Differently Abled Writers

by  Karen Leggett Abouraya

Each year, on the same day we learn about the life-changing Newbery and Caldecott Awards in children’s literature, the Schneider Family Awards are announced, honoring authors for their portrayal of the disability experience.  This year’s winners are:

·  Alan Rabinowitz and illustrator Catia Chien for A Boy and a Jaguar (for children up to age 8) – about his own life as a boy who stuttered except when he talked to animals,

·  Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin (ages 9 to 13) – about a girl with autism who must leave the security of her routines to find her beloved dog after a storm, 

·  Girls Like Us by Gail Giles (teens), about two girls with learning and developmental disabilities who are making the difficult transition to independent living after high school.

All three books enable young readers to see life from the perspective of someone who thinks and works differently, but is not really that different in the ways that matter most. And as it turns out, one of the Newbery Honor books this year is by Cece Bell (El Deafo), an author who is deaf and made a marvelous video about her experiences. There are most likely some differently abled youngsters in your classes.

Nic Stearns, a founder of the ArtStream inclusive theatre in Maryland/Virginia, is about to publish a children’s story written jointly with Megan, a young woman who has Down’s Syndrome. 

As we come to the very end of National Developmental Disability Awareness Month, I’d like to share the type of conversation Nic has with Megan that helps build the story and can serve as a model you can use in class to help every student feel like a writer. The role of Nic in the conversation can be played by a teacher, an aide or even another student (perhaps an older student mentor).  Nic and Megan are writing a story about two friends, Pauline and Tiff.

Nic: "What is Pauline's favorite color?"

Megan pointed at her own purple shirt.

"Purple? Does she wear a lot of purple?" Nicolette asked.

Megan answered, "Yes. Only purple."

Nicolette asked, "What does Pauline like to do? Does she like to sing or does she like to dance?"

"Tap dance!" Megan answered excitedly.

"Does Pauline wear her tap shoes at home?" Nicolette asked.

"Yes," answered Megan.

Nicolette asked, "Well, how about at school?"

"Yes," Megan said.

"Where else does she wear them?" Nicolette wondered, "To the grocery store?"

"Yes," Megan affirmed. "And when she gets ice cream."

Often, Nic moved the story along by giving Megan fill-in-the-blank sentences: “The most important thing about friendship is………..”

As Nic Stearns says, writing became an “opportunity to look beyond Megan’s disabilities to see the beautiful, creative person she is.” (More about ArtStream and the writing project here.)

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

SNOW GLOBES AND GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS

by Jacqueline Jules

I remember the first time I was introduced to graphic organizers. It was a professional development day early in my teaching career, probably twenty years ago. The presenter in the workshop was so excited to share them. He gushed on about their usefulness in the classroom as if they were the best thing since sliced bread. I yawned. Freshly baked whole loaves are my preference and I have never personally used a graphic organizer. That doesn’t mean I forgo pre-writing. My writing always flows better after scribbling down some rough ideas before beginning a story or a poem. It’s the graphic organization of those ideas that made me uncomfortable. My brain doesn’t seem respond to connecting circles and boxes.

So I never used it in my own teaching, figuring my students couldn’t possibly be motivated by something that didn’t work for me personally. What an arrogant mistake!

Recently, two second grade teachers at the school where I work showed me the power of pre-writing with graphic organizers. They found a delightful lesson on Deanna Jump’s teaching blog about snowglobes. Each child not only created a snowglobe for the bulletin board, he or she wrote a story about what it would be like to live in a snowglobe.

When I read these second grade stories, I was blown away by the details the children included. They imagined the sensation of having their homes shaken up. They described snowflakes flickering down. Some imagined ways to break out of the snow globe to return to the real world. Others wrote about an idyllic life of sledding and hot cocoa. The stories were detailed and filled with sensory images.

“How did you do this?” I asked my two colleagues. “How did you get your second graders to write such descriptive and imaginative stories?”

