artists in ed.: 1/6

...automatic writing, ear-cleaning, erasure, substantive editing, find/replace, neologism creation, translation, performance, cut-up, instant anthology...

the reason for blog silence: my first "artists in education" project is underway. i'm 15 hours into a 25-hour creative writing workshop for grades 11 and 12 at northview heights secondary school. there are 60 students, and we've had a rigorous, text-filled adventure so far. fascinating people; i feel fortunate to spend two weeks with them.

last friday, i carried twenty books to school with me. the students spent friday reading through the books, locating vocab and phrases they found intriguing. everyday, the books accompany me to class. we read aloud our favourite moments and discuss them. a few students have borrowed books overnight. some have written poems using vocabulary they've discovered in the poetry (all smiles with one line from yesterday: "he broke up with her because she had bruxism").

titles include fun w/ pataphysics, proof of a tongue, lemon hound, hello serotonin, fractal economies, straunge wonder, truth: a book of fictions, organic furniture cellar, hey! crumbling balcony, and blert. next gig, i'll switch up some of the titles to see what intrigues everyone.

yesterday, i created an on-the-fly exercise to respond to in-class discussion that ended with some amazing results. in honour of steve venright's overlapping compound-word neologisms, each grade 11 student spent time creating one new word and its definition. some of my faves: "carrotten," "noodleaf," "falsense," and "paperaper." we also had "numbringler" pop up, which is turning out to be a pretty useful word describing the lock mechanism of a filing cabinet.

i just spelled students 'stridents.' i need rest badly.