Feeling Grumpy? Writing About Emotions

Guest Post by Courtney Pippin-Mathur

Ever wake up in “a crispy, crunchy grumpy” mood? That’s what happens in Maya Was Grumpy, a picture book I wrote and illustrated. Sometimes you just wake up on the wrong side of the bed and that is exactly what happens to Maya. She’s not sure why she’s not into coloring, wearing her favorite clothes or eating her favorite snack but all she wants to go is grump around the house and share her bad mood.

Luckily, her grandmother is there to help Maya get less grumpy by pointing out all of the wild adventures they are missing out on because of Maya’s grumps. With each wild suggestion, Maya starts to feel a bit better until she is finally ready to go play.

Emotions rule our lives, especially as children. Use the text to discuss different emotions and how they affect a story.

-Why is Maya grumpy?

-Do you ever wake up in a bad mood? Or Sad?

-Write a story based on just one emotion and how it might affect your day.

Maya is a fun read aloud with lots of alliteration and sometimes unusual words to describe Maya’s sour moods.

-Brainstorm fun words to describe moods besides the first ones you think of. 

-Instead of happy, what about jubilant? Instead of sad, what about morose?

-Play with word sounds.  Alliteration is a poetic sound device that makes reading fun.

-Write a  first draft of a paragraph about a simple story. On the second draft, write a paragraph using as many types of alliteration or assonance or just fun sounding words as you can think of.

There are clues in the artwork that sometimes aren’t stated in the story. These little details are what makes a picture book fun!

-What is something that you notice about Maya’s hair and how it reacts to her mood?

- On the playground spread do you see all of the animals Maya’s grandma mentioned?

-Do you think she was inspired by the animals in her stories? 

- What are some real-life things you can change or exaggerate to make a fun story?

 *Bonus- There is an Activity page on my site where you can color a picture of Maya and draw what you think caused her bad mood. 

BIO: Courtney Pippin-Mathur was born and raised in East Texas but now lives on the East Coast. She shares her house with a knight, a princess and two dragons. This leads to many exciting adventures with lots of breaks for reading. She has written and illustrated two picture books, Maya Was Grumpy and Dragons Rule, Princesses Drool! Visit her online at http://www.pippinmathur.com/

MAKE UP YOUR MIND WITH DR. SEUSS!

by Jacqueline Jules

What child (or adult) has not had trouble making up his or her mind?  Dr. Seuss in his posthumously published book What Pet Should I Get? delightfully captures this common dilemma in trademark Seuss rhyme and illustrations. This picture book would be a perfect read aloud and prompt for a personal narrative writing exercise.

·       Can you describe a time when you had trouble making up your mind?

·       Did you ever end up with nothing because you couldn’t choose just one thing?

·       What factors made your decision difficult?

·       Did you make your final decision alone or with the help of someone else?

·       How did you feel when you finally chose?

·       Did you regret your decision later?

Students can brainstorm as a class with the questions above before writing individual essays. Encourage students to write about situations beyond choosing a pet. Make lists of all the things people make decisions about on a daily basis. ie: clothes, food, television shows. Discuss times when students have made a decision to please someone else, like buying a gift or planning a party. Name important decisions people make during their lives. ie: choosing a school,  a house, a car, a job, a spouse. Decision making is an integral part of our lives and something we do on a daily, even hourly basis.

And trouble making up your mind is an experience students from all backgrounds can relate to, making it a slam dunk prompt for writing personal narratives.

Happy Writing!

www.jacquelinejules.com

SHOP AT THE MONSTORE FOR HALLOWEEN

guest post by Tara Lazar

How would your students like to visit a store where they can buy any monster they please?

Crawl right this way, into The Monstore. (But you must know the secret knock and hand over a bag of squirmy worms, the monsters’ favorite treat.)

When I visit schools and book fairs, I hand out a coloring sheet, where the children can draw a monster of their imagination, one that performs snazzy tricks, like gobbling up a child’s gross uneaten dinner, or as one girl wrote, “shooting cupcakes from his feet.” You never know what the kids will come up with!

