new posts in all blogs
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Wednesday Writing Workout, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 26 - 50 of 56
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: Wednesday Writing Workout in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
Throughout April (National Poetry Month), I'm posting poetry-themed
Wednesday Writing Workouts. This week, I was in the mood for something short. I thumbed through my worn copy of
The Book of Forms by Lewis Turco, but none of the 175+ forms jumped out at me. I wanted something new.
Then my son Jimmy sent me an article, "
The Ideal Length of Everything Online, Backed by Research," which defines (among other things) the ideal length of a tweet as 100 characters and the ideal length of a Facebook post as less than 40 characters. Naturally, I thought about writing poems short enough to be posted on social media.
I searched online to find out what already existed on the topic. In
an article from 2011, Carol Ann Duffy, Britain's Poet Laureate, said poetry is "a way of saying more with less, just as texting is. We've got to realise that the Facebook generation is the future – and, oddly enough, poetry is the perfect form for them. It's a kind of time capsule – it allows feelings and ideas to travel big distances in a very condensed form."
To celebrate National Poetry Month, New York City hosted its fifth annual "#NYCPoetweet"
Twitter poetry contest. So obviously, I didn't make up the idea of writing poems to post on social media sites, although
I've posted a number myself. Haiku fit perfectly, as you can see in
Laura's daily Riddle-Ku. Liz Garton Scanlon is posting a
haiku on her blog every day this month. My cousin Maureen sent me an article
about H. W. Brands (@hwbrands), an author, historian, and history professor who is tweeting "Haiku History: The American Saga Seventeen Syllables at a Time."
But a brief poem intended for social media doesn't need a specific form—it just has to be a short poem, maybe with a tangy metaphor, an alliterative pun, or a haiku-like twist. Writing short-short poems is practice in writing concisely. Here are a couple new ones of mine, both about this spring in Wisconsin:
Gray skies, more rain.
One goldfinch brightens
the world.
Wet sidewalks = worm traps.
Stop wiggling—I'm trying to help!
I found social media-length poems on Twitter using these hashtags:
#micropoem
#micropoetry
#poemtweet
#poetrytweet
#poetweet
#twitterhaiku
#twitterku
#twitterpoem
If you search (as I did), be aware that you will find poems of uneven quality, from brilliant to confusing to downright offensive. But do try writing some of your own just for fun—and then share them online!
Congratulations to our Fifth Blogiversary Book Bundle winners!Rafflecopter lists our prize winners
on the original post, so you can always check back there after a drawing ends to see who won. Five entries were chosen to receive five books each. Here are the winners:
New Teaching Author Book Giveaway!Don't forget to
enter for a chance to win a copy of Jill Esbaum's Angry Birds Playground: Rain Forest.
National Poetry MonthOn
my own blog, I'm posting more poetry writing tips and assorted poetry treats on Fridays through April. This week's post includes the final National Poetry Month giveaway of
Write a Poem Step by Step. Be sure to stop by!
JoAnn Early Macken
Throughout April (National Poetry Month), I'm posting poetry-themed Wednesday Writing Workouts. Today's form is a Fib, a counted-syllable form with an increasing number of syllables per line, following the Fibonacci sequence. Each number in the series (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, and so on) is formed by adding the two previous numbers. The Fibonacci sequence can “describe an amazing variety of phenomena, in mathematics and science, art and nature.”
Greg Pincus visited the Teaching Authors last year. He explained the origin of the Fib form on his blog. The New York Times article “Fibonacci Poems Multiply on the Web After Blog's Invitation” describes the form’s increasing popularity. According to the Poetry Foundation, “These short, straightforward poems are that rare thing capable of crafting a bridge between the often disparate souls of art and science.”
When I tried writing Fibs, I found that the lengthening lines seemed to suit a subject that unfolds gradually or a conclusion that slowly dawns on a narrator and/or reader.
In this poem, my early drafts stopped at seven lines. Then I realized I had more to say, so I reversed the pattern and counted back down.
Signs of Spring
I
walk
my dog
cautiously
through our neighborhood
in spring, when warning signs crop up
on lush green smooth-as-carpet lawns: Pesticides! Keep off!
How on our dear troubled planet did poison become
an acceptable lawn care tool?
Is grass truly green
if nothing
else can
thrive
there?
Today is the last day to enter to
win one of five Teaching Authors Blogiversary Book Bundles! Details are here.
On
my own blog, I'm posting more poetry writing tips and assorted poetry treats on Fridays, including giveaways of
Write a Poem Step by Step. Be sure to stop by!