The answer was pre-writing with graphic organizers. Before beginning their stories, the class discussed snow globes at length and the children were asked to fill out two sheets.

One sheet asked the students to fill in ideas of what it might be like to live in a snowglobe using an organizer from Valerie Noles' blog.

Another sheet asked the students to complete sentences. If I Lived in a Snow Globe, I would see…., I would hear …. , I would smell…, I would feel… from the First Grade Blue Skies blog  

This humbling experience not only convinced me that graphic organizers are useful teaching tools for pre-writing, it reminded me of all the wonderful resources teachers generously share on the internet. I am a little embarrassed I didn’t embrace organizers before, but sometimes, even the best of us, overlook good teaching practices.  

www.jacquelinejules.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

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

TIPS FOR WRITING POETRY

by Jacqueline Jules

     In honor of National Poetry Month, I'd like to offer 10 tips for writing poetry. This list grows out of my personal experiences as a poet and as a teacher. All poets struggle to create a clear picture in their reader's mind. I hope this list is helpful to you and your students. 

1.     Don’t be chained to rhyme. Rhymes drastically reduce word choices and can send poems in nonsensical directions. Think about what you really want to say in your poem and if you can’t say it with rhymes, ditch them.

2.     Embrace alliteration. The repetition of a beginning sound can reinforce the mood or subject of your poem and create a musical quality, akin to rhyme. For example, my poem “Olympic Skater,” uses a number of words beginning with an “s” sound. http://www.jacquelinejules.com/skater.htm

3.     Use everyday experiences. Anything can be a powerful topic. One day I found a missing blue sock and wrote a poem called, “Finding a Sock.” http://www.imitationfruit.com/Issue_7/finding_sock/finding_sock.html

4.     Juxtapose. Linking unlike things or experiences can be powerful in a poem. Gliding down the slopes one day, I remembered how klutzy I used to be in middle school gym. It inspired a poem called “Graceless Girl Skis Down Slope.”  http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1223/p18s02-hfpo.html

5.     Examine your endings. I’ve had more than one poem accepted on the condition that I kill the last two lines. While my initial reaction is always horror, I usually come around and see that the poem stands alone without an ending that hits my reader over the head with a fry pan.

6.     The internet has pictures. When I am trying to describe something, I often do a search on Google images. Staring at a photograph can help you paint a picture with words.   

7.     Don’t forget the other senses. How does it smell, taste, touch, and sound? While sight may be a dominant sense, particularly in our video driven society, adding other sensory details will enrich your work.

8.     Lists are good. Providing details, particularly in groups of three, gives your reader a stronger image. In my poem, “Daddy and Venice,” I remember a ride through the Grand Canal in Venice with “velvet seats, a Persian rug, and a singing gondolier.”  http://www.imitationfruit.com/Issue_6/daddy_venice/venice.html

9.     Rearrange the lines. Sometimes a line works better on the top than in the middle. And don’t be afraid to cut off the top if you have created a stronger beginning.

10.   Economize. Poetry is all about economy of language. Cross-examine each word and be sure it’s needed and evokes a strong enough image for your reader.

http://www.jacquelinejules.com/

Crafting a Creative Character Description

by Mary Amato

When introducing a character, many writers begin and end with a list of the physical traits of the character: eye or hair color, height, etc. Try a different approach: direct commentary. Say something about this character’s effect on the world around him or her.

Illustration by Eric Brace
Please Write in This Book

Listen to Roald Dahl capping off his description of the formidable Miss Trunchbull in Matilda: “Thank goodness we don’t meet many people like her in this world, although they do exist and all of us are likely to come across at least one of them in a lifetime. If you ever do, you should behave as you would if you met an enraged rhinoceros out in the bush—climb up the nearest tree and stay there until it has gone away.”

In The Whipping Boy, Sid Fleischman doesn’t tell us what the prince looks like. Instead he says: “The young prince was known here and there (and just about everywhere else) as Prince Brat. Not even black cats would cross his path.

