Celebrating Creativity: Acrostic Poetry & Summer Vacation

Acrostic Poetry Teaching/Learning Tool

There is some kind of magic in acrostic poetry. Each semester, when I teach this poetry, I am always impressed by the creative ways with which my participants play with their words. This semester I was particularly taken aback by this poem.

What struck me when I read this poem in Lim Seungcheol’s reflective journal were the multiple layers of understanding he had created. He used the acrostic poem as a medium to reflect his understanding of this type of poetry. But the beauty of it is that not only was it a tool for deepening his understanding, now it is also a teaching tool for when he goes back school. He will be able to share this poem with his students to help them understand the basic rules of an acrostic poem.

The process he went through is an example of the creative power of reflection. At first he thought he was simply writing a reflective journal entry to explore what he had learned. At the time he was not aware that he was also creating material he would be able to take back to his students. This is a good reminder that if you ever run out of ideas, flip through your reflective journals or browse through your reflective blogs, you just never know what useful gems you’ve already created.

Summer Vacation Blogging

To celebrate my own creativity, I am taking this post as an opportunity to unveil my newly revamped personal blog Private Mixture: Celebrating Life’s Idiosyncrasies. I had taken a break from posting to this blog because I wanted to focus my energy on building and strengthening my professional blog, Throwing Back Tokens. But now that school’s out for summer, I’m inspired to also explore my playful side.

I guess you can consider Private Mixture as my vacation blog :) This is a space I use to post about curious moments I encounter. In a sense my personal blog will be about my reflections on life in general. Reflection is still at the core.

Of course I will still continue posting every Monday on Throwing Back Tokens. But when you need a little break from all that serious professional reflection, come on over to Private Mixture.

As always, thank you for reading and I hope you’re having a great summer!