JoAnn Early Macken
Throughout April (National Poetry Month), I'll be posting poetry-themed
Wednesday Writing Workouts. For today's workout, why not try a book spine poem?
I tried a few and could hardly stop myself. Good thing my bookshelves are somewhat limited! Do not set me loose in a library!
Curiosity
Poetry Is
Note to Self
For the Next Generation
Remember to enter to win one of five
Teaching Authors Blogiversary Book Bundles!
Details are here.
On
my own blog, I'm posting more poetry writing tips and assorted poetry treats on Fridays, including giveaways of
Write a Poem Step by Step. Be sure to stop by!
JoAnn Early Macken
Throughout April (National Poetry Month), I'll be posting poetry-themed Wednesday Writing Workouts.
Today's form is a triolet, which contains eight lines. Two of the lines repeat (one of them twice), so a poem includes only five different lines. Some variation is allowed within the repeating lines.
Because of the repetition, it's a good form to use when you want to remind readers of a certain point or make a strong impression. The form looks like this:
A
B
a
A
a
b
A
B
A and B are the repeating lines.
a rhymes with A.
b rhymes with B.
I didn't set out to write a triolet about the form itself; that just sort of happened as I tried to explain it. Here's my triolet triolet:
Self-Referential Encouragement
A tricky form, the triolet,
relies on two lines that repeat,
reinforcing what they say.
A tricky form, the triolet—
keep trying, and you’ll find a way
to manage this poetic feat.
A tricky form, the triolet
relies on two lines that repeat.
More information about the form is at
Poets.org. Give it a try, and do let us know how it goes!
Remember to enter to win one of five
Teaching Authors Blogiversary Book Bundles!
Details are here.
On
my own blog, I'm posting more poetry writing tips and assorted poetry treats on Fridays, including giveaways of
Write a Poem Step by Step. Be sure to stop by!
JoAnn Early Macken
Throughout April (National Poetry Month), I'll be posting poetry-themed
Wednesday Writing Workouts.
On
my own blog, I'll add more poetry writing tips and assorted poetry treats, including giveaways of
Write a Poem Step by Step.
Be sure to check out what the other
Teaching Authors are working on this month! April is posting
daily metaphors, and Laura is writing a
riddle haiku every day. For more Poetry Month delights, check out the list of
2014 Kidlitosphere Events on Jama Kim Rattigan's Alphabet Soup Blog. You could start reading the links above and continue for days. Just be sure to come back here on Friday for a special announcement!
For today's workout, give yourself a writing assignment. If you keep writing in the same old forms all the time, try a new one.
How about a limerick? They are silly, lighthearted, and fun. As a challenge, I decided to write one using the name of the place where I live. I first tried to rhyme with "Shorewood," but the stress is on the wrong syllable. Does anything rhyme with "Wisconsin"? I don't think so, but I didn't let that stop me!
(Note that this poem is not autobiographical. I would
never do such a thing!)
A traditional limerick typically starts out by naming a person from a place:
- There was an old man from Seville.
- There once was a girl from Cancún.
To write a limerick, read a few first to get the anapest rhythm in your head: da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM. Lines 1, 2, and 5 each have three anapests (with some variation allowed), and lines 3 and 4 each have two.
Edward Lear made limericks famous. You can read
many of his poems and see his accompanying illustrations on the Project Gutenberg site. Or look for a poetry collection in the library--most of the limericks online are vulgar!
One thing that helps is to choose a two-syllable place name with the stress on the second syllable, such as Madrid or Green Bay. Remember that you have to find two words that rhyme with the place name. Brazil might be easier to work with than Detroit. Have fun!
I'll be highlighting a whole slew of forms on this blog and
my own web site throughout the month. So after you stop here on Friday (You are stopping here on Friday, right?), visit me there for more poetry fun!
Oh, and feel free to post your limericks here--we'd love to see them!
JoAnn Early Macken
Kids (and grown-ups) love to write in rhyme, but it’s a lot harder than it looks. And it gets even tougher if you’re trying to write nonfiction in rhyme! So, here's an exercise for those interested in writing rhyming picture books. This could also be a fun classroom activity where you ask students to synthesize information learned in a particular math or science or history unit. (I wouldn’t even attempt something like this with students younger than 5th grade, though, and even then, working as a group will be a lot more successful.)
1. Pick a topic you want to write a short poem about. I think I’ll do, um, fences. Yup, fences. Pick something you’ve never written about and don’t actually want to write a whole poem or picture book about. That will make this less stressful!
