Words With Impact: Deepen Vocabulary with Dreams

Workshop: Discover Words That Sing

“All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope, then through a microscope, and then through an opera glass.”                                   Lewis Carroll

One year my grandson’s class did an art project studying Chagall. It was fascinating to see the images these six year-olds chose to reflect in their emerging sense of self-portrait and what they remembered as being important to them. And satisfying to see that almost every child chose some depiction of home or school as being a safe place. This is the age to be able to dream big dreams, to become someone new every day and learn to stretch their imagination into possibilities.

For some, this season can become a root of direction. Perhaps not the actual future vocation, but the essence of value begins to come to light. For others, it’s a long journey. For all of us at any age it’s a struggle to know when to pursue a dream, and when it needs to be altered.

One little girl splashed dance all over her portrait, basically ignoring all the other categories suggested as possibilities. Motion and movement poured out of her. Will she become a dancer—only time will tell if that dream is a concrete reality—but somewhere music will likely be a large part of her life.

Most childhood dreams fade with laughter, however some fade leaving behind a dark shadow when a piece of us become cut away along with the dream. Or dismissed as being irrelevant—impossible—irresponsible.

Maybe for ourselves, and our characters, we need to stop, reflect, remember our own dream of our self-portrait and see if we’ve forgotten something important that needs to be refreshed. Langston Hughes captures that essence in his poem, which I have shared in an earlier blog.

Dreams by Langston Hughes

                        “Hold fast to dreams

                        For if dreams die

                        Life is a broken-winged bird

                        That cannot fly

                        Hold fast to dreams

                        For when dreams go

                        Life is a barren field

                        Frozen with snow”

Action Steps:

1. Two prominent images here are the broken-winged bird and the barren field. What are some feelings you associate with these images?

2. What two or three words would your character use to remember a broken dream?

3. Which of Langston’s words connect with Carroll’s lens in the opening quote?

Share: One image you chose and your reason why.

Read deep, marcy

Words With Impact: Deepen Vocabulary with Ambiguity

Workshop: Discover Words That Sing

“One is poised on the Threshold of life waiting to be born. It’s an ongoing process. Some of us are not happy unless we are born over and over again, still trying to get it right.” Tim Wynne-Jones

And sometimes we need a sense of ambiguity to discover new possibilities.

Memory gives us the process of choice and decision-making and thresholds. Our understanding grows and our perspectives shift. A right choice made once before has now become a wrong choice. An ordinary day shifts suddenly into the unexpected—sometimes by events—sometimes morally.

Scripture stories, fairy-tales and folk-tales speak this language into our hearts. We’re not left without access to wisdom or experience. Others have taken this journey and we find hints how to find our way through.

The day began on an ordinary walk through the woods with their father searching for food, but this time Hansel and Gretel are abandoned. They step into the unknown. Many of their choices are made without mature knowledge but they rely on instinct. Red Riding Hood travels a familiar path to her grandmother’s house, but comes back from one visit completely different, or is she?

The added beauty from a journey perspective is that the reality of common day-to-day activities can be developed into shadows, as passages from long ago or as foretelling to the future. All also have the potential to tap into echoes and allusions and metaphors. It opens up creativity and new beginnings. “Which way is in and which way is out.”

  

Action Steps:

Although nothing illegal has happened to your protagonist, she begins to notice some discrepancies in the paperwork she is responsible for tracking. When she asks her boss he dismisses it as unimportant. However she realizes that only her signature is on the documents. And she really needs this job.

1. What are her options?

2. What course of action does she choose and why?

3. What effect could each of these possibilities create?

Share: What word best captures her dilemma?

Read deep, marcy

Words With Impact: Deepen Vocabulary Experience

Workshop: Discover Words That Sing

In her book, I Could tell You Stories, Hampl explores the realm of memory in auto-biographical writing connected by the impulse to remember. She pointed out that both Kafka and Rilke saw memory, “not experience”, as holding the sovereign position in imagination.

For herself Hampl discovered: “The recognition of one’s genuine material seems to involve a fall from the phony grace of good intentions and elevated expectations.”

Although she shares via the route of memoir, this door of recognition applies to all forms of writing. If we are unable to infuse our memories, or perhaps our search for our memories into our work then we rob it of honest quest and discovery and an imagination that connects. Each person’s voice is unique and bears witness to life. But in order to share, we first need to identify what really matters to us.

When we enter into our vocations we need the community of artisans and colleagues to teach and sharpen and encourage growth and skills. We learn from the collective memory, some living and some dead, classroom by personal experience, or classrooms through reading or other forms of art. In some ways it’s a modern day version of guilds where skills can be passed down from generation to generation. And everyone benefits.

However when we are fortunate enough to find a mentor, that experience deepens into our hearts and becomes a spiritual inheritance as well. They give us the tools that help us identify our particular bent or purpose or skill within the body. And when we stumble or lose our direction they give us their gift of memory by asking questions that remind us why we started, and where our vision is, and how to find our starting point again. They are a rare gift. They share from generous hearts.

Stories that will help us construct. Words passed along with commitment and humor, with love and challenge, with hope and integrity. Words to be valued. Poured out words.

Action Steps:

1. Go down the list below and write next to each category the words or ideas that sustain you when the road gets blurry or helps you remember your goals.

            Insight

            Wisdom

Moral Foundation

Compass Point

Quality of Craft

“Calling”

Responsibility

Affirmation

2. Which concept or words can you give to your characters?

Share: What is a lifelong insight that you received from a mentor?

Read deep, marcy

Words With Impact: Deepen Vocabulary Definitions

Workshop: Discover Words That Sing

“’You!’ said the Caterpillar contemptuously. ‘Who are you?’” Lewis Carroll

Sometimes we need precise definitions to avoid confusion.

What is the difference between a hero, a celebrity, and a role model?

When I would ask my college students this question, as an introduction to a research essay, at least half the students responded with a puzzled expression. Usually one would have the courage to reply, “Aren’t they all the same?”

So we would break out into small groups to write definitions and give examples and talk out experiences. This was one set of essays I always looked forward to reading to see how they discovered personal concrete definitions of their own that related to their lives.

Two quotes from our readings that drew the most discussion included the “hero evolves as the culture evolves” according to Joseph Campbell discussing the hero’s adventure, and one article re Rosa Parks that said, “Perhaps the most interesting thing about her was how ordinary she was.”

In some ways Rosa Parks did fit all three definitions but as the class continued to research and discuss it became more obvious that it was outside perceptions that created all the labels—and were not necessarily warranted in all situations. Because of her personal integrity and genuine character, Rosa Parks was already a role model who then became a news celebrity by her actions, and has since become a hero.

But then is a hero someone who does one amazing rescue, or a faithful parent who shows up each day? How can we determine quality substance under media glitz?

And then, how have our lives been influenced by those whom we desire to emulate? What happens when we discover our ‘heroes’ have clay feet?

Have you heard the saying that you are what you eat? The application applies to be careful whom we have emulated, or do so now, and what we value as purpose in life. And so do our characters. 

  

Action Steps:

1. Ask your character how she defines a hero, a celebrity and a role model?

2. Based on her answers choose which one has had the most personal influence on her?

3. Is the influence positive or negative? Why?

Share: What characteristic of your personal role model do you still try to emulate?

Read deep, marcy