For your next personal writing project, choose one character to receive special treatment. Ask: How do others see or respond to this character? Write a sentence or two about the character’s effect on the world.

If you're a teacher, here's how to approach this lesson.

1. Read the above examples first.

2. Choose a character from a book you've all read and brainstorm commentary about the character. If your students are too young to understand the concept of commentary, try using the term "gossip." If you were gossiping to someone else about this character, what might you say?

3. Ask your students to do this with a character in one of their own stories.

Have fun coming up with surprising ways of making characters come alive.

http://www.maryamato.com/

PENCIL TIPS: THE WRITING GARDEN

by Mary Quattlebaum

As the weather warms and eyes turn from page or screen to the greening world, a field trip can help enhance students’ writing skills and pleasure.

And you need not travel far.  Many schools today have created small gardens or grounds that can be used as outdoor classrooms.  Alive with plants, pollinators, and regional wildlife, these green spots offer hands-on and real-life lessons in math, science, natural history, geography, literature, and the arts.  You can also take a beyond-school writing trip to a public garden.

1.  In the classroom, prepare students by sharing poems or descriptions of plants, insects, and birds.  What details make the writing vivid?  Did the writer like or dislike this thing?  (See below for some of my favorite poems/descriptions.) 

2.  As a class, have them list things they think they will find in the garden.

3.  Have them bring their writer’s journals and pencils outdoors and challenge them to (1) look for the things they thought they would find, (2) add details (such as color, name, smell, texture, sound, and so on to “flower,” “butterfly,” or “bird,” for example), and (3) write down things/details they hadn’t expected.

4.  In the classroom, discuss their findings.  What were some surprises?  What one natural thing did they find most interesting?  Why?

5.  Ask them to write a short description or poem that includes specific details and three of the five senses.  For younger kids, you might also have them draw/color a picture and post their writings/drawings in the classroom for an “indoor garden.”

For more information on creating or teaching with a school garden, check online resources offered by the National Wildlife Federation www.nwf.org/schoolyard and National Gardening Association www.kidsgardening.org.

Some favorite garden poems/descriptions:

“Orchids,” “Weed Puller,” “Old Florist,” and “Moss-Gathering,” by Theodore Roethke in The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke.

“Petaling” and “Me Boy. You Plant.” by Heidi Mordhorst in Pumpkin Butterfly.

 “You Never Hear the Garden Grow,” “The Nest,” “Cricket” in The 20^th Century Children’s Poetry Treasury, edited by Jack Prelutsky.

http://www.maryquattlebaum.com/

THE KEY TO GOOD WRITING

by Jacqueline Jules

Inspired by Mary Amato’s post on Sharing Mistakes, http://penciltipswritingworkshop.blogspot.com/2012/02/sharing-mistakes.html, I told students the story of a recent poem acceptance. In addition to a few stylistic changes, the editor asked if I would consider chopping off the last two lines. I was hesitant. The poem felt unfinished without the ending. Then, as I usually do, when an editor makes a suggestion, I examined those lines again. Did I really need them? Were they redundant? Could I rework the beginning so the new ending felt more resonant? I gave it a whirl and revised the poem, creating a version I liked better. In the end, I was grateful to the editor for pushing me to write a stronger poem. 

Art by Maggie D.

This is not the first time an editor has asked me to remove an ending, change a title, or even switch the point of view. Revisions at the request of an editor are part of any published author’s life.  Books rarely spring perfectly formed from the writer’s brain. They benefit from the suggestions of others. When someone gives me a good idea for fixing one of my stories or poems, they give me a present—an opportunity to write something better. In the long run, I am happier.  Of course, it can be hard to hear that writing you think is finished needs further work, but good writing requires hard work. At author visits, I often tell students how I expanded my original idea for Zapato Power from a 1,0000 word easy reader to a 5,000 word chapter book. Likewise, my Constitution book, Unite or Die: How Thirteen States Became a Nation began as a four page skit of 800 some words that I expanded to over 3000 words. Students are accustomed to hearing their teachers tell them they should add details or change things in their writing. It can be comforting (and empowering) for students to hear that all writers are asked to expand their stories. A frequent question at author visits is: “How many times do you revise?” The truth is I revise so many times, I lose track. Thirty times may be an average number but I sold a book last year that I’ve been re-writing in different formats for over twenty years. That book must have gone through at least one hundred revisions.

