Writing Connections with Amy Sarig King

by Mary Quattlebaum

Amy Sarig King is the author of many acclaimed YA novels, but Me and Marvin Gardens (Scholastic, 2017) is her first middle-grade novel.  It garnered three starred reviews and was named a 2017 Best Book by the Washington Post.

In an interview with the KidsPost section of the Washington Post, King talks about the childhood experiences that informed the book. She mentions her dog, Stella, as her inspiration for the mysterious creature that gets young readers thinking about recycling in a whole different way. 

Obe loves the cornfields that his family once owned, but now they are being turned into a housing development.  And his best friend is ditching him for the new kids in the neighborhood.  To add to his troubles, Obe discovers a new type of animal by the creek—a slimy tapir-like creature with the friendly personality of a dog.  He names it Marvin Gardens.  Before long, Obe realizes that the creature eats plastic but that its toxic poop is ruining the land.  Can Obe trust his science teacher, Ms. G, to help with the situation?

Below are writing lessons for the classroom or for individual writers ages 8 and up.

FACTS AS INSPIRATION: Classroom Discussion, Part 1:  In the book, Ms. G shares facts about the environment with her students.  As she researched these facts, King herself was horrified to discover that it takes a plastic bottle 500 years to decompose, and that Americans throw away 2.5 million of these bottles per hour.  King created Marvin Gardens as a character that seemingly solves the problem (by eating plastic) but creates another (the toxic chemicals excreted as waste destroy grass, tennis shoes, and pretty much whatever comes in contact with them).

Classroom Writing, Part 1:  Ask students to research several facts about dangers posed to the environment.  For example, habitat loss for cheetahs is pushing them toward extinction in the wild.  Or they might choose one of Ms. G’s facts from the book.

Have them choose one problem and brainstorm ways to solve it.  Encourage them to make these solutions as helpful as they can, even if they may be extreme or somewhat wacky.  (For example, a plastic-eating animal is a rather extreme solution to littering/recycling issues!)

Ask students to give their solution a name (such as Marvin Gardens), write one or two paragraphs on how it would work, and draw a picture or diagram of it.

Classroom Writing, Part 2, Critical Thinking and Writing:  Might this solution create other problems?  List some possible resulting problems.  How might they be solved?

TAKING ACTION, Classroom Discussion, Part 1:  Ask the class to notice environmental problems that are in the school or grounds for two days. For example, leaky faucets in bathrooms, lack of recycling bins, litter on school grounds, lack of native plants for local pollinators. List these things on the board.

Brainstorm ways to address or solve them.  Have the class identify 2 or 3 that they might take action on and help them develop a strategy to do so.

Have them do online research to discover how other students or activist groups have created positive change in these problem areas.

Ask for volunteers to write a short article for the school newspaper or bulletin or principal’s blog and an op-ed piece for the local newspaper.

 www.maryquattlebaum.com

Writing Connections with Rachel Vail

by Mary Quattlebaum

Rachel Vail is the author of many popular novels for young people, including the Justin Case series, the Friendship Ring series, Unfriended, and most recently, Well, That Was Awkward.  In an interview with the KidsPost section of the Washington Post,  Vail talks about the play that inspired her latest novel and the middle-school experiences that helped inform it.

Like the 1897 French play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” Vail’s novel Well, That Was Awkward features a main character that tries to help a friend to further a romance.  The problem, though, is that the love interest is actually someone that the main character also likes.

Below are writing lessons for the classroom or for individual writers ages 8 and up. 

RE-IMAGINING A CLASSIC:  Classroom Discussion, Part 1: Talk about how Vail reimagined a play with adult characters as a story about a group of middle-school students in a contemporary school.  Other writers have done this, too.  For example, the movie “Clueless” in based on Jane Austen’s Emma.

Classroom Writing, Part 1:  Choose a scene or chapter from a book with adult characters, from a different time period.  For older students, this might be a book that the whole class has read.  For younger students, this might be a fairy tale like “Cinderella” or “Snow White.”  Ask them to brainstorm changes they might make.  Encourage them to feel free to switch characters’ genders.  For example, the evil queen in “Snow White” might be a vain football player or the prince in Cinderella might be a girl who is a wealthy science geek with a lab and Cinderella a poor guy eager to build his own robot. 

Classroom Discussion, Part 2: In the KidsPost interview, Vail is candid about her awkward middle-school years and how those embarrassing moments have helped her to create believable characters and situations that her readers can relate to.

