{"id":2823,"date":"2017-05-27T06:37:09","date_gmt":"2017-05-27T13:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=2823"},"modified":"2020-06-22T03:24:47","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T10:24:47","slug":"investigating-childhood-writing-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/investigating-childhood-writing-exercise\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigating Your Childhood-A Writing Exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent weeks, I\u2019ve had a few requests from readers that I post another series of writing prompts. I am happy to do so. These are from my writing workshop called \u201cInvestigating Your Childhood\u201d I used it with multiple grade levels and found it produced some highly revealing and delightful remembrances. I always loved encouraging students to write from a space of joy. It\u2019s a healthy process and younger writers seemed more inclined to share pieces of joy as opposed to pain. I remind myself daily to write from a space of joy. The therapeutic benefits of doing so are incalculable.<\/p>\n

As for the teaching methodology here, some students blended multiple responses into a larger essay that displayed seamless transitions. Others connected to one prompt and kept going and going. Some even took it a fictional route and created something<\/em> better<\/em> they wanted from childhood. These often became short stories.<\/p>\n

A while back, I responded to these prompts and the exercise produced some interesting, highly eccentric writing about growing up in Oregon City. (My grade school, now closed, is pictured here.) Oregon City has very much been on my mind of late and I have starting diving deep into its modern lore. There is something unique in my growing up there in the 70s and early 80s. I\u2019m starting to recognize that and it\u2019s exerting a powerful force on my creativity. \u00a0I know I have a book in me about OC.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. What was your favorite game of childhood?<\/li>\n
  2. Describe a time you were lost or alone as a child.<\/li>\n
  3. What was the most sacred object from your childhood?<\/li>\n
  4. Describe a special or secret place from childhood.<\/li>\n
  5. Describe your best friend from childhood.<\/li>\n
  6. What was a special home in your childhood?<\/li>\n
  7. Describe a time you suffered emotional or physical trauma in childhood.<\/li>\n
  8. What was your best or worst moment at school in childhood?<\/li>\n
  9. Describe a pet from childhood.<\/li>\n
  10. What is a saying or line of dialogue you remember from childhood?<\/li>\n
  11. Who or what did you fear in childhood?<\/li>\n
  12. Who or what had the most influence on you as a child?<\/li>\n
  13. Describe a time you transgressed in childhood.<\/li>\n
  14. The thing you remember most from childhood.<\/li>\n
  15. What was the hardest lesson you learned from childhood?<\/li>\n
  16. What would you do over from childhood?<\/li>\n
  17. What childhood do you wish you\u2019d had?<\/li>\n
  18. When did your childhood end?<\/li>\n
  19. Was there a reoccurring dream or nightmare from your childhood?<\/li>\n
  20. What\u2019s something important missing from American childhood today?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n\n

    \n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In recent weeks, I\u2019ve had a few requests from readers that I post another series of writing prompts. I am happy to do so. These are from my writing workshop called \u201cInvestigating Your Childhood\u201d I used it with multiple grade levels and found it produced some highly revealing and delightful remembrances. I always loved encouraging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28],"tags":[192,57,56,7,193,31],"class_list":["post-2823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-writing","tag-childhood","tag-teachers","tag-teaching","tag-writing","tag-writing-prompts","tag-writing-workshop","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2825,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions\/2825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}