One of the most frequently asked questions at my book readings is, “When is The Monstore 2 coming out?” Yep, the book ends with a cliffhanger, and I’m not telling what happens next…

But that cliffhanger also creates a stepping stone to a fabulous writing prompt for young writers.

Read The Monstore and then ask the students:

·       What happens at The Monstore 2?

·       What kind of monsters can you buy?

·       What special talents do they have?

·       Who is the new Monstore Manager?

·       Is there a return policy?

·       Which monster gets sold first?

·       Who buys the first monster? And why?

·       Are the monsters happy or sad to be bought?

·       Do any adults find out about The Monstore 2?

Your class can even brainstorm questions to write about, plus students can use the sheet above to draw the monster they’d like to purchase.

I like to think that anything goes with this prompt—the monsters can do anything, the store can make any policy it chooses, and anyone can make a purchase, even with just a few pennies.

BIO: Street magic performer. Hog-calling champion. Award-winning ice sculptor. These are all things Tara Lazar has never been. Instead, she writes quirky, humorous picture books featuring magical places that adults never find. Her debut The Monstore was released in June 2013, with I Thought This Was a Bear Book and Little Red Gliding Hood to follow in 2015. Tara is also the founder of PiBoIdMo, Picture Book Idea Month, an annual online writing event for picture book authors and illustrators. There are writing tips, giveaways and book reviews galore at taralazar.com.

TALKING TOOTHBRUSHES

by Mary Amato

One of my most popular creative writing exercises is very simple. Choose two inanimate objects and imagine they are having a conversation. You can make this into a fun classroom lesson that you can use to discuss voice, dialogue, character, and point of view.

1. Define what an inanimate object is.

2. Brainstorm a list of objects—perhaps even asking each student to come up with a list of 8-10 objects. Put all the suggestions into a big bowl and ask students to each draw two objects.

3. Give them 5 minutes to write a dialogue between the two objects. If a student gets stuck, suggest that one character asks the other, “What do you want?” Discuss what was easy or hard about this. Brainstorm how the conversations could be revised, if desired.

Look at how plays/scripts are formatted and talk about how formatting dialogue can help a reader to understand who is talking. Allowing students to act out their dialogues in pairs is really fun and motivating. Enjoy!

www.maryamato.com

WHAT IF? and WHAT ELSE?: Helping Young Writers Expand Their Stories

by Jacqueline Jules

What if your character was pursued by a wolf? How could she save herself?

What else could you add to make the reader feel your main character’s fear?

“What if?” and “What else?” These two short questions can help young writers get into the habit of expanding and resolving their fiction stories. Post them with a cute graphic and remind your budding writers to brainstorm throughout the creation of their stories, particularly when they find themselves stuck in the middle. Young writers are often unable to end their stories because their main character doesn’t have a problem to solve. Asking WHAT IF—the character wanted something, the character was afraid of something, the character was in danger, etc.—naturally leads to a problem in need of resolution.

The question WHAT ELSE? opens the conversation about adding details.

A great picture book for modeling this process is The Plot Chickens by Mary Jane and Herm Auch. In this book, Henrietta, a book-loving chicken, writes a story with the help of her three chicken aunts. Together, they brainstorm an adventure entitled, “The Perils of Maxine,” about a hen who ventures into the woods and is pursued by a wolf. Henrietta follows a set of “Writing Rules” which includes the very wise advice of developing your plot by asking the question, “What if?”

After reading The Plot Chickens with several groups of students, I’ve had a humorous frame of reference for asking the question “What if?” during writing conferences. Brainstorming should never be restricted to pre-writing. It is an essential part of plot and character development and the best way to move a stalled story forward. Questions fuel stories like gasoline powers cars. Help your students keep their pencils moving by asking “What if?” and “What else?”  

http://www.jacquelinejules.com/

CRAFTING STORIES TOGETHER

by Pamela Ehrenberg

We're all social creatures—even, or maybe especially, writers.  I remember this each time I see the other Pencil Tips bloggers and a few dozen other "book people" at meetings of the

Children's Book Guild of Washington, DC.  The social hour at the beginning of each meeting looks something like a bee hive: dozens of authors, illustrators, and librarians, otherwise content to putter away on their own, are suddenly set free in a room buzzing with social energy, and we need to absorb enough to last through the coming weeks of solitary creation.

