back for new drawing challenges. More are on the way!
Happy Sketching!
by Naomi | Jun 13, 2012 | Creative Life
We’ve got a debate going at my house. When is the end of the year?
I believe, and have long-held, that the end of the year is the last day of school. Of course, those that hold that December 31 is the last day of the year are technically more correct. Still, in the cycle of my life, when school ends and the summer stretches long in front of me, I feel like I’ve stepped into a land of new beginnings. New possibilities spring up.
The first thing I do is bushwhack. Yep. As though my office is a jungle (and on the last day of the school year, it practically is), I hack through the piles and paperwork and clutter. As my recycling bin and donation boxes fill, and I start to see my desk’s surface, I feel my lungs open and I can finally breathe.
Clearing my desk allows me to clear my mind–always a joyful process because where there’s space, creativity is possible. When I’m in the thick of commitments and appointments and classes, buried in paperwork and email and to-do items, I simply can’t think of a single new thing. But my heart feeds on these new ideas, these full-of-hope possibilities, and creativity is generally the thing I most need when I’m in those overwhelmed, too-busy moments. So, today, I’m feeling grateful as I scan my shiny, clear desk. Anything is possible. Perhaps, today, I can get back to the important work of learning how to play.
