So much of teaching writing is guiding students towards an awareness and curiosity about themselves and where they are. Within these lessons, I always hope to unpack the present. Whether this means understanding the architecture of a building, its place on the land, or the land on which it stands, identifying the plants and animals around it, or finding the history of its name. Lessons from all subjects are here, tucked into the fabric of the moment.
Of course there are infinite distractions and I am learning as much as I am teaching to encounter the world in this ethereal way: to be aware of the existence and gifts of all of all the moment holds while the bird in my head flits is hard to catch up sometimes. Or maybe it’s hard to slow down. Maybe it’s not a question of time.
Here are a few prompts that can be used for writing into the present:
- Choose four to seven objects, colors, or movements around you and connect them in a story of your creation.
- Ask the students to write three questions they have always been curious about. Decide what you can do to answer them… then go about answering them. (this can become a pretty incredible essay writing project).
- Find a word or three in your immediate vicinity and look up its etymology. Freewrite about the discoveries that you’ve made.
- Imagine the space around you are full of equations, of secrets. Write a story about unlocking them. (I had originally made this a math prompt: set a timer: create as many math problems as you can based on what you see – this might even mean finding the angle of a tree branch from a phone camera image. Consider why.)
Bending Tree Education 