- I didn't know
- were sober
- had heard the poems in a reading
- actually seemed to want to own them
When did the OSR begin? 2008.
1 year ago
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Writing Again
I used to write a lot of poetry in my teens and early twenties. I'm not claiming that it was particularly good but I enjoyed writing it. I even self-published a small volume and sold enough to make a little profit. Most of the sales were to friends but a few were to people who
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Writing on a course
I was on a Learning and Teaching Conference today and enjoyed attending three very different but universally inspirational workshops and just one thoroughly boring one. Not a bad success rate.
My next challenge is to see how much of this inspiration I am able to transfer into my teaching. I have to say I fear for my success. Partly this is because I am often lack confidence in my imagination when it comes to planning lessons. It is also because I don't feel that I am likely to have much support in school for trying out some of the ideas which I saw today.
For example one of the workshops was about using the Nintendo Wii as a source of inspiration for writing. I could see tremendous opportunity here to use this to motivate some of my class but I have serious doubts about my chances of persuading my headteacher of the merits of video games as a stimulus for writing. Similarly I would love to use a blog as a means of publishing my children's writing but I have already hit my head against the wall of using the internet interactively; and that was just with the school's own learning platform.
As part of the workshopon using blogs the course participants were asked to write a poem, publ;ish it on a wiki and experience receiving feedback. I haven't written a poem for ages but I was quite pleased with my effort so I took the opportunity to copy it over here to my blog.
The year turns bringing morning light,
lightness of spirit,
anticipation of warmth.
Yesterday's fog was a disappointment,
but short lived
as the sun burnt through.
This morning there was fog again;
but it had lost its power
to dampen my outlook.
No sun has burnt through today.
Today the fire is metaphorical,
professional inspiration!
My next challenge is to see how much of this inspiration I am able to transfer into my teaching. I have to say I fear for my success. Partly this is because I am often lack confidence in my imagination when it comes to planning lessons. It is also because I don't feel that I am likely to have much support in school for trying out some of the ideas which I saw today.
For example one of the workshops was about using the Nintendo Wii as a source of inspiration for writing. I could see tremendous opportunity here to use this to motivate some of my class but I have serious doubts about my chances of persuading my headteacher of the merits of video games as a stimulus for writing. Similarly I would love to use a blog as a means of publishing my children's writing but I have already hit my head against the wall of using the internet interactively; and that was just with the school's own learning platform.
As part of the workshopon using blogs the course participants were asked to write a poem, publ;ish it on a wiki and experience receiving feedback. I haven't written a poem for ages but I was quite pleased with my effort so I took the opportunity to copy it over here to my blog.
The year turns bringing morning light,
lightness of spirit,
anticipation of warmth.
Yesterday's fog was a disappointment,
but short lived
as the sun burnt through.
This morning there was fog again;
but it had lost its power
to dampen my outlook.
No sun has burnt through today.
Today the fire is metaphorical,
professional inspiration!
Friday, 7 January 2011
Bookcrossing Statistics
After reading some discussions recently on the Bookcrossing forums about the numbers of books which are journalled I decided to look at my own statistics. Obviously there were any number of things which I should have been doing instead but there you go.
Bookcrossers normally categorise their book releases as 'controlled' - when the book is given to a specific person - or 'wild' - when the book is left in a public place for anybody to pick up. Personally I tend to think about my releases slightly differently. I have always felt that leaving a book at an Official Book Crossing Zone (OBCZ) is less wild than leaving it anywhere else. I also decided to distinguish books which I have taken to bookcrossing meets. Obviously I tend to see who takes these books away but when I set off for the meet I have no idea who, if anyone, is going to take them so they aren't quite the same as most controlled releases.
There are various estimates for the percentage of released books which are journalled, often these estimates range from 10% to 20%. I have no idea what research, if any at all, these estimates are based on.
Based on 109 books that I have released since getting involved with bookcrossing in 2008 I have 37% rate of journal entries. This is quite a bit higher than is considered normal.
66 of my releases have been in OBCZ's and 26% of these have been journalled. This is only slightly higher than normal .
Of my 18 truly wild releases only 2 have been journalled. This represents 11% which is within the range normally expected.
My statistics are skewed by the 69% journal rate on my 13 controlled releases and the 100% journal rate on the 12 books which have been taken away from meetings.
On the bookcrossing forums it is not unusual to hear of books being journalled years after being released. The journal entries on my books have sometimes been made on the day they were released, usually for books taken from meets, up to 258 days after the release date.
Bookcrossers normally categorise their book releases as 'controlled' - when the book is given to a specific person - or 'wild' - when the book is left in a public place for anybody to pick up. Personally I tend to think about my releases slightly differently. I have always felt that leaving a book at an Official Book Crossing Zone (OBCZ) is less wild than leaving it anywhere else. I also decided to distinguish books which I have taken to bookcrossing meets. Obviously I tend to see who takes these books away but when I set off for the meet I have no idea who, if anyone, is going to take them so they aren't quite the same as most controlled releases.
There are various estimates for the percentage of released books which are journalled, often these estimates range from 10% to 20%. I have no idea what research, if any at all, these estimates are based on.
Based on 109 books that I have released since getting involved with bookcrossing in 2008 I have 37% rate of journal entries. This is quite a bit higher than is considered normal.
66 of my releases have been in OBCZ's and 26% of these have been journalled. This is only slightly higher than normal .
Of my 18 truly wild releases only 2 have been journalled. This represents 11% which is within the range normally expected.
My statistics are skewed by the 69% journal rate on my 13 controlled releases and the 100% journal rate on the 12 books which have been taken away from meetings.
On the bookcrossing forums it is not unusual to hear of books being journalled years after being released. The journal entries on my books have sometimes been made on the day they were released, usually for books taken from meets, up to 258 days after the release date.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
