Start the Year Off Write
Activity #9 of Ten Write Days
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Centering place in a writing invitation puts students on the map with familiar topics, using facts they don’t need to research to tell a story they already know. Examining their place helps students make meaning of their world and their self.
As the physical intersection of self and world, a landscape peopled with memory and deep physical detail, writing about a place touches identity, culture, community, history, and traditions in a way that is authentic and rich. Place is in our memory; it’s in our wishes and dreams, our art and our music.
Assignment:
Here are twenty “where” questions. Answer all of them in complete sentences. Answer all of them quickly, not thinking too much about the answer. The first thoughts that pop up might surprise you, but write them down anyway.
Once you’ve answered all the questions, return to your list of sentence and find one that has some energy to it. Find the one sentence that seems to want other sentences written after it. Find the one that feels like it’s buzzing with some electricity bright enough to light up a paragraph or a page or two of writing.
Write after this sentence until you’ve finished saying everything you need to say.
Where were you born?
Where’s your favorite vacation spot?
Where do you like to hide?
Where did you go to elementary school?
Where would you go in a time machine?
Where were you last night?
Where do you go to think?
Where did you get your sense of style?
Where is the saddest place you’ve ever been?
Where does your love live?
Where does your drinking water come from?
Where does your god live?
Where do you go to have a good time?
Where do you watch the sun set?
Where is the safest place you know?
Where is your birth certificate?
Where’s the strangest place you’ve ever been?
Where is the happiest place on earth?
Where will you live when you are 50?
Where do the spirits of the dead go?