I chose to post the syllabus for my self motivation project because not only did I have a lot of fun with the students who went through this syllabus but it represents to me the inclusion of a lot of my work and studies over the semester and embodies relevant applicability of a lot of what I feel to be important educational attributes.
Teaching Syllabus for Motivation Project
Objectives: What I have been thinking a lot about in
the class is how these methods of Alfie Kohn could be applied to not just the
classroom setting but to creative writing workshop. I think many of the practical
goals are probably different, but fundamentally there is still a wish to
develop a student’s knowledge and love for a certain skill/topic. I have been
in many workshops that rather than further students, they either deters them
from learning and continuing their writing or homogenizes their work into
something that can be easily approved but not something that captures the
reader or feels original. My objective therefore would be to incorporate Alfie,
looking at Punished by Rewards as well online sources such as “Poets and
Writers”, “Creativity, Inc.:
Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration”, “Letters to a
Young Poet”, and more. Specifically, I am thinking about writing an annotated
syllabus of my own lesson plan of a three day course for kids between the age
of 12 and 17.
Methods: To quire knowledge I would focus on two books
(the Alfie and probably the Letters to a Young Poet) and back it up with maybe
four or five secondary sources: Poets and Writers, Poetry Foundation, Save the
Cat!, The Writers Cookbook, to name a few.
Methods of Assessment:
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Proficient
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Acceptable
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Weak
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Needs
reevaluating
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Extent
of transferability to a real setting
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Extent
of goals transmitted and reached
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Level
of clarity and sense of progression
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Level
of appropriate use of outside material
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General
Feedback
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Introduction:
Goal: This three-day
workshop will introduce students to the joy of creative writing in its many
shapes and forms. Over the course of the workshop, students produce writing
that demonstrates both deliberate attention to craft and reflective awareness
of their own and others’ creative processes. This workshop is not bent on
specifically preparing students for some upper-level creative writing courses,
rather it hopes to:
1) To develop a shared critical vocabulary for
producing and analyzing creative writing. To read, analyze, and evaluate
published work from a writer’s perspective.
2) To develop flexible strategies for creating,
revising, and editing writing in various creative genres.
3)To develop strategies
for self-assessment and reflection on the process of writing.
4) To participate actively in a community of writers, both
in the classroom and beyond.
Workshop 1: Writing about thinking and thinking about writing
Exercise 1: Writing Prompt (15min)
“Write a story, poem, song, or other in which
your protagonist peeks over the shoulder of a bystander and catches a glimpse
of something unexpected on the person’s phone. Is it something suspicious that
captures your main character’s imagination or is it something thought provoking?”
Exercise 2: Giving and Receiving Constructive Criticism (about
20min)
Creativity, Inc. says originality is fragile. Early on, your story is far from
pretty. Even if it’s just page one of your someday four-hundred-page novel,
your writing comes from deep inside you and you already love it. “Ugly Baby”
idea. Catmull says, “A hallmark of a healthy creative culture is that its
people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticisms.”
“Candor is forthrightness or frankness – not so different from
honesty, really. And yet, in common usage, the word (honesty) communicates not
just truth-telling, but a lack of reserve. Everyone knows that sometimes, being
reserved is healthy, even necessary for survival.”
“Creativity has to start somewhere, and we (Pixar and Disney)
are true believers in the power of bracing, candid feedback and the iterative
process – reworking, reworking, and reworking again, until a flawed story finds
its throughline or a hollow character finds its soul.”
Example:
Don’t say: “Nothing about this plot works. It’s already been
done a thousand times.”
Instead, try: “I’m intrigued by this idea. At this point, what
do you think the overall message is you’re trying to convey? Let’s brainstorm,
so your story can have a really fresh twist.”
Ask: Why do you think the first example is
less constructive than the first?
Catmull
says when critiquing, “Your objective is not to destroy the other person. On
the contrary, successful feedback is built on empathy…we understand your pain
because we’ve experienced it before.”
Yes,
it’s important to be candid about where someone’s writing needs improvement,
but it’s not just what you say, it’s how you
say it.
Ask for examples
from students
Exercise
3: Play Exquisite Corpse (10min)
Exercise
4: Letters to a Young Poet (15min)
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
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“And about
feelings: All feelings that concentrate you and lift you up are pure; only that
feeling is impure which grasps just one side of your being and thus distorts
you.”
