Got Secrets?: Publishing Opportunity for Students

by Jane Harrington

I have had the distinct pleasure this summer of seeing a short story of mine in the literary journal Chautauqua, an anthology that is launched each summer at about this time up at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. (For the scoop on the Chautauqua Institution, visit their website: http://www.ciweb.org/about-us) As literary journals go, this is probably my favorite. Main reason: they publish youth writing as well as adult writing.

The submissions period for the next journal will open August 15 and close November 15. This is perfect for (a) the summer listless who are looking for something to fill the dog days, and (b) teachers and parents planning fall writing projects in classrooms and living rooms. The theme is “Privacy and Secrets.” The guidelines surrounding their “Young Voices” category are as follows:

Chautauqua has added a new section, which celebrates young writers, aged 12 to 18. Work should be submitted by a teacher, mentor, or parent. Please confirm on the entry that the piece can be classified as a Young Voices entry. We ask that young writers consider the theme. Essays and stories should remain under 1,500 words. For poetry, please submit no more than three poems and/or no more than six pages.

Whether you are planning a youth or adult entry, you will find more complete guidelines here, and information for ordering current or back issues: http://www.ciweb.org/literary-journal

www.janeharrington.com

Writers--RETREAT!

by Jane Harrington

I’m just finishing up a month at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), my first foray into a residency at an artists’ colony. My days have been all writing-writing-writing, punctuated by peaceful walks and reading books in a porch swing. Evenings have been centered around enjoying the creative works of my fellow artists—poetry, prose, paintings, drawings, installations, performance pieces, and musical compositions. To sum up the experience: WOW!

Packing up now, I’m concocting ideas to bring to the upcoming summer months this same kind of inspiration and creative energy. Here are some suggestions for how to turn whole days into personal writing retreats, for you and/or a young writer in your life. In preparation, trawl local newspapers and other event listings, and keep an ongoing list of gallery openings, free concerts, theater and dance shows, author visits, etc. in your local area. Also, reacquaint yourself with the offerings at your nearest parks—nature trails, wetland walks, swimming lakes and the like.

On a day you designate a writer’s retreat—

1.      Write for [you fill in the blank] hours in the morning, with no distractions. (Yes, that means turn your phone off.) (No, not on vibrate—off.) (Actually, put it in another room entirely.)

2.      After that, go enjoy some nature—a walk, for instance, in your neighborhood or at a local park. Alternately, cook a favorite food or crochet a bookmark. Those are inspired activities, too!

3.      Write some more. You decide on length of time.

4.      It will probably be evening by this time. Take in an art event: go listen to music, browse a gallery, watch a show, or attend a reading.

String a few of these days together, and I bet you’ll be feeling creative and cranking out some great writing! That’s my plan.

www.janeharrington.com  

WHAT'S THE STORY?

by Jane Harrington

I just listened to a pretty right-on lecture about fiction writing by Jenna Blum (The Author at Work: The Art of Writing Fiction), so I’ll share an activity based on something she recommends. I think this can help all creative writers, any age. It’s about writing “log lines.”

For those who dabble in screenwriting, this is probably a known term, but it was new to me. A log line is a one-sentence distillation of a story, and can be a very useful means of getting to the bones of a body of creative writing. Whereas “theme” can usually be expressed in one word or phrase (“making new friends” or “recovery” or “loss”) a good log line includes the protagonist and his/her goal or central conflict. Note that endings (spoilers!) are not included in log lines.

Here’s how this activity might work:

1.     Find a bestsellers list, such as the New York Times “Children’s Best Sellers,” and read all the descriptions for the books there. Some in last week’s NYT—

•   “A filthy bird is persuaded to bathe.” (Mo Willems’ The Pigeon Needs a Bath!)

•   “A teenager uncovers the mysteries of a village surrounded by a beast-filled forest.” (David Baldacci’s The Finisher.)

•   “A girl saves books from Nazi burning.” (Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief.)

2. Think about a book or short story you like and know well, and then create a log line for it.

•   For Alice in Wonderland that might be: A girl tumbles into an alternate universe and meets many strange characters in her quest to get home.

•   For Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak: After a traumatic experience at a summer party, a teenage girl tries to endure her next year of high school while keeping a secret.

