Blogging with Summer Institute 2008

Good morning. Week One is almost over. Can you believe that?

Writing into the Day with Mary…Focus Our Writing Lives

Write about a bad writing memory?

Start freewriting using “I remember…” as your prompt.

Digital Documenter Mary:

Log: Barbara

The Summer 08 Tour – The Amazing Race to the Writing Pieces
Itinerary for July 8, 2008

8:30 am Bonnie began as tour director, leading us to a revisit of Tom’s workshop. That is,
we recalled a previous site visited on May 3rd, the professional piece. For some, a
fond memory, for others a visit not yet ready to be recalled. We journaled our
thoughts, freely writing our observations and experiences with this site, and then
continued on our journey by sharing our thoughts and excerpts from our log.

9:15 am Once again as tour director, Bonnie led us through her reflections from her TIW,
reminding us that we are still pioneers in bringing the digitized text to the
classroom.
We viewed the playbill from yesterday’s exciting play, recalling scenes we acted as we embarked on our summer journey.

9:25 am Water break. Time to pause to stretch our weary legs.

9:30 am Switching tour directors, Kaitlen then lead us on the TIW road, Symbols: A three
pronged inquiry. On this road we first passed symbols as a visual, working in
groups to view important scenes. We viewed the “graffiti on the walls,”
exemplifying that we are a “visually driven society.”
The next stop on this road informed us about symbols in novels, for which we
had the opportunity to be informed of (or refresh our memory of) a symbol
found on an island thanks to William Golding, Derek and Molly.
For the third and final stop on this road, we were asked to incorporate the use of
symbols in our own writing, allowing time for a few of us to share before we
pressed onward.

10:50 am As her time as tour director ended, Kaitlen gave a verbal recap of the road we had
just traveled and the sites we saw, asking us to provide our feedback on the
experience in writing.

11:15 am Our tour for the day continued with a new exploration: the writing group. Here we
learned about the writing group, stops we should make along the way as we
traveled through this territory, and sites we just can’t miss along the way. We
traveled in small groups, knowing we’d cover more ground this way.
Informative information was provided for our visits to this unfamiliar territory. For example, we learned a few phrases to help us speak the native language of
writing group members, such as “where do you want to go next?” and “what did
you experience- feel, think, see, hear?”

12:15 pm A stop for lunch.

1:30 pm A half hour self-guided journey into our writing commenced after lunch.
Suggestions of sites included: the professional piece, literacy autobiography, and
recalling past visits of free writes to consider one for a personal piece to share.

2:00 pm Our guided tour began again, as our amazing race continued. In our quads, our
tour guides lead us through a complicated maze of our own writing samples.
Where do we head now? What’s the next stop on this journey? Do I know enough
of the native language to continue my trip? Should I jump ship? Do I have enough
supplies?

3:10 pm Planning refreshments for Thursday: always an important aspect on any journey. Without food and drink, how can one continue the race?

3:25 pm Feedback time. The survey says…
In contrast to the once popular (and now resurfacing) game show, no feuds have arisen, although a family of writers has certainly gathered together.

4:00 pm Time to retire for the evening. Evening meal is on your own.
Please be sure to have your necessary supplies, including camera and journal in hand, and be gathered with the tour at 8:30 am tomorrow as we depart once again to continue our amazing race.