Here’s the plan:  for an undetermined stretch of Wednesdays (how long can I keep it going and do any of you care?) I’m going to try and share some element of my teaching that invites some writing on your part.  I’m going to start with a listing activity I call writing territories.  From those territories you’ll tell me ABOUT one of the words or phrases you’ve listed, or you’ll tell a STORY that comes from the territories.  From there we’ll work into some experiments trying all sorts of strategies for writing first sentences.  It’s an activity connected to the idea that some of our best teachers can be the texts that surround us.  I call these mentor texts.

Below you’ll find the video version of this blog post, and once I get to a spot where it makes sense to post a handout (perhaps to be used by a teacher in a classroom) I’ll make that available to you on my website at TheTorg.Com.

Next Wednesday Nov. 16th,  I’ll post the writing territories and invite you to post your responses to the prompts on your own blog.  Once you have that up, you can leave a comment to my blog post and link us up to your answers, perhaps with a brief summary or reflection of how the activity worked.  If don’t have a blog and want to set one up, I have a tutorial video here.  Of course all you have to do is ask Google, “How do I set up a WordPress blog?” and you’ll have more help than you know what to do with.

These Write With Me Wednesdays won’t be just me telling you how I teach.  I hope you’ll critique or otherwise add to how these activities might work for a variety of purposes.  I suspect those who might be willing to give this a try will be those who want to write, perhaps some bloggers I’ve met in the past year attending two Blogworld New Media Expo Conferences, and also teachers who teach writing and those who are looking to collaborate with other writers and teachers on the craft of their work.

What do you think?  Are you up for this?  Suggestions for my plan?