Playing With Poetry

It's National Poetry Month and I am taking every opportunity to #thinkpoetry. Come and take a peek at what I have been delving into this week. 

The week started off with an amazing combo chat between #WonderChat and #NYED Chat. Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong were our esteemed poets/publishers/co-hosts. Their publicity flyer, questions, and ability to respond to attendees were commendable. I thank not only Sylvia and Janet but our Poetry Friday members who engaged in the chat. I am planning on writing a separate post about this awesome night of committed and passionate voices rising to #thinkpoetry. 

Created by Sylvia Vardell-shown at the comboTwitter chat

When I read about Mary Lee Hahn's plan to spend the month PLAYING WITH POETRY at her blog, A Year of Reading, I decided to dip into my bag of paint chip samples and play along. After all, I had created an activity for teachers to create their own paint chip poetry exercises, so I set out to do the same. I dipped into my bag of samples and chose seven titles.

Splash Of Teal, Solemn Silence, Garden Vista, Cotton Sheets, Clear Sailing, Faded Denim, Winds Breath, were interesting choices for me to play with and create a poem, a Buncee, and a Lumen 5 video.

Garden Vista

Wind's breath

rustling through

faded cotton sheets,

a splash of teal,

clear sailing
solemn
silence.
©CV, 2019

Creating a Buncee, a creation and presentation tool for students and educators is always a fun prospect. I added a background, a clothesline, and my poem to make my the Buncee more visually attractive. 

Next, I created a Lumen 5 video, a fluid approach to blending poetry with media.

Now, after the 2nd poetry chat of the week at #ILAChat, I am off to connect with my Poetry Friday friends at Irene Latham's blog site, where she continues with her own National Poetry Month project, ARTSPEAK: Happy! series. 

Playing with poetry is a delightful experience that allows me to try out different creative moves that are pure fun. Meet me on Instagram, FaceBook, and Twitter to  #playwithpoetryNPM) and #thinkpoetry.  

March Musings #30: Poetry Is for Everyone

Dear Readers,

As we near the beginning of April, not only is spring in the air (finally) but National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world, is being celebrated. To honor the impact of poetry on our culture and in our lives and promote #poetrylove, #NYEDChat and WonderChat will host a long-awaited poetry chat. My amazing poetry friends, Irene Latham, Laura Purdie Salas, and Charles Waters, will guest moderate. John MacLeod from Wonderopolis will moderate alongside me. 

Save the date, April 9th at 8:00 pm EST for our combined Twitter chat, Poetry Is for Everyone. There will be announcements, reminders, and a countdown to call everyone into this global chat because poetry is not just for the educational world. Stay tuned for more because John MacLeod from Wonderopolis, the three poets, and I have been planning this chat for months and we want to spread #poetrylove across the Twittersphere.

Here's a digital inspiration on poetry that I created for you to ponder.

Everyone has keepsakes. Which ones do you have hidden in your soul? 

Will you join me to celebrate poetry this April during any of the following happenings?

-I will host Spiritual Journey 1st Thursday on April 5, 2018 at my blog site, Beyond LiteracyLink. The writing prompt that I will be using is "Poetry as a Spiritual Practice of the Heart".

-I will unveil my winter gallery of artistic expressions, Winter Wonderland.

-I will be part of the annual Progressive Poem organized by Irene Latham. I will add my one line to the poem on April 12, 2018.

-I will write digital poems on springtime and later in the month send out an invitation to my spring gallery

Thank you for being a faithful reader and poetry lover.

Sincerely,

Carol

P.S. I am heading over to my poet friend, Heidi Mordhorst's blog to celebrate Poetry Friday. Then, I will be making my appearance at Two Writing Teachers for Day 30 of the March Slice of Life Challenge.

On Writing

For me, writing is a messy, a circuitous journey of woven words!
✐✎✏✐✎✏

After a night of professional conversation with connected educators, my mind is racing. #TeachWrite, #WonderChat, and #TWTBlog thoughtfully stacked their questions while I sat glued to TweetDeck on my computer. Within a virtual space of connected talk, I sat writing thoughts across my screen. Around me lay the visible artifacts of learning-papers strewn across my desk, scraps of thoughts, start-up ideas, and crumpled notes waiting to be organized-piles upon piles of paper, notebooks, and professional texts congregating in a crowded space.