Teachers are often frustrated by a student’s unwillingness to go back and revise. Kids often feel they are finished the second they put the period on the last sentence. So it bears repeating as often as possible that revision is the key to good writing.  While not all students will be motivated to rework their pieces, some will be inspired with amazing results. A student recently came to me with a brief third person story about a father/son ski trip that ended in the boy’s death. I suggested that she fill out the story to make the reader feel more connected to the characters. I also commented on how the death of a child is very sad. The student said she wanted to write a sad story. I said, “That’s fine. Just make the reader feel the experience.” To be honest, I didn’t expect the student to pursue the project. About a week later, the student came back to me with a story written from the viewpoint of a daughter who lost her father during a skiing accident. I was blown away by the immediacy of the voice. A couple of ho-hum paragraphs about a nameless boy who died in a hole had been transformed into a riveting first person story. I felt the panic and pain of this new character as she realized her father was fatally injured. The young writer had added strong dialogue and vivid details one would never have imagined from her first draft. She proved to herself and her readers how much a new approach can enhance a story.  

Another example comes from a student who wanted to write a story about the day she overcame her fear of riding roller coasters. However, she got bogged down in the beginning and somehow ended up spending more time describing the breakfast she ate and the drive to the amusement park than the roller coaster ride. I suggested that she trim the beginning and add more details about her fear of riding coasters and how she overcame it. At first, she balked (as I did when the editor asked me to rewrite my poem). Then, she sat down to try again. The end result was a piece so focused the reader felt the queasiness in the girl’s stomach as she considered overcoming her fears.

As teachers, sometimes we are afraid to push our students to do better work. We don’t want to discourage them. But the delighted face of a student who realizes he/she has transformed a weak work into a strong one is an empowering gift for all involved.

www.jacquelinejules.com

SHARING MISTAKES

by Mary Amato



Illustration by Max Amato



One of the greatest teaching tools and gifts that you can give a student is to share mistakes that you have made. Did you fail to proofread a memo to your boss and discover later that you made a grammatical error? Show it to your students. Did that fancy dessert you made for a potluck turn out horribly because you did the math wrong when you doubled the recipe? Laugh about it with your students. Did you get sudden stage fright on karaoke night and forget the melody? Replay it for your students. Did you have to revise your latest poem twenty-five times to get it right? Dig those 25 crumbled sheets out of the trash can and display them.

Whenever we are learning something new—whether we’re a kindergartner learning how to write the alphabet or a 50-year-old newbie taking beginner piano lessons—we assume we’re the only ones making mistakes. Sometimes new learners will give up rather than face the multitude of mistakes that are required to learn a new skill. Help your students to embrace their mistakes by sharing yours. Remember, the only real mistake is not trying.

www.maryamato.com

WHAT DID YOU LEARN? CREATING THOUGHTFUL NARRATIVES

by Jacqueline Jules

Personal narratives are a big part of any elementary writing curriculum. Primary school students not only enjoy writing about their personal experiences, classmates enjoy reading each other’s accounts of birthday parties and play dates, especially when they find themselves mentioned.

However, sometimes accounts of vacation trips and holiday gatherings can read like an uninspired and rambling list. Do we really need to know every item ordered by every family member at a restaurant? And a sequential list of every television show watched in a 24 hour period will definitely put a reader to sleep. How can we encourage students to write personal narratives with memorable details and thoughtful reflections?

