Commonplacing is a practice of recording quotes and passages to synthesise learning and create a personalised reference resource for personal encouragement and academic projects. It's a practice I've cultivated for myself and shared with my children and students as part of their own educational journeys. Below is a free quick guide to the art of commonplacing. In this guide I share my own experiences with commonplacing and tips for how I've introduced this to my students as part of our English and History lessons. Download it. Try out some of the ideas. Share your experiences by contacting me or leaving your comments below. Share photo's of your own commonplacing books and add #artofcommonplaceguide so we can find you.
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Serenity blue. Muddy deep reflects sky light, heart mirrored water. Welcome to my own personal booklist of good reads from my bookshelves. Here you'll find an ongoing list of books I have read about teaching and writing, and great stories I've loved reading - for myself and with my students. I hope you find inspiration, encouragement and great books for your own learning, reading, and writing life. And perhaps some friendly bookworms as well! Have a suggestion you'd think I'd like to read - please share it in the comments. My Bookshelf in 2019
So, here I sit on a rainy Saturday morning, many months after my first round of manuscript submissions and manuscript rejections, which come in many forms, including silence. Silence. Yup. I got a big fat zero response. I can now tick this off as official submission experience #1. And what have I done about it? Nothing. Well, nothing yet. The fact is life has been overwhelmingly busy, with family and teaching consuming my waking, and sleeping, hours. The truth is that although I have not had the time or head space to follow up on my manuscript submissions, or to even write for that matter, these months are not lost. An important writing tip for wanna-be writers is to live life. Life is our classroom and life provides compost for our story-seeds to sprout. The fact is I need space in my life in order to hear my own thoughts and add those thoughts to paper, and I just haven't had that space recently. The truth is that I need to find the physical space, time space, emotional space, and mental space I need to write. It's my responsibility to take myself seriously as a writer and carve out that space, on purpose. Author Jerry B. Jenkins has a helpful article outlining a series of practical steps on How to Write a Book. The first two steps, establishing my space and assembling my tools are what I have been working on recently. A copy of this article is now laid out on my desk, in full view, to remind me to keep working on my writing and to continue guarding my writing space as a new term of teaching begins. So, here I sit on a rainy Saturday morning, ready to dust off my writing journal and my pen. To begin, again, practicing the art writing in my day. Every day. To mull over the life lessons of the past few months. To take hold of courage again and continue working on my current writing projects.
And so I begin... And so I procrastinate... ...#8 on the list Children are persons. Love of learning. Stories. Conversation. Atmosphere. Discipline of habit. Life of ideas. Truth. Goodness. Beauty. These ideas, embodied within the philosophy of education I endeavour to practice, draw many hurting but hopeful families and students. These ideas draw people like a radiant rainbow on a dark and stormy day. I was no different. A mother of young children at the time, searching for a method of educating my children that would nourish and breathe life into our hearts, minds and family life, I too was initially drawn to these ideas and the seeds of hope and life they held. Like any seed, it takes time to cultivate and grow. The growth sometimes requires pruning and a letting go of old ways. Plants, flowers, fruits all require time and care, understanding and wisdom, courage and patience.
Plants flower and fruit in their right season. The path of education for parents, teachers, and students is no different. The path of learning also requires time and care, understanding and wisdom, courage and patience. It has been my experience, as a teacher of teens, that many students who have experienced significant difficulties in a mainstream educational setting flock to these ideas as a last hope, believing that somehow just being in an educational setting that endeavours to practice these ideas will automatically make those difficulties disappear. It doesn't. But, if those families and students are willing to be patient, to step into this atmosphere of learning and embrace the disciplines of habit that are needed to grow a love of learning, respectful conversation, then positive growth slowly becomes evident. Teens who experience learning difficulties, mental health challenges, emotional difficulties and social challenges are increasing in number and severity. I have begun to wonder if there is a correlation to our post-modern lifestyles and culture, but that is a topic for another time. My concern, as a teacher, is with those teens with these challenges who join my classroom, hurting, burnt out, frustrated, anxious and feeling dumb. It all begins with accepting each student as they are. That student is a person with everything he/she needs to live a full life, challenges included. You begin with where they are at and take small steps each day. You accept that they may be talkative, impulsive, a slower reader, an uncomfortable writer, for example. At this point it doesn't matter if there is an official diagnosis for them. You simply accept where they are at and grow from there. Helping your students develop, and understand, the skills of learning and personal growth are available to them. They may have trouble focusing but that doesn't mean they are dumb. It simply means they need to find a way to develop the skill of attention and the teacher can coach them in that skill area. Gently and patiently with small, achievable steps for that student. What delight we experience when joy dawns in realisation that their skill in attention has helped them remember and make connections between areas of knowledge and life. The place of sharing stories and conversation opens up new doors to experience reading and learning. Students may read at their own pace and share what they remember and connect with. In this they learn that their own thoughts matter and they learn to listen the ideas of their fellow students with respect. They learn to consider their response and their ideas and slowly learning the skills of reading deeply and thoughtfully. Within these ideas of education lie an expectation that every students is capable of learning and growing in character, skill, knowledge and understanding. Yet these expectations are embodied within the gentle arts of habit training, reading, conversation. I think this balance helps to diffuse anxiety, encourage growth, and help students realise they are capable of learning and solving their own problems. These simple observations cause me to wonder if education itself can form a part of the healing and recovery process for students with various challenges. Is it possible these gentle arts of learning and teaching can be life giving for students and hold out a promise of hope? Burnished gold morning.
Trees tall, branches reach daylight, Green leaves dancing fire. Armed with my (very) short list of publishers and agents who are currently accepting unsolicited manuscripts from unpublished writers, I begin. Armed with warnings of rejections and the unforgiving and competitive nature of the publishing industry I nevertheless take the plunge.
Will I swim or will I sink? Will the Kookaburra's in my backyard sing of my success or laugh at my demise? Let's find out shall we?
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