Writing Connections with Kelly Barnhill

by Mary Quattlebaum

Kelly Barnhill’s atmospheric novel The Girl Who Drank the Moon won this year’s Newbery Medal.  In an interview with the KidsPost section of the Washington Post, Barnhill talks about trying to create nuanced characters and her desire for a pet dragon as a kid.

Below are writing lessons for the classroom or for individual writers ages 8 and up.  Barnhill’s website has a hilarious FAQ about her writing process and information on her other books.

CREATING CHARACTERS:  Exploring Stereotype:  Barnhill’s novel is full of witches, who are usually presented as problematic in most books. Witches often are the villains or antagonists in fairy tales, for example.  Barnhill said that she wanted to push beyond the usual stereotype of the witch as mean (even evil), old, homely, and solitary.  Her witch characters are unique individuals, with a mix of positive and negative traits.

Classroom Discussion:  Have kids read the novel and make a list of the positive and negative traits for some of the witches.

Classroom Discussion and Writing:  Have students think about a character in a fairy tale or story that is usually presented in a stereotyped way.  The wolf in “The Three Little Pigs” or “Little Red Riding Hood,” is an example of a character that is usually presented only with negative traits.   The princess (“Cinderella,” “Snow White”) is usually presented with only positive traits.  Ask students to read their fairy tale carefully and list traits of this character or what they learn about the character from this tale.  Then ask them to give this character 1 or 2 traits that are the opposite of what they listed.  For example, the wolf might be listed as “nurturing” or Cinderella as “lazy.”  Ask students to write a story or even just a short scene to show this character with at least one positive and one negative trait.

An Unexpected Character:  We usually think of dragons as large fierce characters but the young witch’s pet in Barnhill’s novel is a tiny bossy dragon.  Classroom Discussion:  Ask kids to list some the physical and psychological traits of one of their favorite animals.  Then ask them to change one or two of the traits to its opposite (for example, from “big” to “small” of from “cuddly” to “fierce”), and in this way the character becomes fresh and unexpected.  Classroom Writing:  Ask students to create a story about or that includes such an unexpected pet.   Perhaps the unexpected pet is even the main character!  What happens next?

Ask a few students to volunteer to read their pieces aloud.  As a group, discuss what they learned about creating more nuanced or well-rounded characters and unexpected pets.

www.maryquattlebaum.com

Writing Connections with Adam Gidwitz

by Mary Quattlebaum

Adam Gidwitz’s new novel The Inquisitor’s Tale is proving as popular as his well-known “Grimm” novels, including A Tale Dark and Grimm.  In an interview with the KidsPost section of the Washington Post , Gidwitz talks about his research process for this novel, which is set in the Middle Ages.  As he traveled in Europe with his wife, a professor of medieval history, Gidwitz read about knights, saints and even a sacred dog.  All these things became part of his fictional tale, but he added many of his own intriguing details.  For example, the young peasant girl Jeanne is loosely based on St. Joan of Arc, of whom little is known of her childhood.  And a farting dragon makes an appearance!

Below are writing lessons for the classroom or for individual writers ages 8 and up.  Gidwitz’s website includes a teacher’s guide. 

EXPLORING HISTORY:  Classroom Discussion:  Gidwitz makes the past come alive by centering historic events in the lives of three young people and a dog on a dangerous quest for sacred objects.  You might apply his process to the classroom study of any historic time period—or even to the study of current events.

Classroom Writing:  Depending on what issue or historical time period you may be studying, you might help kids to connect to it on a more interactive, dramatic level.  Have each student make up a character who is involved in a historic event.  For example, a girl or boy involved in a suffrage march or Civil Rights Era eat-in.  Or a young neighbor helping the Wright brothers to fly the first airplane.  Or a youngster trying to grow food in a weedy Victory Garden during WWII.  What makes Gidwitz’s novel particularly compelling, though, is that the child characters must deal with uncertainty and danger, which creates suspense.  Sinister knights try to kidnap Jeanne; quicksand creates problems for travelers.