·
“Your doubt can
become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become
criticism. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something
is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perhaps
bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps also protesting. But don’t give in, insist
on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and persistent, every single time,
and the day will come when instead of being a destroyer, it will become one of
your best workers — perhaps the most intelligent of all the ones that are
building your life.”
·
“Rescue
yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday life
offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through
your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty — describe all these with
heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the
Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you
remember”
Think
in groups about one of these three topics then together write a letter to Rilke
about what you thought about in the group.
HOMEWORK:
Read these three pieces and write
reading notes, in whatever form and length to bring to the next workshop.
·
How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a
Time Like This https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/how-can-black-people-write-about-flowers-time
Workshop 2: Sound Writing
Exercise 1: http://blog.largeheartedboy.com/ Link between music and literature. A blog
that looks at the intersection of writing and listening to music by asking
writers to create their own playlist to their most recent novel and
commentating on each song choice in relation to their work. Ten minutes will be
spent on looking at this site and reading the commentary, then students will
take about two minutes to come up with a playlist that they would listen to or
captures something about their writing (voice, style, themes) then share with
their neighbors for about two minutes.
Exercise
2: Free write with music from playlist (if they want to use music) 15min
Exercise
3: Share work with someone you haven’t yet spoken to and give and receive
Candid Constructive Criticism. (15 min: 5 min read, 5 min discussion on each)
Exercise
4: Discussion about reading homework. Talk about what people noted in these
different readings, aim towards how authors create a sense of identity and
uniqueness
Exercise
5: Look at Bianca Stone’s artwork and Hanif’s Pitchfork essay.
HOMEWORK:
Then
read: Hunters in the Snow, William
Carlos Williams (1962)
Writing
Prompt: take the first line of a song, another piece of writing, or the title
of a piece of art and write something inspired or following that line.
Workshop
3:
Exercise 1: in groups of three or four share your work on
your writing prompt homework and give and receive feedback. 20min
Exercise 2: Writing Game: Flying Balls—Bouncy
Castle balls with an opening sentence written on each. Toss a random one
to a student who continues the “ball rolling” with a further thought or another
sentence on the first. The ball is then tossed to another student who does the
same. 15 min
Exercise 3: Long Writing Prompts: Choose one or None and writer, around
20min
·
“I always feel that
I’ve seen a thing after I’ve described it….when I’ve written a thorough
physical description of something, then I feel like I’ve seen it and I’ll
remember it,” says Barbara Kingsolver in “A Talk in the Woods,” her conversation with Richard Powers in the
November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. Choose an
object that you have never really given much thought to, but that you see
frequently in your home or on your commute, perhaps a houseplant or a mailbox
or a street sign. Spend some time intensely observing it, and then jot down a
thorough physical description. Afterwards, write a poem about the object. How
did your perception of it change, in your mind’s eye, after going through the
exercise of articulating it in language?
·
In an interview with
Louisiana Channel, Zadie Smith talks about her interest in the way many young
authors portray emotional distress or anger in their novels. The characters,
often women, will “pinch a bit of their skin until it bleeds” or “hold their
jaw” or perform some other quiet act of defiance, rather than letting their
feelings surface. “The idea of verbalizing an emotion is quite distant. And the
body is treated like this strange thing you have to drag around after you’ve
finished your text messages and e-mails and your virtual life,” says Smith.
Write a scene in which your protagonist is faced with an immediate conflict
involving a partner, family member, friend, boss, or stranger. Instead of silently
raging, find a way to describe these emotions that allows your character to
engage fully and vocally in the moment.
·
Here’s a strange
question that might get some ideas flowing: Where do spiders and stars overlap?
Jumping spiders, whose eyes have tubelike structures akin to Galileo’s
telescope, have retinas that can swivel so the arachnids are able to look in
different directions without moving their heads. Despite being only a few
millimeters long, the spiders have eyes that are capable of discerning the
moon, according to calculations by scientists. Use the notion of moon-gazing
spiders as a launchpad for a poem that draws together two unlikely objects—a
celestial body and an earthly body. You might also find inspiration in John
Donne’s “The Flea” or Marilyn Nelson’s “Crows,” which incongruously pair the
examination of metaphysical subject matter with a mundane physical creature.
Exercise 4: Finish with a good example of a story and an idea for finding you voice. Over the Garden Wall episode 4
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