Ask students if a vacation gave them an opportunity to learn how to do something new. Was it the first time at the beach or on an airplane? Did something amusing happen? For example, one student’s writing discussed a trip to a high rise hotel. After paragraphs of many mundane details about the taxi cab ride, checking in, and unpacking, the student discussed what happened when the family went to explore the hotel. The two children ran ahead of the parents and went up in the hotel elevator alone. Could the story be rewritten to highlight this incident? How did it feel to be in the elevator with your younger brother, going up to the 25^th floor? Did you worry your parents while you had a fun adventure? Did you learn anything from the experience? Expanding one event, often buried in a blow-by-blow description of a family vacation, can turn a rambling narrative into an intriguing read. To begin the transition to more focused personal narratives, ask students to identify the most interesting part of their story and then begin a new narrative, describing just that part in more detail. Remind students to include their own feelings, observations, and lessons learned.

After students have identified the most compelling moment in an existing narrative, ask them to concentrate on a single incident for the next  story. Do you remember a time in your childhood when you did something your family found amusing or particularly annoying? One of my students remembered a time when he climbed onto a dining table to examine a bowl full of apples. He took one bite out of each apple and put it back in the bowl. A description of his actions and then subsequent surprise at his mother’s reaction was great material for an amusing story. Another student decided to write about her mischievous baby brother. Rather than listing one childish misdeed after another in a story that could potentially go on for ten pages, the student decided to zero in on the time her mom left her purse within the baby’s reach. The toddler took out Mom’s lipstick and smeared his entire body with it. In that story, Mom learned a lesson!

Another strategy is to focus on a problem or obstacle and how it was overcome. Were you afraid to go off the diving board? Did you hate a certain food your family wanted you to try? Did you fight with a sibling and resolve the conflict in a creative way?

Encourage your students to begin their narratives with a clear idea of what they want to convey to the reader. Is this a story about your first experience with something? Is it a story about a lesson learned or problem solved? Is it a funny story? Ask students to identify the emotion they want the reader to feel. Do you want your reader to laugh? Empathize? Or simply nod his head in agreement? 

Even the youngest student can be encouraged to add insightful comments to personal narratives. Rather than ending the piece with “then we went home,” ask students to tell the reader how they felt about the experience. Would you want to do it again? Did you learn anything? Would you recommend this experience to others?

Personal narratives are a powerful form of writing. Inspire your students to harness that power with personal reflections. It will help them grow as writers and as individuals. 

http://www.jacquelinejules.com/

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AMAZING ALLITERATION

by Laura Krauss Melmed 

This is the first in a series of planned posts on poetic devices.  I’ll start with alliteration, the repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables.  Of the various poetic devices, or purposeful ways of using sounds and words, alliteration is probably the easiest and most fun for children to understand and experiment with.

It’s easy to find examples of alliteration that kids will relate to.  A Wikipedia article on alliteration points out that the names of many book characters are alliterative.  In the Harry Potter books, for example, the four wizards that founded Hogwarts were Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin.  Among the professors are Severus Snape, Minerva McGonnagall, and Filius Flitwick, while the students include Luna Lovegood, Cho Chang and Moaning Myrtle.  Other literary examples abound: how about Willy Wonka, Peter Pan, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and Tiny Tim?  Cartoon characters across different studios include Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald, Daisy and Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and SpongeBob Squarepants.  Sports teams often “sport” alliterative names such as the Buffalo Bills and the Pittsburgh Pirates.  And authors sometimes use alliteration for book titles, the way I did in Moishe’s Miracle; Hurry! Hurry! Have You Heard? and The Marvelous Market on Mermaid.   Start by offering examples such as these to your students and then have them come up with others. 