How can Ideas germinate and take root in this arena of disarray?

You might question how writing can be an outgrowth of my creative messiness. Let my image poem below take you into my creative world of digital space and perhaps provide an answer.

Just like this space, I call my office, is undergoing construction, my writing is too. As I wait for the contractor to arrive this week, I also wait for ideas to evolve and move from a state of clutter and disarray to a finished product, an outgrowth of a meandering, wonder-filled process of creation.

A quote by Frederick Douglas surfaced during one of the connected conversations tonight. "If there is no struggle, there is no progress." I immediately copied this into my notebook and pondered the words.

Various rooms in my house are waiting for make-overs. So, too, my writing journey is filled with drafted thoughts and redos. My house needs refreshed spaces of living and my writing needs space to breathe, to circulate, and find its landing pad. While there may be tension and missteps along the way, the productive struggle leads to new growth and a "will do" feeling that the journey is the right path.

I add these thoughts to Two Writing Teachers' Slice of Life Tuesday tonight and look forward to reading my colleagues' slices.

Professional Wonder

As the school year nears closing, educators continue to find resources and avenues to explore their professional wonder. I am impressed by the hundreds of educators who aspire to seek knowledge and grow as learners each day on Twitter. Twitter chats provide excellent soil to plant seeds, share growth, and cultivate new gardens of thought. 

While not being able to join #G2Great on May 4th, I was fortunate to read the archived transcript and Dr. Mary Howard's Literacy Lenses post reviewing last week's educational chat with Cornelius Minor and Courtney Kinney.  You can access Mary's post here. I was intrigued by the way Mary synthesized the information from the #G2Great Twitter conversation, focusing on the theme of building a tapestry. She deftly wove her post together, providing the reader with a backward look on the chat and a forward plan to finish the year strong. 

For those who enjoy the journey of professional wondering like me, I hope you cultivate gardens of thought as you network and learn from other educators. By becoming a voice on Twitter, you can gather seeds of knowledge to support your journey and build your own Wonder Wall of quotes that extend your knowledge and assist you in helping your learners become unique voices in a diverse world of thought. 

From Mary's post and the thoughts garnered from Cornelius' and Courtney's nuggets of wisdom, I created a commitment statement that I will share with other educators as I continue to walk my journey as a wonderologist.

Educators: 
Stand on the precipice of change.
Hand in hand, lift thoughts while
cultivating gardens of unique blossoms,
places of wonder-filled opportunities
where individual seeds root and grow.

With passion, cultivate and care-tend

your garden, recording each growth. 

Step back in faith, vigilant harvesters. 
Watch the fruits of your patient labor:  
each blossom spreading and standing 
tall in harmony with many others. 

Reflect within your garden quadrants.
Find the inspiration to start afresh
With yet another garden bearing blossoms.
You are the tillers of the soil of knowledge.
You are the cultivators of immense learning.
You are educators who finish the year strong!
©CV, 2017

I offer this to post to #DigiLitSunday where the topic is professional wonder. This topic stems from last week's #WonderChat where Dr. Mary Howard was the guest host discussing Instilling a Sense of Professional Wonder. 

Ignite the Wonder

With back to school life already in progress, many teachers are still wondering how to ignite students' passion to learn.

Last night, #WonderChat discussed the topic #IgnitetheWonder with Georgia Heard, Jen McDonough, and Kristie Ennis. Here are some thoughts from last night's moderators.

Because wondering is at the heart of inquiry that leads students on their journey of becoming wonderers and meaning makers, I pose this question:

What can be done to strengthen classrooms so students can continue to be curious, investigative learners?

Steps to Build Curiosity-driven Classrooms:

1. Take on the stance of a reflective teacher 
2. Collaborate in positive environments 
3. Question the hows of motivating learners 
4. Believe in the act of wondering as an essential component of inquiry
5. Recognize teachable moments 
6. Gently guide students to find their own paths of wonder that lead to further exploration and discovery

Mantra for Young Noticers and Wonderers

Image Poem

Continue to #IgnitetheWonder and guide students toward new discoveries daily. Happy Wondering!

It's Slice of Life Tuesday so join

Two Writing Teachers here

to read what slicers

are thinking.