3. Now, think about something you’ve written or want to write, and create a log line for it. I’ve done this for two of my books here.

•   In letters to her best friend back home, a thirteen-year-old girl describes her progress at accomplishing a list of things she has been dared to do while on a Mediterranean cruise (Four Things My Geeky-Jock-of-a-Best-Friend Must Do in Europe).

•   A ten-year-old girl describes her angsts and adventures in a journal she starts to keep after her memory-impaired grandmother moves in with her family (Lucy’s Completely Cool and Totally True E-Journal).

Some writers might find that brainstorming log lines is a good way to get a handle on a story idea before starting to write. Other writers might find it a useful exercise to guide the revision process, particularly after some free writing. (See Jacqueline Jules’ “Transforming a Free Write” for more ideas along thoselines.)

If used in the classroom, this exercise should help meet the requirements of the following Common Core standards:

CCSS.ELA—LITERACY.RL.1.2 thru 11-12.2

www.janeharrington.com

WRITING IN PLACE

by Jane Harrington

Green is washing over winter’s wan fields in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, where I live, teach and write. I have some goats, and like them I am using the changing landscape as fodder—literally, in their case, as they tug at each new shoot for nourishment; figuratively, in my case, as I look to the awakening pastures to inspire my prose. I’ve recently taken to setting my fiction on these hills I call home, and I’m finding this to be a fruitful strategy. One such short story will be published in June in Chautauqua, a literary journal that showcases work each year by both adult and youth writers.

It seems that what I hear students frustratingly refer to as “writer’s block” is just a manifestation of being overwhelmed, of not knowing where to start. So, consider having the young writers in your life begin with what is in view, what they call home. Don’t think story. Just think setting and use simple words that first come to mind. The tree out there is bare and gray. Later, with the help of a thesaurus, it can become exposed, ashen. Then, some sounds might arrive when a March gust blows through the branches. (See MaryQuattlebaum’s “Vivid Words and Actions” for ideas on writing the aural.) And someone will surely plod through the mud to get to the tree. (See Jacqueline Jules’ “Follow the Snowprints” for ways to invite characters in.) Let the story grow in this way—slowly, steadily, like spring’s greening outside your window.

Common Core Connections: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.3; 4.3; 5.3; 6.3; 7.3; 8.3.

www.janeharrington.com 

IN PRAISE OF POEMS

by Jane Harrington

I recently returned from a residency in the lettered city of Pittsburgh where I spent a couple of weeks buzzing around with some truly inspiring wordsmiths. Many were fiction writers, as I am, but the program (an MFA with Carlow University) is dedicated to the idea that the best literary inflorescence comes from cross pollination between genres. I’ve come to believe this.

So, I was glad to see that some of my fellow bloggers here looked to poetry for interesting writing activities in January. (See Jacqueline Jules’ post on 1/13 and Mary Quattlebaum’s on 1/27). I’m going to plant another idea that I think young word crafters might enjoy as much as I did when award-winning fiction writer Jane McCafferty shared this poem-as-prompt in a workshop. She recommends a short time limit to capture what first darts into mind.

PROMPT: Read the following poem and then write an emulation, using your own dreams and/or wishes as subject matter. You can follow the structure very closely or create your own poetic or prose form.

In Praise of Dreams, by Wislawa Szymborska (abbreviated)

In my dreams

I paint like Vermeer van Delft.

I drive a car

that does what I want it to.

I am gifted

and write mighty epics.

My brilliance as a pianist

would stun you.

I fly the way we ought to,

i.e., on my own.

I’ve got no problem

breathing under water.

I’m a child of my age,

but I don’t have to be.

A few years ago

I saw two suns.

And the night before last a penguin,

clear as day.

 www.janeharrington.com

A LONG WINTER’S READ

by Jane Harrington

I don’t know about you, but the approach of the holiday season puts me less in the mood for penning and more in the mood for reading. As I madly grade student essays and meet deadlines in my own writing life, I find I just want to nestle all snug in my sofa cushions while visions of fictional characters dance in my head.

