Lesson One: Commonplace Book
Purpose: Writing across time, students gather quotes from a variety of genres which they come to during their life experiences to create a catalogue of meaningful phrases which connect them to their community and their values. Books are shared as writing-initiated community building conversation.
Activity
Share and go over the components from examples of the seventeenth century through present day commonplace books found in electronic archives such as the Beinecke Rare Books Library and the Yale Center for British Art. It would be best to make your own Commonplace Book, so students connect to your writing aesthetic and values inspiring students by setting a scholarly example.
Students plan and design their Commonplace Book not necessarily in a bound format (formats could include 3D formats such as a box or a flag made from found not purchased resources available. Encourage repurposing, recycling, and upcycling.
Share the wide variety of written sources so students consider, recognize, and discover the breadth of texts in their everyday lives as they collect quotes for their commonplace book: recipes, songs, maps, captions, indices, maps are examples of appropriate texts.
Exploration of paper: students learn to differentiate between various kinds of paper, exploring qualities like texture, thickness, and color.
Exploration of pens, crayons, pencils, and ink: ballpoint, felt tip. Students find connection to writing through their choice of appropriate tools.
Materials: found objects, paper, pens, scissors, magazines
Lesson Two: Crown of Sonnets
Purpose: As an extended writing assignment, a crown of sonnets gives students a circular form to string together an intensive study of form and content.
Activity: Students develop a program of study based in archival research on a topic of significant interest to the student on which to base their crown of sonnets. A strong example of this work is American Sonnets for My Once and Future Assassin, by Terrance Hayes. Hayes explores contemporary political issues infusing the traditional sonnet rhyme structure with internal rhyme and other playful provocations to make the sonnet an inviting long form.
Materials: Examples of crowns of sonnets, recommendations, and guidance for individualized research plans on which to base crowns of sonnets. Rhyme scheme template for Shakespearean sonnet. Organize the collaborative means to connect sonnets on a topic such as “Black Joy.” Record, perform and design posters or slides to accompany lyrical writing.
Lesson Three: Erasure
Purpose: Connecting with the writing process by reclaiming complex or poetic texts. Reading and interpreting of, for example, a legal document – the Declaration of Independence, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”– or the Baroque opera Doriclea by Cavalli. Erasure allows students to connect to writing by giving them direct agency to identify words and phrases that speak to their experience. Separating out vocabulary, figurative and lyrical language that resonates with a young writer’s experience, be it social or personal, they reclaim language for their own purpose. This redemptive practice connects students with a disciplined way to understand text which is not primarily analytical. This exercise trains students to value writing of all kinds, making writing new, making it relevant, making them their own.
Erasure makes an object out of student writing. Black/white, visible/invisible, known, and unknown meanings emerge from a flat text.
Activity: Choose controversial, meaningful classical literary texts for students to explore through the practice of ‘erasure’ to make new writing.
Materials: base texts of choice, black out markers
Lesson Four: Cooking
Purpose: Meaningful research and book making practice engaging narrative nonfiction writing as the vehicle for archiving our family culture.
Activity: Students investigate and collect family recipes, histories and family narratives to honor family values and traditions. Teachers help students amplify cultural contexts by encouraging deep conversations and by listening closely to students’ stories.
Materials: Preferred writing instruments, paper, thread, glue, thread, needles, scissors
Lesson Five: Gardens and terrariums
Purpose: Writing plans organized to produce tangible and practical academic skills with healthy outcomes for the classroom and student's home lives. For example, students explore native plants to connect to create and maintain green spaces.
Activity: Write a collaborative strategic plan for building a self-contained terrarium from collective resources. Research and gather vases, pots, and plants to beautify and revitalize school grounds and windowsills. Research green spaces and bio swales. Look for help from city park staff.
Materials: containers, soil, plants, cuttings
Lesson Six: Calligraphy
Purpose: Clear away fear about competition and criticism. Hand students the tools to write change-making poetry using contemplative methods to discover openness and change.
Activity: With teacher leading the motions with simple oral instructions using paper, ink, and a brush to make a circle (Enso) on their paper beginning at 7:30p, ending at 6:00p with strong head and shoulders. Students look straight forward, feeling the movement of their brush rather than looking down at the paper.
Following this group calligraphy exercise which synchronizes body and mind, students write spontaneous short form lyric of choice following a template or via improvisation.
The coordinated gesture of painting a circle in pen and ink as a group brings fresh focus to the classroom space opening the possibility for writing narrative in a synchronized moment. By unifying our purpose, strength and creativity emerge. Breaking down conventional writing habits by infusing them with innovative approaches ignites a positive relationship with academic work and with.
Materials: paper, brushes, ink