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…
“The best attribute of a well-run makerspace is the sharing of skills and knowledge. It starts with formal instruction, but the best learning takes place while one person is building or designing and someone else with just a little (or sometimes a ton) more experience lends a helping hand and the project gets upgraded in the process. The sharing philosophy gives a makerspace its magic. People show off their creations knowing criticism was left at…
When I was in the classroom, I began each school year by conducting an interest inventory. I asked my students to tell me about their favorite books and television programs. I wanted to know what sports and instruments they played. What were their favorite foods? What type of music did they listen to? Did they play video games? Which ones? How often? I asked these questions to help them generate potential ideas, and I considered…
“When a large and diverse set of tools is provided, a large and diverse group of makers comes out to live, work, and play.” Mark Hatch, The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the New World of Crafters, Hackers, and Tinkerers You will never have enough tools. Even if you have enough cash to purchase them in abundance and enough space to store them efficiently, you will never have enough of them. Thankfully, the…
“You observe an effect, then build a theory to fit the observation. It may be faster to memorize facts than to experience them, but I would argue that you don’t really own that fact. ‘Hot’ is a pretty abstract concept until you’ve burned yourself.” Mark Hatch, The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the New World of Crafters, Hackers, and Tinkerers Teaching is all about learning, and learning is all about research. This reality…
“One of the most satisfying aspects of making is giving away what you have made. Wonderfully, most people still value gifts made by the giver more than gifts that were bought off the shelf.” Mark Hatch, The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the New World of Crafters, Hackers, and Tinkerers Mary Catalfamo attends Studio sessions with other teenagers her age. She’s a great writer, and she’s published many things that we can hold…
“Being creative, the act of creating and making, is actually what it means to be human. Secular philosophers like Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Carl Jung, and Abraham Maslow all came to the conclusion that creative acts are fundamental. Physical making is more personally fulfilling than virtual making. I think this has to do with its tangibility; you can touch it and sometimes smell and taste it. A great sentence or well-written blog is creative and…
Crafting quality writing curricula that provides writers just enough guidance to consistently propel them forward without threatening their autonomy is no simple task. Many teachers consider their vision, standards, the writing process, the elements of writer’s craft, and the production of specific forms as they chart a course for their year and aligned, multi-grade level maps for their buildings and districts. Day after day, year after year, these same teachers put their plans into motion,…
I’m the founder of the WNY Young Writer’s Studio, a community of writers and teachers of writing just outside of Buffalo, New York. Over the last seven years, I’ve watched children and adults make writing in a variety of contexts and for a variety of purposes. Studio was born from my desire to create a kind of lab classroom for those that I support as a literacy specialist. For the last eleven years, I’ve spent…
Here’s what I know: when many young writers face sit down to confront flat, empty screens and pages, they freeze. These are the writers who experience frustration and even defeat as they wade into procedures that often feel contrived using tools that are completely intangible. Over time, these tensions perpetuate a sort of quiet trauma as well: these children begin to believe that they can’t write, and then they stop trying. All of this has…