2. Define your topic in a first line. That’s a place to start. m-w.com tells me a fence is “a structure like a wall built outdoors usually of wood or metal that separates two areas or prevents people or animals from entering or leaving.” OK, I’m going to start with:
A fence is like an outside wall
Because it ends in wall (and, yes, I purposely picked a simplish word that I know will have rhyming possibilities to end the line with), I’m going to brainstorm and/or look up on rhymezone.com words that rhyme with wall that might in some way work into this poem: all, ball, crawl, fall, tall,
3. Add detail in rhyming line.
A fence is like an outside wall:
Wood or metal, short or tall.
4. Decide what else you want to tell about your topic. I like the idea that fences sometimes keep people or things or animals IN, and sometimes keep people or things or animals OUT. So that’s what I want my second half of this poem to convey. In and out are the main elements of that concept, so I’ll check out some rhyme possibilities and see where that leads me:
in – bin, grin, skin, twin, win
out – about, doubt, shout, trout
Well, those lead me pretty much nowhere, at least at first glance. Maybe I’ll try inside and outside, instead:
cried, died, tried, wide
Again, a big, fat nothing.
So, I switch gears. WHAT does it keep inside? Kids and dogs is what I’m mainly thinking of. And what does it keep outside? Strangers, people that might get hurt on whatever’s inside the fence...
While, I was thinking about that, the word divide popped into my head, which would rhyme with inside or outside. So I’m going to play with that.
5. Now try another couplet to show your concept.
A fence’s job is to divide.
A fence keeps beagles safe inside.
I don’t like that because it’s not clear. And the two lines don’t really connect. No cause or effect. Each line is true, but there’s no relationship between them. I’ll try again.
I think that second concept is too big for two short lines. I’m going to simplify to the concept that a fence keeps animals safe.
A fenced-in pasture, green and wide,
keeps grazing cattle safe inside.
6. Read over the four lines you wrote. Congratulations!
A fence is like an outside wall:
Wood or metal, short or tall.
A fenced-in pasture, green and wide,
keeps grazing cattle safe inside.
OK, mine is not going to win any prizes, but it’s a start! I have a basic definition, a bit of detail, and then a single example of one kind of fence and its job. In reading it, I see some possibilities for re-ordering and revising lines. So my second draft is:
Wood or metal, short or tall,
a fence becomes an outside wall.
Rolling meadow, green and wide,
cattle safely fenced inside.
Again, this is just very basic. But doing this exercise can help you build some rhyming/meaning muscles, so it's a great practice activity for any would-be rhymers!
Here are a couple of bits from my first draft of A River Can Be…, which eventually turned into Water Can Be…. You can see this process at work here. It’s just a combination of picking a word I KNOW works for the topic, brainstorming rhymes, and then trying out lines with those other rhymes to see which ones work both for rhyme AND for topic.
And when a word didn’t have enough rhymes to play with (like haven), I tried a synonym that was more rhyme-friendly. I hope you have fun trying your hand at a little bit of rhyme today!
I'd love to see what you come up with! Feel free to share your four lines in the Comments!
Oh! And don't forget to
enter our book giveaway of Water Can Be...! by clicking on the Rafflecopter widget in last Monday's post.
--Laura Purdie Salas
Today's writing workout combines
my Monday post with an exercise from Elaine Marie Alphin's
Creating Characters Kids Will Love. That exercise is:
"Read the community news pages in your newspaper. Find an article about a kid who's done something special. Based on the information in the newspaper, plan how you would interview that particular youngster for an article for kids."
I hope you'll give this one a try. Magazines, especially, welcome articles highlighting kids who are making a positive difference in the world or their small corner of it.
Back in ye olden days (late 90s) when I was a green writer trying to build credits, I read an article in my local paper about a young man from a nearby city who had grown up in a home where the Mississippi River was literally in his backyard. He'd noticed lots of trash left behind by spring flooding, and, upon learning that nobody else was cleaning it up, he'd started spending his summer breaks doing so himself. When I interviewed him at age 23, he's just founded Living Lands & Waters, an organization dedicated to cleaning up not just the 2,300 miles of Mississippi River shoreline (4,600 miles, counting both banks!), but
all American waterways.
I entered the article in a contest and did well, so I sent it on to
Highlights for Children. They accepted the piece, publishing it in 2002. Since then, they've resold it 8 times, and that young man, Chad Pregracke (Google him. He's all over the internet.) has gone on to win dozens of awards, give countless interviews (mine was the first article written for kids), and spoken all over the world urging others to environmental activism. In fact, he has just been named one of the ten finalists for CNN's Heroes 2013 - Everyday People Changing the World award. You can
read about that here (and vote for him!).