Why is the use of alliteration so common?  Alliteration is fun.  It trips off the tongue, or sometimes trips it up, as in “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”  Poets use alliteration to enhance the sound and sense of what they’re saying.  In the opening lines of my picture book, Jumbo’s Lullaby, I used repetitive, soft, “sh” “f” and “l” sounds to express Mama Elephant’s tone as she tries to lull her restless baby to sleep:

Susha, susha, Mama’s darling,

Stars are twinkling up high,

flickering like little fishes

in the river of the sky.

In their midst the moon is floating

Glowing with a gentle light,

like a pearly water lily

that has blossomed in the night.

Susha, susha, little Jumbo,

Mama’s love will hold you tight.

In Valerie Worth’s poem “Snake” from Animal Poems, the poet summons her subject’s sinuous slither with sibilant sounds:

Spilled to

A liquid

Silt, a

Slurry of scales..

while in Monday’s Troll, Jack Prelutsky bloviating, bragging blowhard of an ogre describes himself as follows: I’m Bellow the ogre/I bluster and boast…

Prelutsky also uses alliteration to conjure up a week’s worth of truculent trolls:

…Friday’s troll is great and grimy

Saturday’s is short and slimy—

But Sunday’s troll is crabby, cross

And full of sour applesauce.

Other examples abound for the quoting.  After students get the hang of it, ask them to come up with a zany or funny alliterative sentences of their own, the more outrageous the better, which they can then write out and illustrate on large sheets of paper.  Astute students are assured of finding this an amusing avenue for activating alliteration!

http://www.laurakraussmelmed.com/

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Knowing When to Quit & Move On

by Pamela Ehrenberg

There's a character in Camus' novel The Plague who spends several hundred pages writing a novel.  He writes the first sentence . . . then writes the first sentence again . . .then writes the first sentence again.  Hundreds of pages later, he's still working on the first sentence of his novel.

Contrast this character with Gary Larson and Bill Watterson, who in 1995 each announced that they were retiring their popular comic strips The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes, respectively, both wanting to go out on top before their life's work became stale and predictable.

How do you know when it's the right time to quit writing something and move onto something new?  Here are some things that don't tend to serve as reliable barometers for me:

--length of the work

--length of time I've spent on it

--number of people whose feedback I've incorporated

--how hard the writing is, though this comes closer than the others

But if those measures don't work reliably, how do we teach students to listen to their intuition and say "when" on a particular project?

For some students, it's a matter of accepting writing as an imperfect medium: the story on the page might never live up to the story in their head, but it has the immutable advantage that it can now live in others' heads too.  The science fiction writer Holly Lisle says (in her One-Pass Manuscript Revision: http://hollylisle.com/one-pass-manuscript-revision-from-first-draft-to-last-in-one-cycle/):  "the definition of a writing career is: Write a book. Write another book. Write another book.  Nowhere in that description is included: Take one story and make it a monument to every idea you ever had or ever will."

With that in mind, I have two suggestions for how to help students say "when" on a project and move into something else:

1) Celebrating what they've accomplished, to help them say farewell to their former project in style.  Food helps--even Goldfish crackers and fancy grape juice can elevate a "sharing our work" session to a real celebration.  Published writers have book launch parties for lots of reasons, including selling books of course.  But book launch parties also feel something like graduation parties or bar mitzvah celebrations, marking a transition from a "before" to an "after."  They're all rites of passage, and food helps to emphasize the "rite."

2) And jumping right into the next project celebrates the "passage."  It's a fine line, of course: if students are too excited about whatever's coming next, there might be some who refuse to finish the current project at all--but with no inkling of what's on the horizon, some might be understandably reluctant to leave the comfort zone of their current work-in-progress.  Introducing just a hint of the next project around the edges of the current work can help students--and us, as teachers--to know when to say "when."

