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

“Literature Teaches Us Empathy”

by Karen Leggett Abouraya

Usually when we talk about diverse books, we mean books that enable children of all ethnic groups to see themselves in the books they read. In this year’s Zena Sutherland lecture, the African-American poet Marilyn Nelson added this notion.

“While reading about characters and experiences we already know is affirming, and while self-affirmation is an important aspect of self-knowledge, literature offers more than the experience of reading in a cubicle with a mirror. Literature allows us to extend our understanding beyond ourselves; it asks us whether we can understand others. Literature teaches us empathy.”

And this year’s Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Gene Yang wants young readers – all of us for that matter – to have empathy with people who are not like us. He is asking children “to read a book about a character who doesn’t look like you or live like you.” He calls it his “Reading Without Walls Challenge.”

Such reading opens the door to countless writing prompts.

· How is the child in the book different from you? What is the same?

· How are your days different or the same?

· What would you like to do with that child if you could meet her?

· What would you show that person if he came to your school?

The next question might be where to find such books – especially good, accurate ones. One answer is to look at awards such as the Children's Africana Book Awards (CABA) - and the African Studies Association’s Teacher’s Workshop Dec 3 in Washington, D.C. - the Middle East Outreach Council, and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature.

This year’s recently celebrated CABA awards include an exuberantly illustrated folk tale from Nigeria, Chicken in the Kitchen, written by Nnedi Okorafor, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Nigeria, and illustrated by Mehrdokht Amini, an Iranian artist living in Great Britain. Elizabeth Wein wrote Black Dove White Raven, a World War II young adult novel about a black boy and a white girl raised together in Ethiopia. Miranda Paul wrote One Plastic Bag and the Recycling Women of the Gambia, illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon, about Isatou Ceesay’s efforts to recycle discarded plastic bags in her community. An earlier Pencil Tips Workshop focused on the CABA honor book, Emmanuel’s Dream, written by Laurie Ann Thompson and illustrated by Sean Qualls, about Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboa who was born with a deformed leg yet grew up to play soccer and raise money for people with disabilities in Ghana.

The opportunity to read, think and write about any of these books gives children a chance to deepen their awareness of countries where they may one day live or travel or have a friend – and build pride in their own countries of origin.

http://childrensbookguild.org/karen-leggett-abouraya

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS

by Pam Smallcomb

I remember when I decided to focus on my writing, and I attended my first SCBWI Writer’s Conference. It seemed to me that at each presentation, I was given this advice:

“Show, don’t tell.”

I looked around at my fellow attendees and saw them nodding sagely. In my head I was thinking, “What in the heck are they talking about?” Since I was obviously the only one who didn’t ‘get it,’ I sat quietly and hoped to break this super-secret code on my own some day.

Eventually, I figured out that what these writers and editors were saying was that the actions of your characters should reveal their character traits and flaws (not to mention the plot itself). But how do you check for ‘telling’ in your own work? One way is to take a close look at your adverbs and adjectives, and consider each one a candidate for the old axe.

For example, the sentence “She looked at the box carefully.” doesn’t really tell you how she went about examining the box, nor does it reveal anything about her character, her emotional state, or the plot.

Instead you could write, “Her hands shook as she turned the box over and over in her lap.”

This sentence could convey nervousness, or excitement, or even fear (depending on what is in that box!).

Another way to check your own work is to keep an eye out for the verbs ‘is’ and ‘are’ (and the past tenses ‘was’ and ‘were’).

For example:

“David is charming.”

How is he charming? Does he remember everyone’s birthday? Have a smile that can melt ice cream? Perform magic tricks spontaneously? How does his particular charm manifest itself?

In other words, if I were to watch David in action, what would he do that would cause me to think of him as charming? ‘Showing’ instead of ‘telling’ is what draws your reader into your story, and makes them bond to the characters. It allows your reader to become the character.  It forces the reader to watch the characters and deduce what their actions mean. It doesn’t spell everything out the way ‘telling’ does. It’s a less passive experience all around.

An exercise that students can do to help them see the difference is to first make a list of adverbs and adjectives, then write two sentences: one ‘telling’ and one ‘showing’.

Ex. Loudly:

I watched Rosi clap loudly when Ralph won first prize.

When they announced Ralph had won, I glanced at Rosi and covered my ears.

Ex. Grumpy:

Sid was pretty grumpy when I woke him up.

Sid slammed me in the side of the head with his pillow when I woke him up.

I recently watched the BBC version of Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit. More importantly, I watched the characters. The actions and mannerisms of each character were unique: from the servant Flintwinch’s gruff behavior, to Amy Dorrit’s gentle and kind-hearted manner. You knew Amy Dorrit was kind-hearted not because everyone pointed to her and said, “Now there goes a kind-hearted girl!” but because Dickens shows us. He shows Amy saving part of her lunch to take back to her father in debtor’s prison. He shows her taking care of people. He doesn’t tell us to think of her as kind. We begin to think of her as kind, as we watch her actions.

When trying not to ‘tell’ your story you can remember the old adage, “Actions speak louder than words.”

http://www.pamsmallcomb.com/

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