Back to writing....You never know when something you spot in your local paper could spark an idea that could pay off for you in ways both large and small (satisfaction and monetary compensation, in that order, ha). So keep your eyes peeled, and in the meantime, practice your interviewing and writing skills with Elaine's exercise.
Success = preparation + perseverance
Jill Esbaum
.
Breaking News:
April's poem, "When Mom Plays Just for Me" will appear on Children’s Poet Laureate Kenn Nesbitt's homepage www.PoetryMinute.org at 8:00am Eastern Time on Thursday, October 3 and will remain there for 24 hours, when it will be replaced by another poem. (April's poem will remain on the site but not on the home page.) Its permanent link (which won't work until 10-3-13):
http://www.poetryminute.org/when-mom-plays-just-for-me-by-april-halprin-wayland/Howdy Campers!
Remember to enter our
current giveaway of Alexis O'Neill's book,
The Kite That Bridged Two Nations ~
Welcome to another edition of
TeachingAuthors'...
Okay...raise your hand if you've never been bullied.
Yeah, me, too.
Mary Ann kicked off our discussion on bullying for
National Bullying Month (who knew?) with a deeply affecting post,
I Wonder What Happened to Todd: A Bully's Tale.
Bullies I've known remind me of turtles: mostly they stay in their civilized shells, and then, without warning, they stretch their heads out and snap off someone's finger.
I had to chair a meeting of a non-profit organization this weekend to decide what we were going to do about a member who is a bully.
I'll call our guy Bluto. Bluto, like the turtle, was usually friendly--he'd come early to set-up chairs, help collect dues, etc. Every once in a while, though, he'd explode at someone shy, someone weak, someone Not Important. In the latest incident, the atmosphere in our meeting was so toxic, people felt afraid for their safety. Things had clearly gone too far.
Attending a meeting to figure out how to handle Bluto was not on the top of my list of fun things to do on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Ahead of this would have been eating a porcupine, finding out my father was a single-celled alga, and staying in bed all day.
Staying in bed all day--
a great alternative to being a grown-up....
In preparation for this meeting, I spoke at length with an expert on disruptive behavior. I learned:
1) Bullies pick on people who are weaker than they are.
2) You need to stand up to a bully.
3) Be empathetic.
4) Create clear boundaries.
I can always use a good script. She gave me words to use (or not):
We need you to take a time out from our organization for six months. This is the natural consequence of your actions. We hope you understand. This is also hard for us. We're saddened. We hope you will use the next six months to work on this. At the end of six months, if you chose to come back (and we hope you do) we hope you'll have taken the opportunity to work on this. We'll meet with you and talk with you before you come back to a meeting. We hope you do work it out. People are afraid of you and you need to look at that. If you cannot, boy, we're sure going to miss you. This is a great loss for us. (Hug him.)
At the end of six months, here's what's expected: Civility. You can't yell. You can't create a threat. You need to listen.
Interestingly enough, during the meeting on what to do about Bluto, Mary Kate shot out an angry comment. At that moment I realized that I'm as afraid of Mary Kate as I am of Bluto. I remembered what I had learned from the expert, took a deep breath and said, "Could you not speak so angrily to me?"
Mary Kate's response was dramatic. She looked at me in surprise--almost as if I had awakened her from a dream. She apologized. During the rest of the meeting she was kinder to all of us than she'd ever been.
Amazing how that works. And that sense that I awakened a bully from a dream? That's sometimes how I feel when I eat too much...suddenly I wake up and say, "Whoa! I think we're finished with lunch!"
I wouldn't be surprised if bullying behavior was an addiction, like smoking, drinking, overeating, compulsive spending, hoarding, etc. Hmm.
So, today's
Wednesday Writing Workout focuses on 2013 National Bullying Month's theme
, The end of bullying begins with me.
Here's your writing workout:
1) Who
is a bully? Choose
Bluto (of the
Popeye fame),someone who once bullied you, or someone who intimidates you today.
2) Pretend that bully is in front of you now. Jot down how you feel or how you felt as a child facing that bully. Include details of the place, smells, physical sensations (has your stomach turned to acid? Are your palms sweaty?). Include weather, background noises you hear or can't hear because you're so frightened, what gives you courage or how you ate a box of cookies later to blot out the fear.
4) Now: make a boundary. Write what you wish you could have said to the bully. Scribble to your heart's content. Be annoyed. Be angry. Be clear. Tell that bully to BACK OFF!
