Jay Mankita presents interactive writing workshops tailored to any grade, including college level. From 10 minute classroom visits to residencies lasting a week or longer, Jay engages students through demonstration, discussion, and songwriting practice.
Philosophy
By approaching creativity with our whole body, 'listening' with all our senses, and practicing techniques which utilize both halves of our brain, we can deepen our access to, and take more responsibility for our own creativity. These practices can also enrich our understanding and appreciation for the creativity of others.
Synopsis
In a classroom setting, students learn and practice body-centered writing and presentation, through demonstration, exercise, and discussion. Workshops are fast paced and humorous, featuring techniques which allow for individual expression within a cooperative group setting.
In these process-oriented sessions, though short-term goals are reached for, we focus on the 'reaching for,' rather than on the goal. Question and answer periods allow the students to learn more about a performing artist as role model -- someone who enjoys his work, and whose work is informed by a positive, ethical perspective.
Classes are designed and tailored individually, based on age of students, size of groups, and student population. Pre-residency teacher guides are provided. Workshops stand on their own, but can be easily integrated with almost any curriculum.
Purpose
• Inspire students to create their own works, both during and after the workshop.
• Encourage enjoyment, excitement, and self-confidence about writing and creativity in general.
• Provide easy, practical methods for accessing a deeper, richer use of language.
• Demonstrate successful songwriting, poetry, and storytelling by presenting my own and others' work.
• Present a positive role-model as both a creative writer and a workshop leader.
Some recent thoughts on poetry.
Poetry is one way to express truth through beauty. Words can awaken what lies beneath words. A poem is a dance of beauty between chaos and order.
Rhyme, rhythm, and alliteration are tools which encourage young writers to explore and experiment with language. They speak to the logical mind by ordering information into discrete and predictable packages, while awakening the non-logical mind with whimsy and play. Encouraging students to learn the rules of writing may help them later to break them better.
In poetry, we see reflections of our own strengths and weaknesses. I respond to your poem diferently if it reflects my own qualities. A poem's perspective balances the personal with the universal.
Poetry offers children an opportunity to break new ground and discover truths they've known all along. Poetry moves us between our inside and our outside worlds, between what we know, and what we dream.