Ask students to put their characters in a moment of realistic danger or in the midst of a big problem that they must figure out how to solve/deal with.  Have them brainstorm some possible dangers/problems, alone and as a class.  What does the main character do?  Have students close their eyes and imagine this scene in their heads, focusing on what their kid character might see, hear, smell, taste, and touch as part of this experience.  What do their clothes look and feel like?  What’s their mode of transportation?  Do they have a pet?  Are they scared? Angry? Confused?

Students might do some internet or library or classroom book research.  For example, looking at historic photographs might give them ideas of details of clothing or historic items to include in their Historic Moments pieces.

Ask students to read their pieces aloud.  As a group, discuss what they learned by researching/writing these pieces—and by listening to others’ pieces.

www.maryquattlebaum.com

  

IF YOU COULD FLY ON A GIANT BIRD

by Jacqueline Jules

In my picture book, Princess and the Ziz, a princess flies all over the world on the back of a giant yellow bird.  The Princess and the Ziz is my own retelling of a very old Rapunzel tale involving King Solomon’s daughter who was rescued from a tower by a giant yellow bird called the Ziz.

During author visits, I often challenge young writers to imagine what it would be like to ride on the back of a giant bird. Where would you want to go? I’ve had many lively discussions with students about where they would like to go if they could ride in the air with a bird. While some students say the Bahamas, Disney World, or some other vacation spot, others tell me they’d like to visit grandparents or other relatives. One student told me she would like to fly over the rainbow with a giant bird. Now wouldn’t that make a good story!

Once a destination has been decided, students can brainstorm what they would see. If you are flying over Antartica, you might see penguins and snow. If you are flying over the jungle, you would see lots of greenery. Ask younger students to describe the scene in as much detail as possible. Older students could combine this writing exercise with geographic research. For example: If you were flying over Egypt, you would see pyramids. What else?

From there, students should consider what they would hear on their journey through the air. On the back of a bird, not enclosed the way you are in an airplane, you would hear the wind and the flapping of wings. Could you describe that? If you were flying over a city, you would hear the noise of traffic and building construction. What would that sound like? This could be an opportunity to encourage your students to use onomatopoeia. Students could make up their own words to imitate what they might hear from way up in the sky.

Finally, how would it feel to be in the sky on the back of a giant bird. Would you be frightened or excited? Would it be chilly? Would the ride be smooth or bumpy?

Visit my website for a writing template  to use in your primary classrooms.

The Princess and the Ziz is certainly not the only book which depicts a character flying in the sky via a giant bird. In Roald Dahl’s The Minpins, Little Billy flies around the world having adventures on the back of a giant swan. Fairy tales also depict characters riding on the backs of birds. Thumbelina in the story by Hans Christian Andersen flies on the back of a swallow.

Ask your students to write their own story about a character flying with the help of a friendly bird. Imaginations and feathers can soar through the clouds. Happy Flying!

www.jacquelinejules.com 

Using Fables and Fairytales to Help Students Generate Ideas

by Laura Gehl

When I visit classrooms to read my new picture book Hare and Tortoise Race Across Israel, I remind kids that one way authors get ideas is by starting with stories they already know.  I show various examples of picture books that are adapted fables and fairytales, including Goldilocks and Just One Bear by Leigh Hodgkinson and The Three Ninja Pigs by Corey Rosen Schwartz.

In your own classroom, you might want to read out loud a few examples of adapted fables and fairy tales.  Then you can transition to helping your students think about different ways of changing a known story. 

1)    Change the characters

Ask students to fill in the blank.  Goldilocks and the Three ______________.

Monsters?  Princesses?  Basketballs?  Other ideas?

How would changing the characters change the plot of the story?

2)    Change the setting

Ask students to fill in the blank.  Hare and Tortoise Race Across ____________.

Washington D.C.?  The United States?  Mars?  Other ideas? Which landmarks would students choose to include in each location?

3)    Change the numbers

Ask students to fill in the blank.  The _____ Little Pigs

5?  10?  100?  Other ideas?

If there were 5 little pigs, what materials might the two additional houses be made out of?  How would one hundred little pigs work together to defeat the wolf?