5) That's your raw material. Now go ahead and write the bully story or poem you really, really
really need to write.
P.S: I'm pleased that one of my poems appears in the terrific book,
THE BULLY, THE BULLIED, THE BYSTANDER, THE BRAVE edited by David Booth and Larry Swartz (Rubicon Publishing)
~ posted by April Halprin Wayland who is no longer afraid of Tom P, from second grade.
The Dot is a story about encouragement: A generous teacher refuses to give up on a student she believes in. It’s also about determination: The student realizes she can do better, goes back, and tries again. And persistence: Over and over, she faces the blank page, experimenting with colors and sizes.
Today’s Wednesday Writing Workout, inspired by The Dot, focuses on encouragement.
As writers, we have to be our own cheerleaders, coaches, and fans.
Here are some suggestions for remaining positive about your work:
- Print your title page. Frame it. Hang it above your desk or computer.
- Write yourself an encouraging note. Remember to be kind to yourself. Writing is hard!
- Get enough sleep. As my mom used to say, everything looks better in the morning.
- As Julia Cameron says in The Artist’s Way, fill the well! Visit a museum. Hike through the wilderness. Paddle around with a pal.
- Celebrate every victory, no matter how tiny. Invite writer friends who understand to join the party, and be sure to celebrate their victories, too!
Happy writing!
As Mary Ann mentioned on Monday, we're saying "farewell" to Jeanne Marie by linking back to one of our favorites of her 101 TeachingAuthor posts. And since today is Wednesday, I had the added task of choosing a favorite post that also lends itself to a Writing Workout. Turns out, that wasn't very hard. Last July, Jeanne Marie blogged about a picture book writing course she was taking. One of her assignments was to discuss the contents of her Writer's Toolbox. She shared an excerpt from her response to the assignment (which I encourage you to go back and read) and talked of the value of reflecting on one's own Writer's Toolbox.
For today's
Wednesday Writing Workout, I'd like to focus on the first tool/challenge Jeanne Marie mentioned:
"I think that one of the most challenging aspects of creating a rootable character is finding a way to make him/her likeable and flawed at the same time."
When I first read this, the term "rootable character" was new to me. I know now that it's simply a character the reader will want to root for. But creating one is not a simple task. In fact, it's something I'm struggling with in my current work-in-progress. Part of my challenge is that my story is set in 18th-century Milan, Italy, a time and place quite removed from my readers. How can I depict my character in a way that modern readers will understand her world well enough to empathize with and understand her feelings and choices?
One way is to find connections between me and my character that I can draw from.
In a presentation to the Federation of Children's Book Groups last March, Elizabeth Wein talked about how she found such connections while writing her award-winning historical novel
Code Name Verity (Disney-Hyperion) by looking for "modern parallels." But even if you're writing a contemporary story, whether fiction or nonfiction, it's not always easy to make your protagonist "rootable." Before trying the following workout, you may want to read these two articles on the topic: a post by Emilia Plater called "
Radical Empathy: Creating a Compelling Flawed Character" on the
YA Highway blog, and one by Alex Epstein for the
2012 Script Frenzy site called "
We Like Characters Because of Their Flaws, Not Their Virtues."
Writing Workout: Creating a Rootable Character
If you have a work-in-progress, consider your main character. Is he or she too perfect? If so, can you give the character a flaw that readers could relate to and understand? Or, on the flip side, have you created a character readers will dislike? If so, can you show why this character is this way?
Happy Writing!
Carmela
By:
Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 9/4/2013
Blog:
Teaching Authors
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Book Giveaway,
writing prompt,
New Year's resolutions,
writing exercise,
Writing Workout,
April Halprin Wayland,
Guest Teaching Author,
New Year at the Pier,
Wednesday Writing Workout,
Add a tag
.
Howdy, Campers!
It's not Saint Patrick's Day, but we're lucky, lucky, lucky to open our doors and welcome Guest TeachingAuthor Barbara Krasner, who offers us a dynamite Wednesday Writing Workout for the New Year.
 |
As long as we're feeling lucky, enter our latest book giveaway!
Details at the end... |
Here's a bit about Barbara: In the fall of 2014, her picture book,
Goldie Takes a Stand! A Tale of Young Golda Meir, will be published by
Kar-Ben, the Jewish imprint of
Lerner Publishing Group. In addition, she's written four nonfiction books (including
Discovering Your Jewish Ancestors) and more than 200 articles for adults and children that have appeared in
Highlights for Children, Cobblestone, Calliope, and
Babaganewz.
She holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the
Vermont College of Fine Arts, an MBA in Marketing from
Rutgers University, and blogs at
The Whole Megillah/
The Writer’s Resource for Jewish-themed Children’s Books. Barbara is currently on the
Sydney Taylor Book Award committee.
Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in
Poetica,
Jewish Women’s Literary Annual,
Mused-BellaOnline Literary Review, Jewishfiction.net, in the
Paterson Literary Review; she was a semi-finalist in the 2013 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry in the upcoming
Nimrod International Journal (!!)
Barbara is definitely a
TeachingAuthor, teaching creative writing in the English department of
William Paterson University and a workshop,
Writing Jewish-themed Children’s Books at the
Highlights Foundation.
You see what I mean when I say we're
lucky to have her come by today? WOWZA!
And now, here's Barbara with the Writing Workout
she's cooked up for us!
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, comes early this year and I’m glad. It gives me the opportunity to reflect on the past year and think about the coming year even before the leaves fall. I’m giving you a Rosh Hashanah challenge in three parts.
Part One: Rosh Hashanah, literally translated as head of the year, is a perfect time to think about the beginning of your manuscript. How many times do we hear that if we can’t grab the agent/editor/reader within just a few seconds, he or she will just move on to something else?
Ask yourself the following questions:
• Do you have a compelling title?
• Does your first line grab the reader? (My all-time favorites are from M.T. Anderson, “The woods were silent except for the screaming,” and from Kate DiCamillo, “My name is Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes and I came back with a dog.”)
• Have you presented the main character on the first page?
• Have you presented the problem within the first page, the first chapter?
These questions apply to fiction and nonfiction alike.
What are your first lines?
Part Two: The Rosh Hashanah holiday includes a practice called Tashlich, casting off our sins. The practice is exemplified in April Halprin Wayland’s New Year at the Pier (Dial, 2009) and the mother-daughter team of Susan Schnur and Anna Schnur-Fishman’s Tashlich at Turtle Rock (Kar-Ben, 2010). My question to you: What writing sins will you cast off this year?
When I think about this for myself, I think about:
• I will cast off my lack of organization – I will organize all those papers into folders with easy-to-read tabs and file the folders
• I will cast off watching reality TV (TCM movies only) – I need more time to write
• I will cast off working on a gazillion projects at once – I will focus on one genre at a time, and right now, that’s poetry, and okay, picture books
• I will cast off reading several books at once – I commit to reading a book fully before moving on to another.
You get the idea. What will you cast off?
Part Three: Here’s a prompt you can write to: Recall a Rosh Hashanah (or New Year) scene from your childhood and write about it. Who was there? Where were you? What action and dialogue took place?
Thank you so much for your three-part Rosh Hashanah writing challenge, Barbara, and
shana tovah!
But wait! Before you head off to write about a memorable New Year,
be sure to enter for a chance to win a copy of Lisa Morlock's terrific rhyming picture book, Track that Scat! (Sleeping Bear Press).
and...
posted by April Halprin Wayland 
Today's Wednesday Writing Workout is one adapted (with permission) from a blog post by Pulitzer Prize Finalist author
Lee Martin. Martin writes both fiction and nonfiction and teaches in the MFA program at Ohio State. The following exercise is a simplified version of one he has used with his advanced undergraduate creative nonfiction students. You can find
his version here if you wish.
1. Locate yourself in the natural world.
2. Sketch in the sensory details of the place. Take in your surroundings. What do you see and feel? Now close your eyes. What sounds stand out? Can you distinguish specific scents?
3. Let those details lead you to a statement that expresses a mood. This is simplest if you go ahead and use the word "feel" in your statement.
The way the leaves whisper high above my head makes me feel wistful, wishing to be up there among them, sharing secrets. Or
Far away a dog howls for attention, making me feel lonely.
4. Carry that mood inward. Make statements about what being in that place is like for you. Martin suggests:
Being in this place makes me feel/wonder/think/question. . . .
5. Come back to one of the details of the place, perhaps a detail that you featured in the first step of this activity. This time find something new in that detail. Martin suggests, for instance:
I keep coming back to the sight/sound/smell of. . . . Why does that detail stand out for you?
Putting yourself into the natural world, allowing yourself to see and experience it more deeply, can open you – and your writing - in ways that may surprise you. Or even trigger an idea for a brand new project.
Come back Friday to meet an author who turned a close encounter with nature into a joyful and educational picture book.
Happy writing!
Jill Esbaum
P.S. You can still enter our contest to win a copy of Sonya Sones' new novel in verse,
To Be Perfectly Honest. Click
here!
