If you read my earlier post on establishing a shared vision ahead of emergent curriculum design work, then you’ll be better prepared to consider today’s post. Shared targets help learners (including teachers) understand what they learn during a lesson, how deeply they might learn it, and what they might do to demonstrate their learning. Drop by Ed Leadership to read more about learning targets, if you aren’t yet familiar with them. Connie Moss, Susan Brookhart,…
Name of the Game: Synesthesia Timing: This game is best played once writers have drafted a text that rich and lengthy enough for review. Goal: Adapted from a Gamestorming game by the same name (say that three times fast), this game challenges writers to examine character, plot, setting, theme, or any other element of a selected piece through their senses, enabling a more somatic experience of the text. The intent is to surface new insights…
Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist, tells us that, “Nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original. Some people find this idea depressing, but it fills me with hope. As the French writer Andre Gide put it, ‘Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.’” He reminds us that, “If we’re free…
“I know what I want to say, but I don’t know how to say it,” she sighed, sitting back and sinking deep into her chair. “It’s like I have too many ideas. They’re all little bits and pieces and fragments of thoughts, swirling around in my head. I don’t even know where to begin.” If you’re a writing teacher, I’m sure that you’re no stranger to this frustration. It’s one that I’ve always found particularly…
Over the last several years, my work at the WNY Young Writer’s Studio has helped me discover that serious play is the work of writers , and gaming the process is one of the more powerful approaches that teachers can invite writers to employ. Over the next few weeks, I’ll explore some of the greater challenges that writers typically face and detailed descriptions of specific games that have helped those I know meet those challenges…
Let’s call her Nadia. I’ve been working with her one on one for a little over a year now. “I suck at reading,” she told me bluntly, when she approached me for help toward the end of her sophomore year. “I do too sometimes,” I admitted, inviting her to sit with me a while so that I could learn more. We’ve learned a lot together, Nadia and I. It all started with frank conversations like…
This photo captures the thinking behind the most inspired moment of my week. I spent yesterday Gamestorming with a group of local English teachers in order to surface, prioritize, and resolve their emerging curricular needs. Once our work together was complete, we situated the games inside of a completely different context: lesson design. The anchor chart above reflects how we practiced using Post Ups, Clusters, Affinity Mapping, and Forced Ranking to help readers make…
I like my laptop, but I love Post Its. iPads certainly support the professional learning that happens in my sessions, but Post Its contain that learning and make it transparent and immediately to accessible to everyone in the room. We can touch each other’s thoughts and hold them in our hands. We can move them around and break them apart. We can remix them, and when we do, they change. And then our thinking changes. This…
Read anything awesome over spring break? I did. My favorite read was actually a reread, and I have a feeling I’ll be referencing it deep into the future. Sunni Brown, Dave Gray, and James Macanufo wrote Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rule-Breakers, and Changemakers. If you’re responsible for helping people generate ideas and solutions in any capacity, you will love this book. You might also love the app, which I spent this morning test driving as well.…