Personal Note:

On the topic of leaving one's comfort zone, I've had some big transitions this year as a writer and teacher of writing.  Now that my daughter is six and my son is about to turn three, I've gone back to full-time work in a non-teaching arena in order to support my writing (and family).  While I look forward to working with schools and presenting at conferences and workshops, I'm planning to shift my writing energies away from regular blogging in the coming months.  I have so much gratitude to my fellow bloggers for the opportunity to participate in Pencil Tips, and to all of the Pencil Tips readers who gave me something to participate in.  I look forward to continuing this learning and these relationships long after saying "when." I hope you will join me in welcoming Alison Hart, a teacher and author of over 20 books for children and teens who will be joining the Pencil Tips bloggers in six weeks. To learn more about Alison, please visit http://www.alisonhartbooks.com/

Best,

Pamela Ehrenberg 

 http://www.pamelaehrenberg.com/Site/Home.html

PIECING TOGETHER A MYSTERY

by Pam Smallcomb

Kids love mysteries. I love mysteries, too. It’s one of the first genres I latched on to when I was young, and it has followed me into adulthood. In many elementary schools, children study the mystery genre and try their hands at writing them as well.  It’s not easy to explain to kids how to go about writing a mystery. It’s a rather mysterious thing, when it comes right down to it.

 At its core, a mystery is a puzzle. Just like a puzzle, a mystery story has pieces. A mystery starts with a question. The more puzzling the question, the better. This question will be what you solve in the story.

For example:

Who took the jewels from the sealed tomb?

What if my best friends stopped talking to me and I didn’t know why?

And of course, the traditional…

Who is the murderer and how did they do it?

Another piece of your mystery is your main character. He is the one who solves the mystery. He is your detective (whether amateur, accidental or professional). He’s the one who will figure out the clues in your mystery. In other words, he’s your hero.

When developing your main character, consider giving him/her unique character traits. Set him apart from the pack. Eccentric habits are great. Remember,  Hercule Poirot was a fastidious neat freak who loved his waxed moustache, and Sherlock Holmes played his violin to relax.

Kids can have eccentric habits, too (as we parents well know). For example, your main character could:

Chew gum constantly.

Never go anywhere without her stuffed yellow cat.

Talk to his pet tarantula about the clues in the mystery.

Another way to "build" your detective/main character is to give him special skills.

Maybe your hero:

Knows baseball history inside and out

Plays the piano brilliantly

Likes to collect coins

But how can you use this special skill when you write your mystery?

If you know the ending of your mystery - what your hero/detective  is searching for - what he needs in order to solve the mystery, you can go back and lay in a special skill that will help. A special skill that will be useful in solving the mystery.

Here’s a simple example:  let’s say that your mystery involves a valuable coin (maybe a rare penny!) that has been stolen. The bad guy takes the coin and stashes it in a penny jar where he hopes to come back and get it later. Make your hero a coin collector. He is the one that recognizes it from all the coins in the jar. Use your hero’s skills to help solve the mystery.

Expertise in a subject is just one kind of special skill. Here are a couple of examples of different special skills from other authors:

Cam Jansen:

Her photographic memory comes in very handy when she has to solve a mystery. She can remember everything she sees, including  all those visual clues.

A Series of Unfortunate Events:

Each Baudelaire orphan has a special skill, even little Sunny with her strong bite. Sister Violet is an inventor; brother Klaus reads everything he can get his hands on, and remembers what he’s read.

Artemis Fowl:

Artemis is an Irish child prodigy and a ruthless master criminal who has amassed his family’s fortune using his special talents in crime. He is an eccentric anti-hero.

You might want your hero to have a sidekick as well. The advantage of having a sidekick is your hero can discuss the mystery with him. Best friends make good sidekicks. Lots of times sidekicks can be funny. They can comment on the action in your story. But remember, your main character must solve the mystery in your story. Dr. Watson just helped out.

Of course, there is a lot more to writing a mystery including: victims, villains, clues, suspects, alibis and motive.  Beginning your mystery with an intriguing question and a protagonist that has eccentric habits and special skills will give you (or your student) two important pieces of the puzzle.