Ask your students—by themselves, in pairs, or in small groups—to choose one fable or fairytale and change the characters, the setting, or the numbers.  Then students can try writing up (and maybe illustrating!) their own stories.

Another fun activity for classroom writing is to create a mash-up.  What if Goldilocks wants to race against Hare and Tortoise?  Or what if the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood turns out to be the twin brother of the wolf from The Three Little Pigs…and they decide to team up?  Encourage your students to brainstorm different combinations of fables and fairytales, then to write up their favorite.

Starting with a known story takes the pressure off of kids to “think of an idea,” which frees them to be creative and, most importantly, to have fun!

Laura Gehl is the author of One Big Pair of Underwear, a Charlotte Zolotow Highly Commended Title; Hare and Tortoise Race Across Israel; And Then Another Sheep Turned Up; and the Peep and Egg series (hatching spring 2016).  Laura also writes about science for kids and adults.  She lives in Maryland with her husband and four children.  Visit Laura online at www.lauragehl.com and www.facebook.com/AuthorLauraGehl.

Writing Connections with Pam Munoz Ryan

by Mary Quattlebaum

Pam Munoz Ryan brings magic and music to a novel about social justice in Echo (Scholastic, 2015, ages 10-14). I talked recently with Pam about this new novel, set during World War II, and its magical harmonica.  Click here for the KidsPost/WashingtonPost  article.

Below are a few writing prompts for the classroom or for individual writers ages 8 and up.

FAIRY TALES AND MAGICAL OBJECTS:  The book opens with a fairy tale and an unlikely magical object: the ordinary harmonica.

Classroom Discussion:  Ask students how the harmonica helped the three children in the separate stories.  What did students learn about harmonicas?

Classroom Writing:  Ask students to bring in an ordinary object from home (baseball bat, stuffed toy, box, charm, etc.).  Have them write their own tale in which this object is magical.  What does it do?  If they do some research into the object (as Pam did with the harmonica), how might it enter into or make the tale even more interesting?

SOCIAL JUSTICE:  All the young characters wrestle with issues of social justice.  In Nazi Germany, Friedrich is marked as “undesirable” because of his birthmark.  In Pennsylvania, Mike and his younger brother can be farmed out to do unpaid labor by their orphanage.  In California, Ivy, who is Mexican American, must go to a school that’s different (and has fewer resources) than the one for white children.

Classroom Discussion:  How do these three children deal with the injustice in their lives?  Brainstorm other times in history when there was injustice (slavery, Civil Rights era, women denied the vote, etc.).  How did things change?  Have students think about some rules they may consider unfair at school or ways they feel they may have been treated unjustly at home or in the wider world.  How did this make them feel?  What did they do?  Have them list, first alone and then as a group, some injustices they see in this country and in the wider world.  What are some ways they might create change?

Classroom Writing:  Make up a character (or write about yourself) in a moment of injustice. First describe the injustice and how it affects others.  Then write about what happens to you or your character.  Read aloud and discuss.

MORE DETAILS ABOUT PAM:  Pam’s author website is www.pammunozryan.com.   

VISUAL LITERACY IN PICTURE BOOKS

by Joan Waites

As we have discussed in previous blog posts, the words and images in picture books make up two equal halves of the whole project. Whether a book is read independently by an older student, or read to a younger one by an adult, the images an artist uses to accompany the text add another level of understanding-Visual Literacy. Visual Literacy refers to the ability of an individual to understand and interpret images. The term "Visual Literacy" is credited to John Debes, Co-Founder of the Visual Literacy Association.

An artists' choice of images, style and medium all help to further tell the story. Point of view, cause and effect, mood, emotions, setting, features, and age of characters etc., can all be conveyed in the illustrations, even if not explained in the text.

Two exercises I have used with student groups which focus on Visual Literacy are as follows:

1.  Pick out several of your favorite picture books. After reading the text aloud, ask students to point out examples of how the artist tells the reader more than is explained in the text. Do we learn more about where the story takes place? Do we learn what the character's room looks like? Do we see how the main character reacts when he meets the new kid on the block?

