GACW Fall 2025 - Day 1: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
1. Welcome: “Tell Me Something Good”
2. Warm-Up Game: Exquisite Corpse
Pass around a sheet of paper. Each student writes a title, passes it to the next person who writes one line of a story or poem to go with the title.
Fold the paper so only the last line is visible and pass it on.
Continue until the page is full, then unfold and read aloud the wild, collaborative piece.
3. Main Lesson: “Writing the World Around Us”
Activity:
Read the quotes & poems (below) aloud.
Brief discussion after each: What images, feelings, or questions come to mind?
Brainstorm: 3 natural objects – pick one – sensory details – brainstorm
Choose: Write a scene where a character encounters nature in a surprising way OR Write a poem about one small detail in nature.
4. Share & Reflect
Quote Inspiration:
Mary Oliver:
“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
Wendell Berry:
“The Earth is what we all have in common.”
Short Poems:
1. Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694)
An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
Splash! Silence again.
2. Joy Harjo (b. 1951)
“The eagle is circling, calling to us,
its cry is so high and searching,
we look everywhere, even into the dark.”
3. Lucille Clifton (1936–2010)
blessing the boats (excerpt)
“may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear.”
4. Langston Hughes (1902–1967)
Dreams
“Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.”
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver (1935-2019) was a Pulitzer Prize winning poet. She published several poetry collections, including Dog Songs: Poems (Penguin Books, 2015).