To find out more about writing mysteries (and fill in some of those other puzzle pieces), take a gander at Writing Mysteries: A Handbook by the Mystery Writers of America by Sue Grafton. There is a specialties section that focuses on mysteries for young people and short story mysteries.

OUR SEPTEMBER BOOK GIVEAWAY WINNER IS:  M.G. King. I’ll contact you soon about sending you the signed copy of I'm Not.

http://www.pamsmallcomb.com/

Revision Advice from My Summer Reading

by Jacqueline Jules

"Ultimately, the quality of a good piece of writing is determined by the amount of revision a writer is willing to do." —Marcia S. Freeman, Teaching the Youngest Writers: A Practical Guide.

Personally, I enjoy revision. It’s writing the first draft that feels like cutting the lawn, one blade at a time. Lots of authors agree with me on this. However, many students find revision extremely painful. How can we help?  In my last post, I shared two famous revision stories and one of my own in the hopes of encouraging young writers that revision is well worth the effort. Now, at the beginning of the school year, I’d like to share some advice about revision from my summer reading. I read three books: Reflections by Ralph Fletcher from the Richard C. Owen Author at Work series, Drop Everything and Write: An Easy Breezy Guide for Kids Who Want to Write a Story by Linda Leopold Strauss, and Teaching the Youngest Writers: A Practical Guide by Marcia S. Freeman.

Ralph Fletcher in Reflections readily admits that sometimes he gets defensive when editors suggest revisions to his work. He wants to shout like a four year old, “I’m not going to change a single comma!” But after he settles down, he tries to find a way to “own the advice” as he works on the suggested changes. Fletcher says that more often than not, “seeing my story through another person’s eyes has helped me untangle a tricky plot or story structure.” Calling his editors “co-creators” of his published work, Fletcher says that his editors have strengthened his writing and taught him many things. Page 44 of Reflections has a nice example of an edited page from Fletcher’s memoir, Marshfield Dreams, complete with crossed out lines, suggestions, and sticky note that would be great to show to students.

Drop Everything and Write by Linda Leopold Strauss has a number of exercises that can help young writers add sensory details to their writing. One activity is a “Listening Walk,” in which the writer records all the sounds heard on the street such as shoes on the sidewalk or a car driving over a manhole. Her example of her own “Listening Walk” would be a great read aloud model in the classroom. With entertaining anecdotes, Strauss warns against letting subplots or minor characters overrun a story and distracting the reader’s attention. She defines many important writer’s terms such as flashback, transitions, black moment, and voice. In a chapter entitled, “Show, Don’t Tell,” Strauss explains the advantages of including details rather than summarizing the action. She encourages young writers to spice up their writing by describing an angry character’s actions rather than simply saying he was angry or setting a scene with images from all five senses. Finally, she says that stories benefit from “drawer time” and gives a checklist for polishing a draft that teachers and students should find very useful.

Marcia Freeman’s Teaching the Youngest Writers addresses the kind of revisions done on the primary level. She provides concrete advice on what teachers can reasonably expect from kindergarteners and first graders, accepting that emergent writers are more capable of adding material than reorganizing a narrative told out of chronological order. Young students are encouraged by the opportunity to share their work. This in turns leads to a consideration of the reader and incentive to revise. “A writer’s first responsibility is to his reader,” says Freeman. Teachers can word compliments with this in mind. For example, “Your readers will like the way you told about your sister.” Reinforcing the reader’s needs can also be used in suggested revisions, such as telling young students that the repetition of a word “puts the reader to sleep.” Freeman defines the important distinction between revision and editing. Revision helps the writer make sure his message is “clear and interesting” while editing is focused on conventions like grammar and spelling.  But the reader is still important in the editing process, since punctuation helps the reader understand the text. Finally, while Freeman advises teaching the youngest writers to avoid seeing their work as something that can be finished in one sitting, she cautions against expecting perfection.

All three of these summer reading books enriched my own approach to teaching and writing. I hope they will be useful to you as well.

http://www.jacquelinejules.com/

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