Six Days of Holiday Colors
Day #2 – The Word Splash Process
Ruminating about Christmas colors stirred up a stream of consciousness about using colors in writing. I used word splashes long before I got into writing professionally. It started with numbered lists. But what started out as a neat line-up of ideas soon morphed into bunches of words crunched together all over my list page. To keep them separated, I would put them in circles and outline them in magic markers. Some brilliant teacher must have seen my scrawls and named them word splashes.
Years later I used word splashes to help kids get started during writing time. Most kids loved it. Some with a colorful passion. Outlining. Coloring in the “puddles.” Adding exploding lines coming all around the splash.
Here’s how it works: Put your title or main idea in the middle of the page. As you think of ideas that go with the title, write them all around the page; circle the letters. And where does the color come in?
Second phase. Ideas that go together get the same color. “Which will be the beginning of your story?” “The red ones, definitely.” “Why red first?” “Duh, it’s the best color.”
Young authors know they are the boss of their writing.
Rainbow Word splash.