I’ve made a point to share this particular longing with my students lately, because I think this poor “Social Media Generation” is losing the ability to focus on text for more than a couple of minutes at a time. That is, in fact, what they wrote about in their semester-ending essays: the effect of technology on their lives. Guess what I’m finding as I read these? The very students who seem most tied to their electronic devices are upset about such things as not being taught to write (or read!) cursive. They recognize that their time is being sucked away from them by their smartphones, and that being the generation with the most dexterous thumbs is probably not going to prove to be much of an advantage in the long run. Many of these eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds still value books, I’m seeing, even as they are convinced they have no time to read them.

So, I’ve been looking at book lists lately, trying to come up with good suggestions to help these multi-taskers unplug and read for pleasure. Here are some links that I’m finding to be good places to start:

Goodreads is trusted by young folk because the lists are created by young folk. This is a page with their college-agerecommendations.

American Library Association is a tried and true source for lists for all ages. Here is their 2013 BestBooks for Young Adults.

And because even teenagers cherish memories of children’s classics—especially around the holidays—here is New York Public Library’s all-time “Top 100.”

Happy winter solstice to all, and to all a good book!

www.janeharrington.com

Sprinkling on the Grammar

by Jane Harrington

November is here—leaves are blowing in circles around us, the first logs of the season are being tossed in fireplaces, and we’re thinking about comfort foods: hearty soups, turkey dinners, plates of spaghetti. So, let’s go with this today and liken a good story to swirling leaves (dynamic, moving), a cozy fire (touching, heartwarming), and a fine meal (nourishing to the body and soul).

Lingering on the food metaphor, I like to think about how the smallest ingredients make all the difference in those things we love to eat: the rosemary leaves on the roasted vegetables, the garam masala stirred into the Ethiopian dish, the pinch of cinnamon in the tomato sauce. (Note to self: Must cook as soon as I finish this post!) This, to me, is what good grammar is to writing. The perfect punctuation mark, the right word—these can turn an ordinary story into something special, something memorable. And raising this sort of awareness can be fun for writers of all ages. REALLY.

Here’s an adjective/adverb activity that can work with a story that is already written. (If you need ideas for creative prompts, I recommend a blog by a high school teacher at writingprompts.tumblr.com. This writing instructor ties his prompts to Common Core Anchor Standards, and most are suitable for writers across the age spectrum.) After instruction on adjectives and adverbs, have the student writers identify these parts of speech in the stories they’ve written. Is their creation under spiced? Have them sprinkle more in! Have they over spiced? Have them reduce the ingredient!

You can also approach this as a challenge in the original piece of writing, by limiting the part of the speech (No adverbs at all in your story!) or over saturating (Every sentence must contain an adjective!). Mix it up for your young writers’ personal palates. The extra attention to craft is sure to result in some tasteful tales.

Some Common Core K-5 connections:

CCSS L.2.1.e: Use adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified.

CCSS L.3.1.a: Explain the function of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in general and their functions in particular sentences.

Anchor Standards for Writing #5: Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.

www.janeharrington.com

Handing Out Sentences in College Comp

by Jane Harrington

The trials and tribulations of young college students fill my days again, and while I dare not try to help them sort out the existential questions that plague them, I am once again setting to the task of helping them hone a key skill of expression: writing. I’m having a hard time communicating with them, though. It’s not that social media slang or inside jokes get in the way, or that pop culture references are sliding over my head. (They are, but it’s not that.) The problem: my students don’t know the language of their language.

Here’s an example. I take a snippet of student writing that is a run-on sentence, and I project it onto the classroom screen and say, “This is a comma splice because two independent clauses are connected with punctuation that is too weak. How might you fix this with a conjunction?” There is sudden attention to tying shoes, searching for things in backpacks, responding to noises outside the windows. No one wants to be exposed as not remembering what an independent clause is, or a conjunction. And even a minor sentence-related engagement with me could lead to worse. I might use words like “subject,” “object,” “indefinite pronoun.” Sure, some students recollect one or another grammar term from sing-alongs with School House Rock or Sesame Street, but that is rarely enough facility to sustain an actual conversation about what is wrong with particular sentences they are writing.

