Melding Creativity, Critical Thinking and Community

Commonplace Books:

Presented by Kim BlevinsOzarks Writing Project Teacher-ConsultantMount Vernon High School

Welcome! English 2/Journalism

teacher at Mount Vernon High School

Married to my high school sweetheart

Mother of three- a daughter in the Journalism program at Mizzou, a daughter in my class at MVHS, and a 6th grade son who created the snowman

Ozarks Writing Project Teacher-Consultant

National Writing Project Ozarks Writing Project Summer Institute ‘09 Advanced Institute - Digital Storytelling Presented at Missouri State University’s Heritage Days for

Digital Storytelling Presented at 2010 Write to Learn “The Shoes Project” Published in School & Community “After the Bell” Wrote a youth fiction novel over 77,000 words Traveled to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. for National

Writing Project conferences Selected for National Writing Project Professional Writing

Retreat Served on the leadership team for OWP Coordinator of Dinner and a Demo for OWP Planning a Professional Writing Conference for OWP

Freewriting

Writing without stopping Fluency- unsticks our writing muscles

(training) Get past that inner editor to be more

creative. “De-stress” Recent research showed

students who freewrote for 10 minutes before high-stakes tests had higher scores.

Background

Greeks – Hypomnemata

Zibaldone (Hodgepodge Book) – Italian

Commonplace- England

Page 1 of handout

Other takes.... How to start and maintain a commonplace book By Trent Seigfried

They can be very chaotic, or very orderly. My first attempt at a commonplace book was a small Moleskine notebook I kept in my pocket, along with a pen. In it, I basically just wrote down any interesting thought I had throughout the day in a very haphazard fashion: it was filled with quotes and undefined words and random facts and such all scribbled together. Very chaotic.

  But that chaos was what made it worthwhile. About once a week

I'd leaf through the pages with a dictionary and some other scratch paper at hand, defining undefined words and expanding on fleeting thoughts, which would usually result in a trip to the library (remember, this was before the advent of the internet) and, if nothing else, an hour of very rich food for thought.

Page 3 of handout

Other Takes

The Glass Box and the Commonplace Book

“Unlike modern readers, who follow the flow of a narrative from beginning to end, early Modern Englishmen read in fits and starts and jumped from book to book...

Page 4 of handout

Other takes...

Choice of Quotations from literature Commentaries WritingFrom Dr. Lucia Knoles,

Assumption College, Worcester, MA

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First Commonplace: About Me

LEARNING ABOUT SELF

CRITICAL THINKING – METAPHORS

COMMUNITY-BUILDING: GALLERY WALK

Brain Pattern GraphicsWriting: Sum up pattern

My life in a song…Lyrics/Graphic

Writing: Connection to student’s life that quarter

To Kill a MockingbirdText quotations

Student anecdoteConnection

BiographyWord theme

8 factsAdmirable Qualities

1001 Journals

http://1001journals.com/journals/3864

Commonplace Books

You will now have some time to work on a page for a commonplace book today-

It will be public.

In the dark?Confused? Worried?

Don’t be worried about getting the “right” answer. This assignment is for exploration and thinking and there is no wrong answer except to not think. No growth happens without a stretch which is sometimes uncomfortable.

Your exploration today...

About me! My Writing Life My Teaching Life

Theme GraphicsWriting Metaphor

You may write first. You may want to look for graphics

first.

Gallery Walk

Put your page on a table with a blank sheet of paper beside it.

As you walk around and look at other’s books make a comment about something you see.

(Sophomore Gallery Walk)