Writing to a Prompt?
What images or feelings does that question conjure up? What do you value in writing? How strongly do you feel about those values?
I’m participating in #ASDWWrites – 30 days of writing. Each day we have a quote, a mentor text, and some possible prompts. But they always include choices. Choice make daily writing to a prompt possible for me. I’m not a writer-to-a-prompt daily and I think this is important for me to share. Prompts make my skin crawl. But this feels different.
And I remember hating giving students prompts to write to. I also gave them tips to help them write to any topic.
Last week I shared a snow poem that came from #ASDWWrites here.
Yesterday’s mentor text was this.
I’m So Happy to Hear That
A grandson reading.
A grandson laughing.
“Grandma, will you play with me?”
Coffee gurgling as it drips through the filter.
Chimes tinkling in the wind.
The song of the quilting machine.
The steady hum of the sewing machine.
Quiet conversations about choices.
Favorite songs from Alexa.
“Have you picked up your foot yet?”
Common courtesies: ”Please, Thank You, and Hello.”
The roar of the crowd for every Logo 3.
The notification chime for a #CuriosityCrew message.
Messages from Hawaii.
The thud of feet walking on a snow-covered path.
That whispered thank you in my brain as the sun rises.
Choice: How do you feel about prompts? or What Do You Hear? What are you thinking and how does it impact your teaching?
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Fran, such truth in the limiting creativity and choice in one set prompt! I love the invitation that one of my writing groups extends – they offer a prompt and the freedom to reject it and write wherever the pen leads. In working with teachers, I have found that many want a scripted lesson and just as many want a framework with open ended possibility for different pathways. I like that our personalities and moods can find the sweet spot in our writing and reading, and I agree that choice is key!
Always need choices!
So true!
Fran, I so enjoyed reading your list poem! It tells so much about you and what is important to you. Of course you started with “graondson”! For me the poem is extra powerful because of your word choices – gurgling, tinkling, hum, song, thud. And the exact dialogue. WOndeirng without the choice of prompts, would this have been written? I also hate the phrase “write to a prompt” but I also see some great writing when choices of prompts are offered.
So true.
Without the mentor, I had nothing. But I also had time. I wrote this at least 12 hours after reading the pro.pt.
I agree with you about prompts but occasionally one works. This one did for you, and it’s tempting me! As in your mentor poem, i see the variety of sounds, and i like how some we share and clearly understand, and others have a bit of mystery to the reader. (‘Have you picked up your foot yet?’)
And I also note, and like, how both the mentor poem and yours take a different path, a less mundane path, on your last line. That makes your poem so much more.
An idea.
Time
Choice
An Invitation
Those worked.
(Hand and foot is a card game we play.)
I have always had mixed thoughts about prompts. Are they limiting? Do we just draw a blank when given one? I always gave my students a couple of prompts always with the option of writing what they are inspired to if none of the prompts worked for them. As you point out, choice matters.
mixed thoughts is such a good descriptor. . . and remembering that a “perfect prompt” for one is probably way off the mark for another!
Wow! I love this. Just reading this prompt gave me ideas and the way you used it was so clever. This daily writing gig sounds wonderful. I’m sure you will be glad you participated. Please share more.
Thanks, Rita. This is a 30 day writing project that really helps me with writing volume in January.
I like “take it or leave it” prompts when the stakes are low and I’m just writing in my notebook. In a more formal setting, I tend to find that I can freeze up when presented with a prompt. I love the poem you shared –such a great mentor!– and the response you wrote.
Yes to “freezing up.” It’s the panic of “what do they want” vs I can do this.
Yes! Exactly that!
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