So, I’m getting set to use a different approach. I’ve bought myself a large package of jewel-toned dry erase markers, and I’m going to start sentence diagramming! While that term tends to produce at least an eye roll in the parochial school educated among my cohort, I have noticed that those who were taught grammar by way of diagramming know the English language far better than those who were taught rote grammar. (I fall into the latter category and had to teach myself grammar once I got to college.) Maybe the visual nature of the task imprints on the memory better, just as the aural nature of grammar songs does. I taught diagramming in middle school English a few years back, and many students saw it as cracking a code. Even the hardcore math kids who had theretofore shunned all aspects of English were tuning in. Diagramming appeals to the active student, too, because he or she can get up and draw on the board. Colorful markers have a way of drawing in the artsy of the class, as well.

I’m finding that other educators, from primary grades up to college, are getting the same idea. There are some good sentence diagramming resources on YouTube and various education websites. And for those needing to connect Common Core or state standards, it couldn’t be easier. Every aspect of grammar, thus every term, comes to the surface when you are viewing the language in this broader way, through sentences.

 www.janeharrington.com

NANOWRIMO for Young Writers

by Jane Harrington

About this time last summer I suggested a looksee at NaNoWriMo’s Young WritersProgram  because there you can find BRILLIANT ideas to help budding wordsmiths grow good stories. A little about the program, directly from the website:

 ·        NaNoWriMo is run by “The Office of Letters and Light,” a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Berkeley, CA. 

·     The Young Writers Program was founded in 2005, in response to the countless teachers who wrote in wanting to bring noveling to the classroom.

·        The Young Writers Program provides free Common Core-adapted curricula and student workbooks for all grade levels, as well as classroom kits to all educators teaching the program. Kids and teens also participate independently through our motivational, community-based website.

If you’re a classroom teacher, I’m guessing the “free” and “Common Core-adapted” bits have got your attention. And those are good things! But, really, it’s the innovativeness and sense of fun in the lesson plans that are apt to brighten these last hazy weeks of summer, whether you’re planning fall classes or looking for something creative to do with kids around a kitchen table. Here is the link to the lesson plan portal: http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/lesson-plans. Note that curricula are stored in Google Docs, which makes it all very easy. Common Core connections are listed at the top of each page. One of my favorite plans is “How to Write Really Good Dialogue,” for upper elementary students (Lesson Plan 11), but you’ll find your own faves, for sure.

If, while meandering this path, you find yourself longing to do some writing of your own, don’t miss the quirky and cool resources for grown-up writers on the main page (http://nanowrimo.org). NaNoWriMo’s novel-writing months have produced a lot of published books, many a total surprise to their creators! 

Case in point: The first draft of one of my YA novels (Four Things My Geeky-Jock-of-a-Best-Friend Must Do In Europe, Darby Creek 2006) was created during a NaNoWriMo binge one fall. I never imagined that something written in 30 days could end up in bookstores, libraries, book fairs, and now on e-readers. 

www.janeharrington.com

WHAT LIES IN OUR MEMORIES?

by Jane Harrington

Just returned from a writing extravaganza in Ireland—part retreat in the remote reaches of the island, part bustling residency at Dublin’s Trinity College. In the conversations with the myriad writers I got to know over the weeks, there was a recurring theme that has followed me back across the Atlantic and sits with me now at my writing desk. Many of these Irish writers (all well established in Europe and some highly acclaimed here in the States, as well) told stories of being afraid to write as children. Insecurity, guilt, shame—all of these feelings seemed to be seated in a childhood belief that if they wrote creatively or fantastically about their lives, families, friends, they were somehow telling lies. Mostly fiction writers, these talented wordsmiths were adults before they came to realize that good writing naturally springs from the everyday, and they wish they’d allowed the young versions of themselves more freedom to explore the boundaries between life and art.

It was with pangs of understanding that I listened to their regrets, because I, too, quashed my urge to write when I was a child, and for the same reasons. What utterly wasted time, I think now, my most successful fiction having been forged from the “real” stuff that filled the days of my own children’s lives. My first novel for kids, Lucy’s Completely Cool and Totally True E-Journal, was strongly based on our family’s experience having my mother-in-law with Alzheimer’s disease come live with us, and that book sold 150,000 copies in Scholastic Book Fairs and generated a great fan buzz when it came out in 2001. (Now out of print, you can get it for pennies at Amazon or BN, if interested.)

So, I’d like to share a few memory exercises that might help some young writers gain confidence in using their own real-life stories as ore for imagining the deeper truths that, well, lie in fiction. (Aren’t words fun?!)

