Monday (and a little bit of Friday) (Day 5 & 6)

Friday
Although I didn't post officially on Friday, I just wanted to share a little bit about the guest author. Friday afternoons at CTWP consist of a pot-luck lunch and a guest author. We have guest authors other days sometimes too (Katherine Bomer is coming tomorrow), but Friday afternoon is always reserved for it. Lauren Robins, author of The Palette of Breath, taught us how to breathe. Okay, technically, we already know how to breathe, or we would be dead. But she used breathing techniques and some movement theory to teach us relaxation. Many of the teachers thought it would be great to do this with their kids before the TAKS test or any other high-stakes situation. It really was calming, but without loss of energy. And I'm sure seeing a room full of teachers dancing around doing the linguine was an interesting sight. To my chagrin, there are indeed pictures.

We should be thinking about some authors we might want to bring in. Here, they tap in to local talent. Obviously, Robb Jackson would be number 1 on our list. Liz invited me this afternoon to sit in on a meeting with the CTWP leadership team--the Round Rock team reported having a grantwriter do a mini-workshop on Friday and that one of their site participants wrote a grant over the weekend as a result. Chuck, could we maybe twist your arm to do something like that?

The meeting's agenda essentially went down a list of all the programs CTWP is running or getting ready for. It's probably premature, given that we need to run a successful SI before we can do any of it, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to brainstorm some possibilities about what kind of programs we can offer in the area. In addition to the SI at San Marcos and the one at Round Rock, they have our Open Institute, two other open institutes on digital storytelling, one on bookmaking, young author's camps, various technology initiatives . . . I know I'm missing a few here. So what does the Coastal Bend need out of its writing project? Let's do some big dreaming!

Monday
This week's discussion theme is "Writing in a Digital Age." We have a few articles to read for tomorrow, and the Tech Liaisons will be leading us in a discussion about them. Today we tried to deal with logistics--to get us all on the official blog and wiki. It did not go well. Frankly, we needed a technical writer to set things out step-by-step. Too many things going on at once I think. The ideas are all really good (posting the daily log as a blog, for instance), but this group needed more systematic instruction in how to do it using the particular tools. It will get straightened out tomorrow, I presume. In any case, we all got the reading assignments and a little lesson in technical difficulties.

We also got visitor's day invitations to hand out. Y'all want to come up to San Marcos for a day? I'll post the invitation. The last day of the SI is Visitor's Day, when family, friends, administrators, and other teachers (and maybe potential recruits) visit the SI and see a mini-institute. Great recruiting tool, and a great way to show off/promote the project to various dignitaries. I wonder if we shouldn't have some kind of a session in the July Institute where the dean and others who are going to give us money could come see what we are doing? Or maybe that's too much for one week.

Tomorrow the first official writing assignment is due. We can hand in any of the three. Mine will be the "write in a genre outside your comfort zone" assignment. I wrote poetry, which as I said in a post below, is the Pluto of my comfort zone--so far out it isn't even a planet anymore. Here's the evidence that the NWP is for real: I haven't written a poem in nearly 30 years. But last week--I wrote 8. I don't know if they are good or not. I read a couple to my response group, and they were very positive. I really don't have a frame of reference to judge my own poetry. But it doesn't matter anyway--it felt good to write them.

Not ready to post them publicly, but if you ask nicely and promise not to laugh (unless it was supposed to be funny), I'll e-mail you one.