As Carmela pointed out, it's only fitting that my final post should be a Wednesday Writing Workout, given my usual agony over finding appropriate material to share in this space.
My college semester begins on Monday, and I've been trolling the Internet for ideas to borrow and steal. My chief goal this year is to get students more invested in what they're writing. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been reading Debbie Macomber's
Once Upon a Time: Discovering Your Forever Story. I was struck by her observation that the prevalent themes in her writing were set in her life from early childhood. As a children's book writer, I can certainly say this is true for me. In fact, I often worry that I have only a few stories to tell, and it is a relief to hear from such a prolific writer that there is hope for me.
At a recent writers' conference, I heard bestselling author Sylvia Day tell the audience that the prevailing theme of everything that she writes is "survival." When she put it this way, I immediately know that mine is identity. Who am I? Where is my place in this world?
Here is an
exercise I found based on a George Ella Lyon poem titled
"Where I'm From." I think everything I might ever have to write about is touched upon somewhere in my responses. Try it and, if you're so inclined, share what you come up with. Happy writing! --Jeanne Marie
Welcome 2 2day’s Wednesday Writing Workout, a Txtng
Mini-lesson of sorts– and – our continuing TeachingAuthor
celebration of my new baby board book soon to arrive in stores everywhere, TXTNG MAMA TXTNG BABY.
Remember: our celebration includes a Book Giveaway of TWO
signed copies of this perfect baby gift of a book, so click HERE for the details and be sure to
enter by next Tuesday, August 13.
As
I wrote in Monday’s post, it is a
Techy-Techy World for 2day’s Babies.
But
while researching Texting’s history and the gazillion pros and cons that
surround this newest means of expression, I was surprised to learn from
linguist David Crystal, author of TXTNG The gr8 db8 (Oxford University, 2009) that
(1)
texting’s been around a mighty long time and
(2) most popular beliefs about
texting are incorrect, or at least, debatable.
“Its
graphic distinctiveness is not a totally new phenomenon,” Crystal writes. “Nor is its use restricted to the young
generation. There is increasing evidence
that it helps rather than hinders literacy.
And only a very tiny part of the language uses its distinctive
orthography.”
According
to Crystal, “Texting has added a new dimension to language use, indeed, but its
long-term impact on the already existing varieties of language is likely to be
negligible. It is not a bad thing.”
Crystal
identifies several distinctive features of texting, many of which suggest novelty but children’s
literature proves otherwise.
For
instance, logograms, which use “single
letters, numerals and typographic symbols to represent words, parts of words,
or even – as in the case of x and z – noises associated with actions.”
Think
b, 2, @, x for kiss.
And
William Steig’s C D B, first
published by Simon & Schuster in 1968!
And Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s WUMBERS (Chronicle Books, 2012).
I
especially Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s and illustrator Tom Lichtenheld’s
dedication:
“We
dedic8 this book 2 William Steig, the cr8or of CDB! (cer10ly the inspiration for this book) and so many other cla6.”
In
logograms, the pronunciation is what matters, not the visual shape.
Think
: )
(smile)
Think
: (
(frown)
An
initialism is “the reduction of
words to their initial letters.
Think
NATO and BBC. (They are often called acronyms.)
But
also think BFF, OMG, GF.
And
Lauren Myracle’s ttfn.
Other
features include omitted letters (bunsn
brnr, txtng, msg), nonstandard spellings
(cuz, thanx, ya), shortenings (doc,
gov, mob) and genuine novelties (IMHO/in
my humble opinion).
What
gr8 fn I had imagining Mama’s n Baby’s conversation, using a variety of text
features 2 cr8 a book which seems to have some very nice (language) company. The teacher in me also liked learning the names of Texting's features.
I hope you did too!
Esther
Hershenhorn
A-txtng
U shall go!
Choose
any 2 characters – real, imagined, animal, human, and get them talking, or
rather, TXTNG (!) on their smart phones and/or tablets.
What’s
the situation?
What’s
the problem?
What’s
the setting?
What’s
the time?
Are
the 2 characters Happy? Sad? Confused? Angry? Hopeful? Plotting? Nasty? Kind?
Are
they young or old or middle-aged?
How
does each come at his or her hand-held device?
Word choice, expressions, phrasing, rhythms - and this case, spellings - connote VOICE!
Think
about your beginning – the inciting incident of sorts that gets the conversation
rolling, your middle, your end.
Remember
what dialogue does for a story: i.e.
(1) informs the reader
(2) advances the story
(3) reveals character
And
don’t forget to use a variety of text features!
