Writing Workshop | Talking Stick Learning Center

Nature, Writing, Literature: Winter Twigs and Germantown Flora

Posted by Paige Menton

· Wednesday, March 12th, 2014

Winter Twigs and Germantown Flora January-March 2014 Our winter workshop has included snow, research, snow, speculations, observations, and a little more snow. For the past several weeks, we enjoyed reading True Lies: 18 Tales for You to Judge by George Shannon. In each story, a character communicates something that is interpreted differently from what is literally said. Our group was very savvy in…

Nature, Writing, Literature: Freewriting and Freewalking

Posted by Paige Menton

· Thursday, December 5th, 2013

Freewriting and Freewalking December 3, 2013 As we waited for everyone to arrive, we played a word game of creating sentences with each person adding one word at a time. After the first hilarious and inventive sentence, several young people asked, “Are you writing these down?” One person commented that we could add them to the blog. Here are the…

Nature, Writing, Literature: Words Enough to Capture

Posted by Paige Menton

· Thursday, November 21st, 2013

Words Enough to Capture November 5 and 12, 2013 Make a list of 30 words you don’t think you can write without (the most fundamental words of any communication: the, and, of, etc.). Now write a response to this question, without using those words: What is the origin of the moon? A participant in our workshop created this prompt and…

Nature, Writing, Literature: From Leaf to Leaf

Posted by Paige Menton

· Thursday, November 7th, 2013

From Leaf to Leaf October 22 and 29, 2013 Highlights of the past two weeks in our program included getting to know the trees of Awbury a little better. On October 22, we hiked over to the meadow near the pond and took a few minutes with tree guides to identify as many trees as we could within a defined…

Nature, Writing, Literature: One Small Square

Posted by Paige Menton

· Thursday, October 24th, 2013

One Small Square October 15, 2013 Do squirrels remember where they bury their nuts? This seemed like an interesting question to contemplate as naturalists, and we speculated about how squirrels might retrace their steps to survive. We read what scientists have determined so far and what questions still remain in The Where, The Why, and the How. Then, approaching the…

Nature, Writing, Literature: Expedition and Discovery

Posted by Paige Menton

· Thursday, October 10th, 2013

Expedition and Discovery (October 1, 2013) I began our session by adding a card to our bulletin board of suggested books: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly (the memory of this story had inspired my thinking about our adventures for the morning). This first card on the bulletin board beckoned others, in the course of the day, to…

Nature, Writing, and Literature: Jewelweed and Talking Trees

Posted by Paige Menton

· Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

Jewelweed and Talking Trees September 17 and 24, 2013 William Carlos Williams wrote of “the alphabet of the trees” in his poem “The Botticellean Trees,” and I began our workshop by reading an excerpt from this poem and asking everyone to write what the alphabet of the trees might be, look like, or sound like. Some responses suggested a list…

Writing Workshop: Authors, Diplomats, Dancers, Statues, and Naturalists

Posted by Paige Menton

· Thursday, June 6th, 2013

Authors, Diplomats, Dancers, Statues, and Naturalists My original intention was to write a final post for writing workshop and one for the naturalist workshop, a listing of what we have been doing for the past few weeks in each, but some projects have blended together across the older group’s programming, so I will just recount highlights of the naturalists, the…

Talking Stick Participant Receives National Poetry Award

Posted by Talking Stick News

· Wednesday, May 29th, 2013

When our Writing Workshop Facilitator, Paige Menton, announced to the group details about national poetry contest, ten-year-old Gioia M. of Mt. Airy was intrigued. The nationwide 2013 Sarah Mook Memorial Poetry Contest is an annual event that accepts submissions from students in Kindergarten through High School. Entering the contest was not directly a part of the Writing Workshop, but rather…

Writing Workshop: Iridescent Ribbon, Rhyme, and Rime Royal

Posted by Paige Menton

· Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

Iridescent Ribbon, Rhyme, and Rime Royal We recently read Wallace Steven’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” and discussed our impressions and favorite words and lines. Then I placed 13 objects in the middle of the table and asked everyone to write a poem making whatever connections they wanted between the objects. They could also choose to focus on…

The Talking Stick Blog

Nature, Writing, Literature: Winter Twigs and Germantown Flora

Nature, Writing, Literature: Freewriting and Freewalking

Nature, Writing, Literature: Words Enough to Capture

Nature, Writing, Literature: From Leaf to Leaf

Nature, Writing, Literature: One Small Square

Nature, Writing, Literature: Expedition and Discovery

Nature, Writing, and Literature: Jewelweed and Talking Trees

Writing Workshop: Authors, Diplomats, Dancers, Statues, and Naturalists

Talking Stick Participant Receives National Poetry Award

Writing Workshop: Iridescent Ribbon, Rhyme, and Rime Royal

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