Sunday, December 13, 2015

Using Mentor Text

The world is a place of contrasts. What supposes to be the transition to winter, is really a lingering autumn on Long Island. As I begin the process of designing my gallery, Autumn's Palette, I observe a world of leaves still strewn about, Indian summer-like weather, and birds chirping. Is the world staying in the moment so I can have just the right conditions to create? Perhaps this is my gift today.

As a last thought to close the autumn season, I capture the early morning fog, round two. I begin to word weave my thoughts with the following steps in mind.
  1. I turn to one of my beloved poets, Carl Sandburg, who wrote a poem, Fog, to see how my thoughts compare to his. His poem becomes my mentor text.
  2. I look back at the first poem I created on Friday's fog before creating the second one. You can read the first poem here
  3. I look closely at the picture of the fog for poem #2 and decide that it needs to be digitalized to capture my morning thoughts.
original photo 

After many renditions, 

Fog #2
the fog creeps inland
hovers with eerie, strange glows
awaits its welcome

Fog #3
the fog creeps inland
prances-hovers-awaits
sun's marching orders

I settle on the following micropoem to mirror Carl Sandburg's text. 


Reflective Moment:
While I thought that the day would be darkened with fog, the sun decides to take-over. Sunlight and warmth greet the afternoon. Would you like to judge if I captured the morning fog or if I need revisions. I rely on self-assessment and other's thoughts to determine if the digital compositions I create are sound or needs revisions. 

When the #findingfall gallery, Autumn's Palette, is launched, the poems embedded in digital compositions can be used as mentor texts for writing.

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Today is Digilit Sunday hosted by Margaret Simon so take a stroll over to Margaret's site.


Also, Mary Lee Hahn has been inspired to write daily haikus. A small community of writers have joined her. Please take another stroll to Mary Lee's site, Poetrepository.

Tonight, I am the guest host at #TMchat. Connie Hamilton invited me awhile ago and I have been busily preparing for the topic, "Using Mentor Text." Besides adding my thoughts to the questions I created for the chat, I offer insights on my process of creating a digital inspiration from a mentor text.

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