Classroom Writing, Part 2:  Ask students to close their eyes and imagine their middle-school characters in an awkward or embarrassing situation.  What embarrassing thing happens to their middle-school Cinderella or prince?  How do they react?  Ask students to write their scenes.  Ask for a few volunteers to read theirs aloud.  Hilarity may ensue!

Additional Resources

     

Rachel Vail’s website - http://www.rachelvail.com/

www.maryquattlebaum.com

Writing Connections with Raina Telgemeier

by Mary Quattlebaum

Is the classroom or your personal journaling experience starting to pall? One way to spice up the journal-keeping process is to add visuals.  That’s how Raina Telgemeier got her start as a graphic novelist when she was 10 years old.  In a recent interview in the KidsPost section of the Washington Post, Raina talks about her newest graphic novel Ghosts and how she began keeping a comics diary when she was a kid.

Below are writing lessons for the classroom or for individual writers ages 8 and up.  Telgemeir’s website also has teacher’s guides. 

WRITING/DRAWING YOUR LIFE:  Classroom Discussion, Part 1:  You might start by showing kids various examples of graphic novels (Telgemeier’s Smile, Sisters and Ghosts; Jennifer Holm’s Babymouse series, Gene Yang’s Secret Coders series).  Though most tell a fictional story, Smile and Sisters chronicle events in Telgemeier’s life.

Classroom Writing:  Instead of the usual journaling-in-words-only that is done as part of the classroom writing experience, encourage students to do what Telgemeir did as a kid.  In a “comics diary,” she recorded her days in comic-strip form.  This loose, sketchy process helps kids to avoid getting hung up on creating “realistic” drawings and instead encourages them to focus on what’s key to the day/emotion/scene in very stylized drawings.  Students might do just one panel with dialogue balloons that captures an experience or several linked ones.

You might also have them bring photos from home or have some magazines on hand so they might cut and paste in backgrounds, relevant images, etc.

Examples of Prompts (these also work for traditional journal entries):  What made me scared today?  Angry?  Excited?  Annoyed?  Happy? Before writing, have students close their eyes and focus on their day and call a particular emotion/event to mind.

Classroom Discussion, Part 2:  After about a week of keeping a comics journal, ask students which they preferred, comics journal or the more traditional writing journal. Or perhaps a combination.  What did they like/dislike about all three?  What did they enjoy/learn from the comics diary experience?  Did doing their own comics diaries change the way they looked at/read graphic novels?

www.maryquattlebaum.com

   

Writing Connections with Rita Williams-Garcia

by Mary Quattlebaum

Rita Williams-Garcia includes family secrets, sibling dynamics, and the rural South in her novel Gone Crazy in Alabama (HarperCollins, 2015, ages 8-12).  I talked with Rita recently about this third and final book in her historical series about three sisters—Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern Gaither—growing up in the late 1960s.  

Click here for the KidsPost/Washington Post interview.

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

Family Tales:  The book revolves around the sisters’ discovery of secrets that have affected their family for several generations.

Classroom Discussion:  Ask students to find an old family photo, keepsake, or heirloom at home or at an older relative’s house.  Have kids brainstorm and prepare questions in class and then interview several family members about that object and ask them to jot down the different answers.  Did they think of more questions based on the answers they received?  What family member seemed to know the most?  Why?  What did students learn about the object and/or the family member doing this?  What was a big surprise?

Classroom Writing:  Ask students to write down a description and brief history of this object and to give a sense of how they feel about it.  They also might share their writing/interview responses with a few family members (siblings, a parent, a different, older relative) and then talk about their relatives’ reactions in class.

SOCIAL JUSTICE/ANIMAL RIGHTS:  The novel deals with the sexism and racism of the times in thought-provoking, nuanced ways.  It is also one of the few novels with a young character who actively protests what she sees as the inhumane treatment of animals.  

Classroom Discussion:  How does Fern make her views known and how does she stage her protests?  How do others react?  Ask your students to list, as a group, some injustices they see in this country and in the wider world.  Does each kid have a cause that he or she feels strongly about?  Like Fern, how might students help to create change in a peaceful manner?   

Classroom Writing:  Have them choose a cause and develop a campaign/do some things (either individually or in small groups) to deepen school or public awareness and possibly lead to positive change.

 www.maryquattlebaum.com