January 5

“Frissons”

The San Diego Area Writing Project (SDAWP) graciously included me in their list of invitees to the currently-underway Writing Thief MOOC, a deep examination of Ruth Culham’s book The Writing Thief: Using Mentor Texts to Teach the Craft of Writing. As I explained in my introduction to the MOOC participants, I’m an outlier in the group, as I am not a formally trained writing teacher. My passion is project-based learning, which encompasses all disciplines, and which is itself an (albeit quickly growing) outlier in educational methodologies.

I had encountered a number of the Writing Thief MOOC leaders and participants during the summer 2014 Connected Learning MOOC (CLMOOC). I learned tremendously from that experience. I received an introduction to many technology tools available to incorporate into writing experiences (as well as other disciplines). I encountered other professionals’ views on teaching and learning. Perhaps most importantly, I discovered that interacting with this virtual community of similarly-minded people is good for my soul.

Therefore, I was eager to join the current conversation. Similarly to #CLMOOC, The Writing Thief MOOC consists of a number of “make cycles,” in this instance related to topics and themes contained in The Writing Thief.

In the second make cycle, we were asked to “find a quote (or quotes) from The Writing Thief that resonates with you,” then “[l]ook at it closely and dissect it” before letting the quote inspire our creativity. We were also told to “give yourself permission…” As I browsed through the “makes” that others had posted to the G+ community, I realized that I would not be satisfied to simply gussy up a quote and call it complete. I needed to give myself permission to dive deeper, and to have fun.

A word Culham used multiple times (nine, to be exact) in The Writing Thief is “frisson,” how we feel “frissons” as we and our students discover great mentor texts, and discover ideas we want to write about. I think my attention was caught by the word “frisson” both because it is not commonly used in English, and because, as a French speaker, the word was familiar to me.

So, the investigation began. One of the beauties of e-readers is they make it straightforward to search for words and phrases. Once I had found all nine “frissons,” I needed to decide how to present my reflection about them. I chose the tool Haiku Deck, both because I had some experience using it, and because it was well-suited to my purpose.

Initially, I thought arranging the nine quotes into a “deck” would be easy. Ha! I had to create an introduction, so off to take photos of the definition of frisson from both French and English dictionaries. Oh, wait, the first quote needed a preamble. Then, some of the quotes didn’t want to fit anywhere. I arranged and rearranged them several times, attempting to find a narrative flow. Finally, I got stuck trying to figure out how to conclude the presentation. Not to mention choosing the images that best portrayed the sense I wanted to give to each quote. As I was working, I realized this was the same process that any writer encounters as s/he creates a piece of work. Although I was simply remixing (thieving?) words written by someone else, I was nonetheless seeking to tell a coherent story. After all, that is what humans like to do – tell stories.

My finished story may be found here: https://www.haikudeck.com/p/9PC9br3xby/frisson.

 

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Posted January 5, 2015 by inspirepassion in category clmooc

About the Author

I am a process-focused leader who uses collaboration, authenticity, and mentoring as key skills to inspire passion among learners of all ages. Aggregate eclectic professional experiences have honed my ability to coach others in designing and implementing courses of study using inquiry-/project-based learning (PBL).

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