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Creative Writing Theme of the Month
"Take My Word For It!" is excited to celebrate National Poetry Month with our community. For the month of April we will be featuring poems written by our students, sharing poems written by famous and not so famous writers and most importantly asking you to write poems via our Why Not Write Wednesdays prompts.
“Write about your sorrows, your wishes, your passing thoughts, your belief in anything beautiful…”
Valentine's Day is marked full of love letters, songs, sonnets and more writing created to express love. To honor Valentine's Day this year, we thought we'd share some of our favorite love poems. Enjoy! Sonnet 43 - How do I love thee? Let me count the waysby Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
Love Sonnet 18by Shakespeare
Shall I compare you to a summer's day? You are more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease has all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed; But your eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair you owe; Nor shall Death brag you wander in his shade, When in eternal lines to time you grow: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
i carry your heart with meby e.e. cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)
As a big proponent of the literary arts, I wholeheartedly believe in the importance of creative writing not only because it engages kids’ imaginations, but because it also boosts brain development. Increasingly, research is demonstrating that the act of writing provides an excellent “workout” for young brains.
Case in point: The National Writing Project interviewed neurologist and teacher-consultant Judy Willis, a woman uniquely qualified to speak about writing and the brain. She’s not only a teacher but has a medical background using such diagnostic tools such as(PET) scans, neuroimaging, and brain mapping. She empirically understands how the brain is wired to learn.
In the interview on the on NWP’s website, titled, Writing and the Brain: Neuroscience Shows the Pathways to Learning, Dr. Willis sings the praises of the writing process as a way to develop higher-process thinking.
“Writing is, by nature, an opportunity for creativity and personal expression. When writing is incorporated in learning and assessment, there is increased opportunity to produce the ideal situation for active, attentive learning because students value creative problem solving or creative production.
(Students are) more likely to apply the effort, collaborate successfully, ask questions, revise work, and review foundational knowledge because they want to know what you have to teach.”
JUDY WILLIS
She enumerates all of the important ways that writing supports the development of higher-process thinking:
conceptual thinking
transfer of knowledge
judgment
critical analysis
induction
deduction
and the list goes on…
In our classes we see firsthand how writing can help kids visualize alternatives, dive into detail and make conceptual leaps, all of which enhance learning. For example, when we teach them about metaphor and simile we start by asking the question, "Is the moon really a pearl hanging in the night sky?"
Even though they shake their heads, "No", we then invite them to consider why a writer would describe the moon that way. Our aim - to point out that the way we choose and organize the words we write gives our written language a meaning that goes beyond the literal.
As Robert Protherough writes in Encouraging Writing: “There seems to be a natural drive in young children to write: they leave their early scribblings everywhere, on the wall paper,in printed books, on steamed-up windows, on any available scrap of paper, in chalk on pavement and walls…".
Our creative writing program fosters that natural drive to communicate through the written word and, in the process, leads kids to learn more about everything they see, hear, touch and feel.
Writing, especially creative writing, is a way in. It allows students to go spelunking inside the cave of their own ideas, values and questions about the world and to use their imaginations to explore the unknown. Inevitably, they find all kinds of interesting stuff down there and it's our job to help them bring it to light!
-Sondra
Announcing our 1st annual Edible Story Writing Contest, brought to you by “Take My Word For It!” and 18 Reasons!
You ready? Here goes:
“Life is just a bowl of cherries”
Rewrite this idiom telling the story of what you think life is just a bowl of (500 word limit)
Please e-mail your story to us at sondra@takemywordforit.net no later than Sept. 9th! Two lucky winners will have their piece published online and will each receive a 50% discount on this Fall’s after-school creative writing class,"Peanut Butter and the Pen" beginning 9/12. All of the young writers in the class will have the opportunity to share their work at a reading for parents and friends at the end of the session. We also proudly post student writing on our blog. And as an extra perk this year, students will have a chance to read their writing at San Francisco's famous LitQuake with Anne and Kris from Bi-Rite Creamery!
More info on this workshop is available here.
See Bi-Rite Market's blog post about our contest and our food writing class here:
http://www.biritemarket.com/18-reasons/so-you-think-you-can-write/
Every month we highlight a creative writing technique as the theme of the month. This month's theme is...ONOMATOPOEIA.
But don't be intimidated by it's size! Onomatopoeias really just make crazy fun sounds!
Here's a quick definition:
Onomatopoeia: the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it.
Example: BANG! CRASH! BOINK! POW!
Did you know that on the Batman and Robin original series in the 1960s, onomatopoeia was used during action sequences to make all those viewers at home feel the intensity of a battle scene? Check it out:
Now here's a challenge we invite you to try: write an example of Onomatopoeia for an object or things found at the seashore.
The most captivating and original examples of onomatopoeia will be entered in our drawing to win a fabulous word game! Write and send your entry along with your name and age to wordincubator@gmail.com.
This month's creative writing theme is Personification. Just like the simile and metaphor, a personification is a form of figurative language that will add flavor to your writing!
Here's a quick definition:
Personification: giving something (like an object or animal) human-like actions or qualities
ex: The daffodils stood up straighter as the sun warmed them.
Want to try your hand at it? Well we have another challenge for you this month: Come up with a personification to describe an article of clothing...
Our favorite example will win another fabulous word prize! Write your most creative personification and send it along with your name and age to info@takemywordforit.com!
Happy writing!