For young writers, various types of group story exercises can channel some of that social buzz, directing it in a way that's productive for writing and helping writers build enough trust to feel comfortable giving and receiving feedback.  Writopia workshops, with three to six participants each, use this form of the group story exercise to create fiction stories:

First, participants brainstorm several possible settings and several possible problems for the story, selecting one of each. Together, they flesh out the characters, making sure to choose the same number of characters as there are workshop participants.  They think through what each character looks like, what each character wants, and what the characters are likely to do to try to get what they want.  The students determine an outline of the plot, along with beginning and ending lines for each section—then each person writes a section of the story, from one character's point of view.

Hilarity often ensues.  Surprisingly strong writing often ensues too.  But most importantly, kids who didn't even know each other an hour earlier have now shared the intimate process of crafting a story—giving them courage to support each other as they move forward with their own work.

It can be a challenge for us as teachers, and writers, to break down our ideas of writing as a universally solitary activity.  But exercises like group story can help students get their first tastes of what it's like to be part of a writing community.  Now there's something worth buzzing about.

http://www.pamelaehrenberg.com/

P.S. Don't forget to comment for a chance to win a copy of Pam Smallcomb's I'm Not!



PENCIL TIPS GIVEAWAY!
Win a signed copy of I'm Not by Pam Smallcomb
To enter, leave a comment on a Pencil Tips blog post
Random winner contacted September 30th

"...a fresh take on friendship/reassurance stories and is, for sure, not boring"

- starred review Kirkus Reviews December 2010

Leave a comment at any Pencil Tips blog post between now and September 30th
for a chance to win a signed copy.



ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

by Pamela Ehrenberg

Last week I led a teen writing workshop in which participants--and the grownups who paid their registration--were promised that each writer would finish the workshop with a completed short story.  The experience of looking over their shoulders all week (literally and virtually, using the document-sharing feature of Google docs) has me thinking a lot about endings--and about the helpful piece that Jacqueline Jules wrote about endings this spring.

One writer in my group stared at her screen for long periods of time between sentences, without apparent frustration but also without adding much to her story some days.  Another writer began typing the minute she walked in the room, never stuck for ideas--but with each new character, nuance, and plot twist, I worried whether she would finish in time for the celebratory reading at the end of the workshop.

Teachers of reluctant writers face one set of challenges in helping their students complete a piece.  But teachers of dedicated, lifelong, even gifted writers face a different set of challenges.  These writers have so many ideas for their characters, and such high ideals for what they want to accomplish, that their story grows richer and more elaborate, in their mind or on the screen, without finding its way to an end. 

To help the group along, I found myself gaining inspiration not from famous writers or notable teachers, but rather from my friend Holly who recently helped me plan and implement a kitchen renovation.  We began by brainstorming from the big wide universe of possibilities, but to narrow down our ideas we had to look at what we could realistically accomplish in this particular space, on this particular budget, with this particular two-year-old living in the house.  Limitations forced us to make choices, and choices helped us to break past indecision toward a soon-to-be realized goal.

So, did those two students finish their stories?  I vote "yes," though both say they want to edit and polish more before their work appears in the workshop's online publication.  As I think of the blinds and seat cushions yet to arrive in the kitchen--but more importantly, as I think of my novels, especially the ones already published--I can identify with the urge to tinker just a little more, and a little more, off into the sunset.  But as another Holly, science fiction writer Holly Lisle , describes in her One-Pass Manuscript Revision, "Your career lies in writing a book, and writing another book, and writing a book after that. " For our students and for us, it's time to get finished so we can really get started.

http://www.pamelaehrenberg.com/