1.     Describe in detail a room in your family’s home. Include every bit of furniture, every picture on the walls. Then have a visitor arrive from another planet.

2.     Write a memory of your favorite relative, only imagine her/him in the form of your favorite animal.

3.     Step into a scene where a friend or sibling is in your kitchen, laughing. What has happened? What is going to happen?

4.     Quickly list all the people you can think of who like to wear hats, and describe the hats.

5.     Among your friends, who has hands or feet you really like? Explain what it is you like about those hands or feet.

6.     Open your refrigerator and study what is in there for a minute. Then close the door and try to describe every item you remember, including details about the shapes and colors of the packaging. (Don’t peek! If you can’t recall something, make it up!) Now have the foods interact behind the closed door.

www.janeharrington.com

WRITING POETRY: A NOVEL APPROACH

by Jane Harrington

A creative friend of mine (okay, fellow writer and Pencil Tips blogger Jacqueline Jules) suggested I share some writing prompts from a book of mine, My Best Friend, the Atlantic Ocean and Other Great Bodies Standing Between Me and My Life With Giulio, a novel premised upon a high school freshman’s poetry journal from her English class. (Did I really just describe the book in fewer words than make up the title?) So, here are a few ideas from the missives of my protagonista, Delia:

Describing her teacher’s efforts to get his somewhat “blocked” students to produce SOMETHING, Delia writes, “He told us we should not feel ‘constrained’ by trying to make our poetry ‘fit into a structure’ as we write it. That to become good writers we need to ‘release the words and let them flap about on the winds of our creativity.’ He says the best writing comes from free writing about anything that inspires, and that later we can edit the writing down to its most ‘vital essence.’ And that, he says, will result in good poetry.” Delia responds well to this and has much fun with “flapping words.”

In other journal entries, Delia writes about how the teacher has the students using some unlikely sources for poetic inspiration, such as cellphones. He has them write out their text messages: “so boi wut up?” one student offers as a first line, noticing a similarity to rap or “fly” when he sees his texts set up as verse. The students also get an assignment to look to popular media, specifically advertising, to find uses of poetic devices. When one student passes a note calling the whole idea bogus, sarcastic Delia responds in her journal: “Read zines and watch the tube for homework? Yeah, sounds awful.”

There are other ideas that could be plucked from this short novel, so you may want to give it a read. Admittedly, looking to fiction for teaching ideas is sort of like asking a cartoon character for advice, but, hey, whatever works! Lots of libraries carry this book (and its prequel, which also has a ridiculously long title, much to the chagrin of librarians who have to catalog the things), and a BN or Amazon search should turn up cheapo used copies, far-too-expensive new ones, and reasonably-priced eBooks. I’ve yet to see a person reading these books without at least a few snorts of laughter, so you can always pass your copy along to a kid in need of a smile. (And I’m happy, always, to answer readers’ questions. There is an email link on my website.)

www.janeharrington.com

IT’S vs ITS: HELP!

by Jane Harrington

For those of us writers of English who were lucky enough to grow up with this language  (nothing to be taken for granted, because English is one of the very hardest languages to write properly if you are coming to it as your second language), most of the rules of grammar are entirely intuitive. Some rules, though, make sense only to etymologists and philologists, and dog the rest of us for life.

Case in point: I have never been able to keep the “restrictive” vs. “non-restrictive” clause terminology straight. One is the “which” clause (not essential to the meaning of the sentence, thus needing commas to set it off), and one is the “that” clause (essential to sentence meaning, thus needing no commas); but as much I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to make any logical connection between these clauses and restriction. What is restricting what? In practice I can write the clauses correctly, but as a teacher I am often called upon to explain underlying grammar rules, and it’s embarrassing not to know. So, I danced the halls of my university (in my mind, at least) when I cracked open the new grammar style book our department adopted this year and found that the words “restrictive” and “non-restrictive” were not even in the index. The terms had been replaced with the descriptors I’d always been using for those clauses: essential and non-essential.

I tell this story to my students now whenever I see that old shame begin to rise up into their cheeks—that grammar guilt we all carry around like original sin. I tell them that our language is still changing, that the terms applied are arbitrary, and that nobody gets grammar right all the time. PhDs make errors in pronoun case and agreement regularly at faculty meetings, I assure them. This is because the evolution of our language has left us with a lot of rules that just aren’t logical. Which brings me to it’s vs its, a common error in all my College Composition classes.