2.  Present several examples of the same story illustrated by different artists. There are endless versions of Fairy Tales such as Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid  Ask students to point out the similarities and differences between each version. How has each artist depicted the main characters? How are they dressed? Do the versions show the characters in similar settings ? What about the choice of colors used?

Lastly, chose either one contemporary picture book or well known Fairy Tale and ask students to illustrate the same scene. Have students present their work to the class and discuss how each artist has used their own unique point of view to tell the story in pictures.

For more information Visual Literacy go to:

International Visual Literacy Association

TELLING WHO'S TELLING: POINT OF VIEW

by Laura Krauss Melmed

By the time we reach adulthood, most of us know (although it’s not always easy to keep it in mind) that the way in which one interprets the world depends on one’s point of view.  In teaching young students about point of view as a literary device, the goal is to help them understand the various perspectives from which a story can be conveyed by the author to the reader.  

There are three main categories of point of view:

The objective point of view presents the action and the characters' speech without comment or emotion.  Fairy tales and most picture books for young children are told in this straightforward manner, as if reporting a news story. As Sgt. Joe Friday used to say, for those of us old enough to remember, “Just the facts, Ma’am.”

First person narration tells the story from a character’s own vantage point including his or her thoughts and emotions.  This point of view appeals to children once they have reached the age of introspection, so we find it quite often in middle grade fiction.  A few examples are Island of the Blue Dolphins, Jacob Have I Loved, So B. It, and When You Reach Me. 

The omniscient narrator knows about and shares with us the thoughts, motivations, and feelings of all the characters.  It’s not used very often in middle grade fiction, but is employed skillfully by Jean Birdsall in The Penderwicks series, in which the story is told variously from the points of view of each of the four sisters, though in the third person. 

For teaching first person point of view, see Mary Quattlebaum’s recent Pencil Tips post on writing a two-person poem.  Use her suggestions for crafting a lesson based on her own beautiful poem told from the perspective of both a child and a firefly. Or, following the format of The Popularity Papers series for middle graders, ask the children to keep an illustrated journal of happenings in the classroom for one week, then compare the journals to get their different points of view.

A lesson on the omniscient narrator could begin with giving students a passage from a well-known folk or fairy tale.  Have them read it, and then ask them to pretend to be mind readers, rewriting the passage to let the reader in on the thoughts and feelings of the various characters in the passage.

I’ve used a scene from “The Gingerbread Man” as an example.  Here is the traditional telling, done from an objective point of view:

An old woman was baking one day, and she made some gingerbread. She had some dough left over and so she made the shape of a little man. She made eyes for him, a nose and a smiling mouth all of currants, and placed more currants down his front to look like buttons. Then she laid him on a baking tray and put him into the oven to bake.

After a little while, she heard something rattling at the oven door. She opened it and to her surprise out jumped the little gingerbread man she had made. She tried to catch him as he ran across the kitchen, but he slipped past her, calling as he ran:

"Run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"

And my retelling with an omniscient narrator:

An old woman was baking gingerbread one day and had some dough left over.  My husband is working hard in the garden, she thought.  I will make him his favorite special treat, a gingerbread man.  She made the shape of a little man.  She made eyes for him, a nose and a smiling mouth of currants.  Deciding to dress him as her husband was dressed, she made a row of currant buttons down the the gingerbread man’s chest.

After a while she heard something rattling the oven door, and a little concerned, opened it up, then jumped back, startled, as out leaped the gingerbread man.  He immediately took off across the kitchen floor.  Resolving not to let her husband’s treat get away, the woman trotted after it in hot pursuit.  But the gingerbread man, bent on freedom, felt sure he could easily give the old woman the slip: 

“Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man!” he sang out over his shoulder, his currant mouth wearing a confident smirk.

To continue the story, the narrator could give us the thoughts of the various animals that take up the chase.  And though we all know what befell the gingerbread man, here is a chance to describe his final thoughts, as well as those of the wily fox happily licking his chops after swallowing that tasty morsel.

http://www.laurakraussmelmed.com/

FRACTURED FAIRY TALES

by Mary Quattlebaum

Fellow blogger Pamela Ehrenberg wrote recently about rituals that can help move us writers and our students more quickly into the act of writing.  A cup of hot tea, a blue pilot pen, and a yellow legal pad tell me that it’s the “write time.”  Writing prompts can also be helpful. A favorite of mine and my students is the Fractured Fairy Tale.

