Experiments in Writing #6: Friday, April 28th

Blindfold Trust Walk

This exercise demands your utmost concentration, whether you are a “blind person” or a guide.

As a guide, your responsibility is to lead and protect your partner through the experience of not-seeing. Maintain voice contact, but speak as little as possible. Guide by touch only when necessary to keep your partner from danger or to lead him to a specific spot that you wish her to experience. When you have led your partner for five minutes, STOP, and switch roles.

As the blindfolded person, explore! Walk around, listen, smell, touch, feel. Feel the air currents and changes in temperature, feel the floor beneath you, the walls, the textures of things you encounter. Tune in, also, to how it feels to be unseeing -- what feelings do you have, including feelings toward your guide?

When you have finished, return immediately to the room and WRITE. In the usual, free-flowing way, try to write down as many of your sensory impressions as you can remember from the time you were blindfolded: sounds, smells, and textures, as well as your feelings during the exercise and your feelings now, in looking back at the experience.

Experiments in Writing #5: Tuesday, April 25th

Sense of Touch

Each pair has a paper bag full of goodies to explore through the sense of touch. Don't look inside the bag or take any of the objects outside of the bag. Feel around the bag and describe what is inside using adjectives that describe temperature, texture, shape, etc. Use similes and metaphors to describe what your object is like or reminds you of.

Explore the object that will be given to you -- explore it thoroughly. Take your time, and explore with your hands, touching the object in different ways -- perhaps putting it to your face. Really try to “get the feel” of whatever it is you are seeking to describe. Pay attention to the more subtle aspects of what something “feels like.” What is the texture, the temperature, the grain, the hardness or softness -- any of the dimensions you can sense.

First, concentrate on what the object feels like. Then -- start to write in the usual way. Try to capture as many details as you can, and to keep up with your thoughts and feelings. Say what things remind you of, and what your feelings are as you do this exercise.

The fun is not necessarily in guessing the objects in the bag, but rather tapping into your descriptive writing skills. After you describe the itens in your bag by touch, you will be turning in your pieces of writing and sharing them with a random partner for the next activity.

Experiments in Writing #4: Monday, April 24th

Fantasy Exercise

Look around the room you are in until some particular object catches your attention. Then, imagine this object in some other setting, or some other situation, created by your imagination. Make the setting or situation in which you place or “see” the object as wild and as crazy a one as possible. Then, in one or two sentences only (but as long a sentence as you want to make it!) either describe this object in the new, fantastic situation, or explain what happens to it in the fantasy situation created by your imagination.

Go as fast as you can - and as fast as your imagination can - moving from one object in the room to another, until the time is up.

Experiment #3: Tuesday, April 18th

Closed Eye and Ear Exercise:
An Experiment in Listening and Writing

The purpose of this exercise is to sharpen your hearing, to help you really listen, and also to loosen up your inner responses -- your feelings and your imagination.

What to do:

Stop up your ears really tight, and close your eyes. Try to relax. Count slowly to 100. When you get to 100, still keep your eyes shut, but open up your ears and pay close attention to what you hear.

Just listen for a while. Don’t write just yet. Notice as many separate and distinct sounds as you can.

Think what the sounds are like, what they remind you of (even if you recognize what the sounds really are). Be aware of the feelings that go on inside you as you do all this.

Let your imagination go!

Eventually start writing down all these responses -- as many of them as you can. Try to keep your eyes on your paper and try not to notice anyone else. Don’t do anything to break the mood. This works best if it is very private - a real experiment with your inner self.

Write in any form that seems natural to you. Go as fast as you can and still keep your writing legible. Use your imagination and let your feelings go! Write as naturally as you can.

Experiment #2: Monday, April 17th

An Experiment in Seeing and Writing

Write down, as fast as you can, all the things that you see: everything that comes before your eyes -- objects, things, shapes, colors, textures, people -- everything and anything that your eyes fall on. Try to look for details about the things that you see. Write also about what things look like, what they resemble. Say too what you are reminded of by what you see.

Remember that there is no right or wrong way to do this. Don’t worry about spelling or correctness right now. Just try to write down on paper as much of what you see as you can.

Experiment #1: Monday, April 10th

Introduction To The Spontaneous Monologue

For the next 15 minutes, write down everything that comes into your head, as fast as you can. Use the first words that come to mind, and do not worry about form, spelling, grammar, or correctness for now. Just try to get down as much of what goes through your head as possible.

There is no right or wrong way to do this. If you block, or if your mind goes blank, write about that until something else comes to mind. The purpose of the exercise is to tap your own mental stream and write down as much of it as you can. Go as fast as you can, and still keep it legible.

Reread the directions, and then immediately begin writing, doing the assignment as fast and as naturally as you can.

Experiments in Writing Structure

Monday and Tuesday – 20 minutes in class

Wednesday – Turn in your favorite piece for the week to your Writing Captain of the week

Thursday – Writing Captain must e-mail Ms. Staff with all four writing pieces by 5pm on Thursday night

Friday – Writer’s Workshop (outdoors when the weather permits) after Vocab Test

You are such a beautiful and unique group of individuals and writers! Let your creativity show and remember to support each other as a community of writers. Let's write together!