Why do students have such a hard time with these teeny words? Well, it might be because the grammar rules that students know intuitively conflict with what we tell them to do with these words. Take this sentence, for instance:

Look at the peacock—it’s preening its shiny feathers.

Writers of English know to use an apostrophe for contractions and possession, so…hm, we have both in this sentence, but we only use an apostrophe for the contraction. While those philologists and etymologists have lively debates over the reason for this anomaly, we teachers are stuck with explaining the problem away as an exception for “possessive pronouns,” a term that young students are probably not ready for and older students have long forgotten. So, what do you do?

Literally, what do you do? How do you teach it’s vs its to young writers in your lives? Please feel free to share your ideas in the comments!

Personally, I’m thinking of getting a cheery-looking rubber stamp made that says something like: It’s only ever means it is. It may not solve the problem, but it might be satisfying to slap that into the margin instead of scribbling the same edit over and over.

Common Core English Language Standards connections:

L.1.1d. Use personal, possessive, and indefinite pronouns….

L.2.2c. Use an apostrophe to form contractions and frequently occurring possessives.

L.3.1a. Explain function of nouns, pronouns…and their functions in particular sentences.

L.4.1g. Correctly use frequently confused words….

www.janeharrington.com

Getting to the Core of the Writing

by Jane Harrington

Too many words! You already said that!

I often want to scribble those complaints across essays I get from my College Composition students, so I was heartened to see that “Common Core” (the new standards program that’s “preparing America’s students for college and career”) includes some objectives to pare down habits of overwriting. In addition to the Core’s upper elementary standards for revising (Writing 4.5, 5.5 and 6.5), here’s one that really allows for quality time to break bad on verbosity:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.7.3a—Choose language that expresses ideas precisely and concisely, recognizing and eliminating wordiness and redundancy.

When I saw that, an exercise I once did as a fiction student came to mind. I’ve never thought to use it with my Composition students because we write non-fiction, but I began to see how it could be a fun way to practice a skill that can and should be applied to all writing. It could work as follows, but you may think of some creative variations. (If so, please share in comments at the end of the post!)

First day: For homework, students write a short story of a prescribed length (ours was probably 1200 words, but it wouldn’t have to be that long) with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Perhaps this could follow a literary discussion after reading a novel and be focused on a character making a choice and changing. Or, it could be written to a specific prompt. The idea is that there is a complete story there and that it conforms to a word length requirement.

Second day: For homework, students are asked to cut down the story’s word count by half, without changing what happens in the story. (The groans and stares should be quite entertaining.)

Third day: This is probably a good day to read some of these aloud, because there will likely be students who are really excited by the accomplishment of this seemingly impossible task. Have them share some of the sentences that disappeared, and point out why those words weren’t necessary to make the points in the story. Congratulate them on a job well done and then give the final assignment, which is to cut the word count in half again. The caterwauling should be epic.

Fourth day: Have everyone read these, because they will surely be so cool! You may want to introduce the concept of “flash” or “micro” fiction and direct them to youth writing contests. (For some contest listings, click the “yo, publish!” tab on my website, www.janeharrington.com.)

Whether you’re using specific state standards or the Common Core, or old-fashioned common sense, there should be an ongoing effort to help students reduce the chaff in their writing. They’ll be better, more confident wordsmiths, and their college professors will be so much happier!

www.janeharrington.com

YEAH, WRITE

by Jane Harrington

Happy New Year to all you Pencil Tippers out there! For my own part, I’m resolving to be more resourceful with my writing time. To that end, my first post of 2013 will be more about recycling old words than producing new ones.

Specifically, I’m going to lead you to my website, where there are some fun tips for young writers. (Since I teach writing to college students these days, the page has been sadly neglected of late.) Be forewarned that one of my characters has intruded on this particular page of my website, but young minds will likely relate better to her than to me. And, hey, you can use it as a springboard to a discussion of that whole “meta” fiction thing—Lemony Snicket, Cornelia Funke, various comic books, too many TV shows…. Don’t despair, though, if that sounds too weird; the writing tips you’ll find on the site are quite straightforward: alliteration, exaggeration, onomatopoeia, and vocabulary. Sound usable? Go to www.janeharrington.com, and click on the “yeah, write” tab.

