More Than Words, by Karen Ernst daSilva
Archiving your life in words, images, e-mails and more.
This has been quite a year. I can relive it and ponder it by flipping through what I used to call my sketch journal but which I now call my Writer's Sketch Journal. This year, I began to use my journal as a place to collect and reflect upon my life. I draw what I see to help me remember and notice the everyday. I write to reflect and think. But, this year, I also wanted my journal to hold excerpts from books I read, significant messages from friends, newspaper articles that made me think and more. I've also found that I return to my journal weekly, rereading it and adding to the table of contents. I also return to it in order to write more finished pieces or redraw a sketch in a more complete way.
Collecting your life in a journal can lead you to include such things as news items that make you think...
What's inside?
If you flipped through my journals, you'd find newspaper articles by a writer who I've come to regard as a distant mentor. You'd find a page where I've copied a map to help me understand the geography of a part of the world with which I was unfamiliar. You'd read an e-mail I received from my friend Alice, who is the principal at a school very close to Ground Zero in New York City. You'd find lots of pictures of teachers and children and my notes from visits to classrooms; these things serve as sources of reference, for when I want to write about my experiences at school. You'd find pictures of brooms, chairs, trees outside my window and lots of houses with American flags flying.
Try bringing together several elements from your journal to create a piece of art or writing that's evocative of a event in your life.
A very personal gift
As a gift to my friend Alice, I went through the collection of words and images in my journal and wrote a poem in two voices, based on our e-mail exchanges. One of my American flag pictures, shown at right, accompanied the poem.
Do it yourself
You can collect your own life in a journal. It's a good idea to reread it often, and even make a table of contents for it, in order to see where you've been. I liken this to turning around to see the footprints you've left in snow or sand.
Try drawing objects that you see every day. Write about thoughts that you have during the day. Write about things that you read, heard or noticed.
Letters and e-mails that mark or recollect important events in your life.
Keep e-mails, letters and cards which reflect some important event or communication in your life. Clip articles that show what you're learning or what you're interested in and paste them into your journal.
Copy out inspiring passages from books you're reading. Copy entire poems into your journal – before long, you'll have your own anthology.
Once you've begun collecting words and images from your life in a journal, you'll be able to return to it. Not only will you be able to say, "It's been quite a year," you'll also be able to prove it.
Activity: Collecting A Life
Sketch something and then do a colored drawing or painting based on the sketch.
Preparation
Use a journal as a place to collect your everyday life in pictures, writing and snippets of what you read. Return to it to write and draw meaning into your life.
Why?
• A Writer's Sketch Journal, like a writer's notebook, helps you pay attention to the world and collect it in pictures and words.
• A journal gives you a place to return to for details when you want to "go public" with your ideas.
Curricular Connections
• You'll find ideas for using a journal in the article entitled "Drawing on Experience" in the October 2001 issue of Primary Voices (NCTE). I authored this article with four of my colleagues from Kings Highway School in Westport, CT.
• Read books that reflect other people's journals; try Antarctic Journal by Jennifer Owings Dewey (HarperCollins, 2001), Keeping a Nature Journal by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth (Storey Books, 2000) and A Trail Through Leaves by Hannah Hinchman (W.W. Norton and Co., 1997).
Karen Ernst daSilva is a writer, consultant, and was a Resource Teacher in Westport, CT.
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