experiences, thoughts, words, FORMS, kernal sentences, September summary

Summary of September online writing classes: 2013

We are all learners – all ways. Our bodies are fine tuned instruments that absorb the sounds, sights, smells, tastes and textures of experiences.  Each learner develops (adds to, modifies) their own filter of understanding by asking their own questions and doing their own research – no two people understand in the same way.

Each learner generates their own thoughts about each experience.

In class we focused on the magic moment when thoughts turn into words: when unseen ideas, dressed in words, are suddenly public.

As Oliver Wendall Holmes put it: “A word … is the skin of a living thought…”.

And… we can only express ourselves within the range of our bank of words…

And… we can empower our expressions by learning the syntactical FORMS offered by our language for structuring relationships among words. We are focusing on recognizing ‘kernal’ sentences.

Here is one example I used with the groups.

It is the first sentence from: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf.

Egg – noun – subject, ‘doer’ of the sentence.

Lay  - verb – action,  done by the doer

Everything else (phrases, adjectives, etc) add detail to the ‘kernal’; like heat, it ‘pops’ the ‘kernel’ into something with greater ‘flavor’ and detail. (Thanks, Smith kids)

Lovin’ words

Mrs J