Like my Nutty Nursery Rhymes last month, the Fractured Fairy Tale exercise jumps off from traditional pieces of writing that are known to people of all ages.  I’ve done Fractured Fairy Tales with third through sixth graders, college students, and MFA writing students.  This playful exercise is especially helpful when considering/teaching point of view, plot, and development of story tension.

Share or read aloud some well-known fairy tales.  “The Princess and the Pea,” “The Frog Prince,” “Snow White,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and “Cinderella” are but a few popular examples. 

Explore story development:   What does the main character want?  What are the obstacles in his/her path and do they increase in intensity?  How does the character overcome them?

Explore point of view:  What if the story were told from another character’s point of view (the frog in “The Frog Prince,” for example, or the stepmother queen in “Snow White,” or one of the mean stepsisters in “Cinderella,” or the bartered cow in “Jack and the Beanstalk)?  How would the story be different?  What might happen?  What would a happy ending be like for this new character?  [This gives students a chance to explore, too, how a story idea can be shaped in multiple ways, depending on point of view/main character.]

Explore setting/time period:  What if the story took place in a different place and time?  How might it change, for example, if Little Red Riding Hood was a contemporary girl in an American suburb?  Or the frog prince lived in a large pond with other frogs rather than the palace well?   

Write:  Encourage students to write their own fractured version of a well-known fairy tale.  They might tell the tale from another character’s point of view, play around with setting or time, and/or experiment with tone and humor.

Suggested books:  It’s fun to look at the various versions of traditional and fractured fairy tales in print books and Disney films.  Some of my favorites include (traditional) Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales and The Stories of Hans Christian Andersen, selected and translated by Diana Crone Frank and Jeffrey Frank; (fractured stories) Newfangled Fairy Tales (books one and two) edited by Bruce Lansky; (picture books) Cinderella’s Rat by Susan Meddaugh and Peeping Beauty by Mary Jane and Herm Auk; and (novels) The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale and Cloaked by Alex Flinn.

 http://www.maryquattlebaum.com/

DON'T LEAVE RED RIDING HOOD IN THE WOODS: Helping Young Writers Find Endings

by Jacqueline Jules

While looking over student writing in six different classrooms on the fourth and fifth grade level, I noticed that quite a few ended with TBC or To Be Continued. This troubled me. Were all the students writing sweeping sagas? In conferences, students complained, “The story is too big . . . I can’t finish it.” Looking over the stories together, we saw that they rambled in beginning mode, setting the scene and introducing characters without presenting a problem or conflict. More often than not, “To Be Continued” was another way of saying, “Too Tired to Continue.” Students may dream of creating a 400-page novel, but the classroom is not the right venue for it. I understand that teachers are reluctant to discourage creativity. However, as an author myself, I believe that a teacher can do more damage to an aspiring writer’s future by not demanding a beginning, middle, and end. Many successful writers begin with short stories. A budding novelist should learn how to create a satisfying story arc on a small scale before trying it across a multi-chapter format. 

A classic fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood, is perfect for a quick mini-lesson on beginning, middle, and end. Classes will readily identify the beginning of the story as the part when Red Riding Hood takes the basket off to grandmother’s house. The middle of the story occurs when Red Riding Hood meets the wolf in the woods, and the dramatic end comes when Red Riding Hood is eaten by the wolf, then saved by the woodcutter.

Ask your class: “What if we left Red Riding Hood in the woods?” You will likely get a response on the order of:  “That wouldn’t be too impressive.”

Most students realize they are giving up when they write “To Be Continued.” Don’t accept it. Help your students guide Red Riding Hood out of the woods to a happy ending with grandmother. Show them that all stories must have a problem (ie: big bad wolf) and when you conquer the wolf, your ending appears.

http://www.jacquelinejules.com/