A Scrap Craft Graphic Organizer for Visual, Kinesthetic Learners

Do you know what sort of learner you are? Knowing how you learn is the best way to retain knowledge and work more efficiently, even if you're no longer a student. Here’s a short test with instant results (and a colorful pie chart)!

I am equal parts visual and kinesthetic which explains why I have to motivate myself with a craft project to start a writing project.

Sad Old Tree Limb

This tree limb was hanging too low over the driveway, so my husband chopped it off. As it lay in the yard last August, leaves wilting, I decided it was too pretty to become yard waste. If Crate & Barrel can charge $80 for bamboo branches, I’ll be content to do a little labor to decorate my office. Plus, I’m pretty sure my branch’s carbon footprint is lower.

Of course I didn’t want the leaves wilting on my desk, so I pulled them off and trimmed the branches a bit. I put two large screws into the studs and wired the branch to the screws.

At that time I was thinking about an outline for a novel. This tree branch, combined with the traditional Aristotelian dramatic arc might lend itself to the type of story I’ve been thinking of.

Out come the craft supplies:

Punched-out Tags & Ultra-fine Point Sharpies

Twine & Clothes Pins

The twiggy parts of the right end of the limb represent different characters as their story lines are introduced. As the twigs intersect on the limb, so do the characters’ lives.

Tree Limb in Action

It’s okay if the story movement doesn’t mimic the tree limb exactly. I never want to be formulaic. The best part about a pre-writing exercise is purging ideas onto paper before they slip away. 

This exercise gets my body out of my desk chair and ideas out of my head. Of course, these ideas will be reordered, deleted, and supplemented throughout the writing process. A visual learner like me can find security in this colorful visual outline to consult rather than scrolling through pages of a traditional outline or, worse yet, relying on my slippery memory.

Discover how you learn and never stop. 

Inaugural Blogural: Defining Ragamuffin Scrap Craft

Ragamuffin

Once when I was four my mother called me a ragamuffin. Using my limited context, I tried to make sense of the word.

Grover on Sesame Street taught me to take words apart when I didn’t know what they meant. The “rag” part of the new title conjured images of the shirt scraps my mother squirted with lemon Pledge to dust the furniture. The “muffin” part made me think of Strawberry Shortcake’s muffin-shaped hat. A ragamuffin then must smell delicious—like lemons and strawberries. What an honor!

Now I realize she was lovingly teasing my unkempt appearance. Hand-me-down play clothes and a terrible haircut were of no consequence to this contented child. My mother gave me the choice for my thick, coarse hair: engage in battle each day with my mangled mane—combs with bent teeth and bottles of ‘No More Tangles’ as our weapons. Or, simply cut it off. Preferring playtime to torture, I chose the latter. Between the ages of four and seven, I sported several terrible short hair styles, quite contentedly at that.

In college I encountered the word ragamuffin again, this time in my Medieval English Literature class. Rather than relying on my Sesame Street etymology practices, I employed foot notes and the Oxford English Dictionary Online to understand words not already part of my vocabulary. (Medieval English required more looking up than actual reading.) In Piers Plowman, the ragamuffin was the demon character. Oh, crushing blow! Surely, my mother meant the less severe definition for me.

I’m somewhere on the spectrum of ragamuffinness, with God’s help, constantly striving for the charming, child-like end.

Scrap Craft

This definition comes more easily—I will lift it from one of my favorite new books. In Garden Anywhere, Alys Fowler calls scrap craft “when you reuse or recycle unwanted items into something useful” (9). Fowler, a gardener and writer, adopted the practice of scrap craft as a means of protest against mass manufacturing, and a way to save money. It didn’t take long for her to feel the intrinsic reward of making something lovely and useful from trash.

In my upbringing Scrap Craft was called resourcefulness. The Green movement and the current state of the economy could be catalysts for a Scrap Craft movement, but my grandparents have always lived this way: the vegetable peels are saved for garden compost, the Ziploc bags are rinsed and hung on the clothesline to be reused, junk lumber is made into an end table.

The Bible would call this “Stewardship”, a wise use of resources. After all, none of this—not even a Ziploc bag—is ours. We should make good use of what God gives us. Our Creator Himself is the Master Scrap Crafter, taking the brokenness that we are, and making something lovely of it when we allow ourselves to be scooped from the dumpster that is this fallen world.

Ragamuffin Scrap Craft

One of the most difficult aspects of authentic Christianity is admitting our brokenness, recognizing the fact that without a loving Creator to change us, we are worthless. Without that admission, there is no need for God, no need for the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

Wherever you find yourself on the spectrum of ragamuffinness—more like a playful urchin or an utter demon—I hope my writing draws you nearer to the authentic love of God and his never-ceasing desire to use us in His beauty. Even broken, even used, even with bad haircuts.

Heavenly Father,

Bless my writing so that it may draw others to your freeing Truth and renewing love. Give me understanding of Your works that I may share with others. Help me to be courageous in writing what are normally only my inner thoughts or conversations I have with my husband.

In my vanity make me like my four-year-old self.
In my dealings with others, make me like your Son.

Amen.