WriteOut is Now!

What is WriteOut?

Write Out is a free two-week event—October 13-27, 2024—organized as a series of online activities where educators, students, and the public are invited to explore national parks and other public spaces to connect and learn through place-based writing and sharing. Write Out is in its seventh year and is sponsored by the National Writing Project. This year’s theme is Poetry for the Planet.

Write Out began in 2018 and was developed through a cooperative agreement between the National Writing Project (NWP) and the National Park Service. NWP focuses the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of our nation’s educators on sustained efforts to improve writing and learning for all learners. Visit www.nwp.org or email at nwp@nwp.org.

National Writing Project Their work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Write Out Resources:

• Information: Write Out – Place-Based Learning with the National Writing Project
• Infographic: https://writeout.nwp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Write-Out-Infographic-v2024.pdf
• Ways to Share: Sharing Your Outside Writing – Teach Write Now
• Poetry Prompts: Poetry-powered Prompts for Writing Outside – Teach Write Now
• Choice Board for Writing: Choice Board – Write Out Download the PDF
• Resources from Past WriteOut to Support Outside Writing: Resources from Write Out – Write Out
• Frequently Asked Questions: FAQ – Write Out
• If you’d like to support the project: Support Write Out – Write Out

WriteOut in Coulee Country

I love WriteOut — it’s a chance for me to get back into poetry and slow down while walking the dog to better enjoy autumn’s delights with a focus on paying attention to what the dog and I see. To give back to the people at National Writing Project and the National Park Service, I purchased a few sets of field notes and stickers for this event, and afterwards as I continue the practice of observation, enjoying, writing. You can find these on the Support page, but the goal is for everyone to get outside and write. Keep reading to see how the prompts helped me to get started in my own yard!

From the Choice Board

Pumpkins In Autumn

This week we attended the community events at two Pumpkin Patches just up the hill on the wheat fields. We bought and brought home a wagon full of huge and small pumpkins of all sorts of colors and shapes to add a bit of color to the front yard as summer slowly retreats.

However, since we live in a small, rural town, the neighborhood is graced with a couple herds of mule deer, lots of turkeys, and some pesky raccoons.

We brought the dog home to help chase away the critters, but our rescue golden-doodle loves everyone and everything. He’s no help with that.

And so the lovely pumpkins quickly become a sweet treat for the mule deer each night– or even during the middle of the day!

Here’s my field note:

I pulled up the WriteOut Choice Board and chose to watch How to Write a Haiku from Willeena Booker, a poet and teacher consultant of the Philadelphia Writing Project.

Based on my short field note, I started a haiku by counting syllables of phrases suggested by my notes:

• 5 syllables: Pumpkins in autumn [pump kins i aut um = 5 syllables]
• 7 syllables: Color summer’s slow leaving — [col or sum mer’s slow leav ing = 7 syllables]
• 5 syllables: Tasty bites for deer — [ tas ty bites for deer = 5 syllables]

And so, my haiku:

Pumpkins in autumn
Color summer’s slow leaving—
Tasty bites for deer.

Sheri Edwards
Photography/Poetry
10.13.24

INVITATION

I hope you enjoyed this little adventure in my own yard as I explored nature also enjoying our yard! Adventures are everywhere outdoors. Even in your neighborhood. And what you discover, you can write about– either the story or a poem or a fact sheet. What will you discover and write?

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Join in!

This post is part of the October WRITEOUT adventure, October 13 through the 27th, partnership of the National Writing Project and the National Park Service — a chance to enjoy the outdoors with poetry, prose, and parks for Write Out 2024. Organized as a public invitation to get out and create, supported by a series of free online activities, Write Out invites educators, students, and families to explore national parks and other public spaces. The goal is to connect and learn through place-based writing and sharing.  Check out this infographic for the flow of the this week and the Choice Board to get you started for WriteOut’s Poetry for the Planet.

Learn more and sign up: https://writeout.nwp.org

This is my seventh year with WriteOut with all my WriteOut posts here.