I’m looking forward to blogging here with regularity again, and as I’ve been brainstorming ways to make the experience as manageable as it is meaningful, I teased out the following purposes and a structure.
Every Monday, I plan to share a bit of what I’m reading each week and invite dialogue around the ideas that emerge. That exchange might happen in the comments here. It might also happen on facebook or Twitter, depending on how people choose to engage. Please feel free to follow me in either or both of those spaces.
I’d also like to be able to give back to those who share so much of their thinking and work with me. Each Wednesday will be devoted to this.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I’d like to share some of what has inspired me most in my work each week. I know some incredible teachers and children. I’d like you to know them too. I think this will be perfect way to end each week. You can look forward to those posts beginning this Friday.
I’ve missed having a place to reflect on what I’m learning with those who love this work as much as I do.
Glad to be back!
And…since it’s Monday and all….here’s what I started reading over the weekend:
Doodling IS revolutionizing my work in schools and at the WNY Young Writer’s Studio this year, thanks to thinkers like Sunni Brown. Some of what I’ve highlighted so far:
“I teach adults how to sketch and draw for the same reason that other people teach adults how to write. Visual language is a language, and being fluent in that language gives us mind-boggling power to articulate thoughts, communicate those thoughts, and solve problems in ways we wouldn’t otherwise be able to.” p. 8
“Dooding can serve as an anchoring task–a task that can occur simultaneously with another task–and act as a preemptive measure to keep us from losing focus on a boring topic. Dr. Jackie Andrade of the University of Plymouth, UK….discovered that on a surprise memory test, the doodlers retained and recalled 29 percent more content than their nondoodling counterparts. It appears that the reasons why we see doodling emerge in complex, uncomfortable, or lengthy discussions is because people are relying on it to keep them present, not to give them a way out…in order to give the doodle a good name, we must hone our skills at linking doodling to with what’s happening around us.” p. 18
“It seems safe to say that extending the mind via surrounding white space (and other office supplies) is often what makes the emergence of creativity and deeper analysis possible. Without it, we would spend volumes of energy juggling swirls of trivial details and consistently fail despite our best efforts.” p. 25
“Employees exposed to white board cultures have learned, consciously or otherwise, about the extended mind. They know that the wall is the new desk, and they don’t fear making doodle-rich messes in service of generating ideas and mapping conversations. Real whiteboard cultures teach people to work beyond the boundaries of their desks and computer screens because they understand the effect it has on performance.” p. 29
I’m wondering what you think about doodling. What have your experiences been?