But, really, you don’t even have to leave this blog to reuse/recycle ideas for teaching some of these same skills and devices. For “Amazing Alliteration” go back to Laura Krauss Melmed’s post of 11/28/11, or Jacqueline Jules’ “Tips for Writing Poetry” from 4/9/12. For a neat take on using exaggeration, see Pam Smallcomb’s 3/7/11 post, “Writing Tall.”

 Best wishes for a year of wonderful wordsmithery!

(Hm…maybe neologisms would be a fun topic for next time.)

www.janeharrington.com

VEHICLES FOR CREATIVITY?

by Jane Harrington

I was listening just the other day to an NPR interview of Julie Bruck, the poet who just won the Governor General’s Literary Award in Canada (an honor about equal to our National Book Award). She recited an excellent poem about children and animals, and then went on to talk about how she keeps creativity moving along in her own life and the lives of her writing students. One way: Caves.

Yes, we writers and illustrators know about caves. At least those of the mind, where we have to regularly crawl into quiet nooks in order to hear the muse. And it was in that context that Julie spoke of caves, but it got me thinking of some creative hideaways of childhood. You know—the forts we made in our rec rooms, from couch cushions and blankets. These places had detailed backstories involving the Wild Things or the Star-bellied Sneeches, or sometimes they were train cars filled with escaped circus animals or dogs that found a door left ajar at the pound. The memory of these cozy conjuring compartments got me wondering if getting students to make “writing caves” at home might be a way-fun method to combat distractions and (oh, I’ve heard it from the mouths of babes) writer’s block. My own college-aged students would laugh at the notion of making a hideout—though secretly want to do it!—but the elementary set would probably hop right aboard.

Another vehicle for creativity that Canada’s poetess spoke of was…a vehicle! She free-writes something she calls “car pages” while sitting in a parking lot, and she asks her students to do the same. A lot of these ramblings seem to become excellent poems. So, that got me thinking, too. I don’t know about you, but I get the most amazing ideas when I am behind the wheel of a car. (Of course, I can’t write anything down, which is enormously frustrating, but….) What if we were to challenge our students to do some “backseat scribing”? Using Naomi Shihab Nye’s idea (from Mary Quattlebaum’s post of last week) the car could be that playful space filled with metaphor. I mean, what could possibly be a better symbol of protection than a seatbelt? Or maybe kids would get a kick out of creating dialogue between car parts, as with the side dishes in Jacqueline Jules’ November 19 post or Mary Amato’s “Talking Toothbrushes” (November 5). “Get your hands off of me!” the sassy steering wheel might say to Mom.

And, of course, verses borne of the world going by outside car windows or the folds of a fort—well, that’s poetry in motion, you’d have to say.

www.janeharrington.com

AND DON’T COPY THIS, EITHER!

by Jane Harrington

In my last post I gaily embraced the creativity of cutting and pasting summer scraps into journals to spur original writing at the start of a school year, and now, two months into the fall semester, I’m on a tirade against cut-and-paste. Must be the influence of another political season: I’ve become a flip-flopper.

I now teach in a college, so tend to feel that the issues facing the students in my current classrooms are far different than those that faced the young writers of classrooms past. Jacqueline Jules’ October post, though, contained several bits of advice that I have to admit I took right to my 18-plus-year-old students. I have a problem with plagiarism in my freshman composition classrooms. And the more I talk to colleagues, the more I see that it is of epidemic proportions. Jacqueline is right to be embracing it in the way she is, and it gives me hope that the conversation will continue to be had in these places where it so needs to be—in elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and around the kitchen table at home. So, in hopes of inspiring just that, I’d like to add a few things to Jacqueline’s list of ideas to encourage the avoidance of copying the words of others:

·        Celebrate Voice! If young writers learn that personal expression is all about the uniqueness of the words they use—not only when writing poetry or other “creative” pieces, but when putting together reports or even text messages—perhaps they will take more ownership over their writing, and offer more respect to the people behind the words they read on the screen of a computer or in a book. Spending some time reading aloud and positively responding to the various ways students express similar ideas might be a step to instilling pride in personal voices.

·        Minimize Distractions! Not only does the zap-zap-zapping of computer games have a deleterious effect on brain development, as studies are now showing, the constant barrage of electronic media presents some very basic problems: it steals time from our children, and breaks their concentration. My students have to write the first essays of their college careers on the topic of plagiarism, and the ones who take the “true confessions” approach will invariably say they got into a habit of plagiarizing because of a lack of time. Some students even go so far as to villanize their cellphones for interrupting them all the time. Who owns whom? I want to ask these students. Clearly, our children need some help with this.

·        Catch Them! Sounds harsh, but I have to say that the freshmen who hit the wall on this—who sit in my office crying because they’re afraid of the possible repercussions—are the ones who embrace a new way of learning, change the way they study, and become exemplars of our honor code. They tell me, invariably, that no one taught them that it was wrong to turn in writing assignments made up of disparate sentences and paragraphs cut from Internet sources and patched into strange narrative quilts. In fact, most say they were rewarded with good grades in high school. When we see odd shifts in voice in our students’ writing, we should actively try to find the explanation. Drop phrases into Google, and you’ll see that Wikipedia and About.com will pop up quite a bit. Put an “F” on that paper, and meet with the student. Because once he or she arrives on a college campus, that’s an offense that can result in expulsion. Catching this habit early on, and dealing with it bluntly enough to instill a bit of fear, is a good tact. Why do I think so? Because that’s exactly what my students say would have helped them.

www.janeharrington.com

SCRIBING FROM SUMMER'S SCRAPS

by Jane Harrington

It’s that time of year again: kids are sitting at desks, doing jumping jacks in the gym, and standing in lunch lines. The student body has returned! But what about the student mind? Is it still lingering on summer memories? Is it still off at soccer camp or traipsing the trails of Yellowstone National Park? Most likely. But don’t let the daydreaming drive you crazy. On that path creativity lies.

Scrapbooking about summer can be a great weekend assignment, or something students do together in class after bringing in personal collections of memorabilia. Ticket stubs from plays or museum visits, photographs from camp or a sleepover, feathers or cicada shells from a nature hike—these sorts of tidbits, glued onto pages of a journal, can inspire students to do some meaningful writing about those summer days that they’re not quite ready to leave behind. The length/genre of writing can be easily tailored to any grade level or standards.

Of course, this idea needn’t be limited to the classroom. It’s perfect for homeschooled writers, or for any families who want to savor the adventures and closeness that seem to too quickly get left at fall’s doorstep every year. The artistic side can be expanded, as well, by creating collages for the covers and decorating pages.

Tips: To make this a low-budget activity, find those super-cheap spiral notebooks that are always available in the fall. But don’t scrimp on the glue—you need a good quality craft glue to make journals that can become keepsakes.

www.janeharrington.com

SETTING THE WRITING RABBLE ON FIRE

by Jane Harrington

There may be a swath of summer still ahead, but if you’re a teacher, right about now you probably can’t get fall off your mind. I know I can’t. Each day when I watch the sun pop over the mountains and set the morning mist ablaze, I think about how I want to be that sun to my students. Not bake them and send them indoors to watch streaming video, but infuse them with artistic energy!

Laura Krauss Melmed’s nifty “endeavor to involve other people” in her literary life (see her July 9 post) got me thinking about how young writers, too, like to write in a crowd. And that got me thinking about NANOWRIMO.

If you’ve never heard of this, it’s “National Novel Writing Month,” run by the nonprofit Office of Letters and Light, a bunch of very clever writing zaniacs. (Neologisms like that are just the kind of word-fun encouraged by the Nanowrimoids.) It is probably best known as a collective of aspiring novel writers who binge-write for the month of November each year. I actually wrote a first draft of one of my teen novels during one of their writing sprees, and it was then that I discovered their ridiculously fun resources for educators and students.

Their “Young Writers Program” is chockfull of totally free and well-designed stuff: pep talks from popular authors; downloadable workbooks to help kids of all ages write stories with strong characters, settings and plots; and gizmos like the “Dare Machine”—today’s dare was to “make one of your characters speak pig Latin or another made-up language.” Students LOVE this, and the intense camaraderie of a writing month sparks some incredible scribblings.

If you want to see how the Office of Letters and Light can help you create in your students a burning desire to write, check out:  NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program.

http://www.janeharrington.com/