Today we have an extra-special Wednesday Writing Workout, provided by the terrific teacher and amazing author, Kathi Appelt!
In case you're not familiar with Kathi's work, she is the author of the Newbery-honor winner and National Book Award Finalist The Underneath, as well as the highly acclaimed novel Keeper, and many picture books. She is a member of the faculty at Vermont College’s Master of Fine Arts program and occasionally teaches creative writing at Texas A&M University. Kathi has two grown children and lives in Texas with her husband.
We invited Kathi to be our guest today to celebrate last week's release of her new middle-grade novel, The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp. (What a gorgeous cover!) The book has already garnered starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, PublishersWeekly, and School Library Journal. That's right--FOUR starred reviews! Several reviewers have referred to this novel, set in a Texas swamp and filled with a great cast of characters (including humans and critters), as a "rollicking tale." Here's a brief description:
Twelve-year-old Chap Brayburn, ancient Sugar Man, and his raccoon-brother Swamp Scouts Bingo and J'miah try to save Bayou Tourterelle from feral pigs Clydine and Buzzie, greedy Sunny Boy Beaucoup, and world-class alligator wrestler and would-be land developer Jaeger Stitch.
I can't wait to read it!
If you'd like to know more about Kathi and her work, check out
her website. And be sure to read through to the end of this post, where I ask Kathi about the connections between today's
Writing Workout and
The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp.
Kathi Appelt's Wednesday Writing Workout:
Whirled P’s
I’m often asked where I get my ideas, and one day while
doodling at my desk, it occurred to me that most of my stories start with
something I’ve found in the letter P, particularly People, Places and
Pets. Those three are the most Popular
when it comes to digging into my idea file.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the
letter P, which looks rather like a half-eaten Popsicle on the Page, is chock
full of idea generators.
Here are a few besides the three I mentioned above:
Problems
Personalities
Parents
Peers
Puddles
Paradigms
Politics
Pleasures
Pandemonium
Peculiarities
Pains
Possibilities
Presents
Props
Psyches
Phantasies
Persuasions
Pickles
Predicaments
Plops
Well, the list goes on and on, but you get my drift. As an exercise, then, choose one of the “Big
Three” (People, Places, Pets), and then write a story using at least one of the
other P’s on the list.
Example: People and
Present might lead to a story about the time my step-mother gave my sister a
pair of boots that had the stars and stripes on them. They were uglier than ugly and my sister was
heartbroken. But she also didn’t want to
hurt my step-mother’s feelings, so she wore them anyways. It was a true predicament.
Another example:
Place and Props might lead to a poem about my kitchen window and the
hummingbird feeder that I keep in the tree just outside it.
Final example: Pets
and Puddle could be the perfect setting for a story about a kitten who tries to
leap a big puddle OR a puppy who leaves a puddle on the kitchen floor.
There aren’t any hard and fast rules here.
So, take those P’s and stir them up, whirl them (as my
friend
Liz Garton Scanlon suggests). And
see what happens. I’ll bet something
Phantastic shows up.
_____
Definitely place comes to mind. When I was in college, I lived in deep, swampy East Texas where I encountered all sorts of wildlife, including the poisonous sort. And of course PIES! Pies are central to the story. Then there are the pricker vines, the pine trees, and the paisanos.
So, lots of P's.
Well, Readers, I hope you're inspired to whirl a few P's of your own. If so, please let us know what you
Produce.
Happy Writing!
Carmela
.
Howdy, Campers!
It's Wednesday, and you know what that means! It's time for another TeachingAuthors
!
Do you ever feel as if your idea well has run dry? Here's an exercise that's sure to tap into ideas you didn't know were waiting to pour out.
I've taken the adult poetry class, The Courage to Write, taught by Anthony A. Lee, several times. He's a terrific poet and a kind and generous teacher.
Tony's classes are held in a building which also houses an art gallery. During one class, we wrote poems based on the following exercise...and then
came back at night to read our poems at the opening of the art exhibit.
Scary and invigorating!
Note: although the exercise below is written to inspire a poem, you can use this exercise to begin a poem or a story.
POETS IN THE GALLERY!
based on a workshop by
Anthony A. Lee
- Go to a gallery or any place where art is displayed.
- Which photo, painting or sculpture calls to you? Walk around until you find it.
- Sit down in front of it. Breathe deeply. Close your eyes. Listen to the sounds of the gallery.
- Open your eyes. Look at the art for a full minute.
- Now, begin writing. Describe an image in the artwork. Just report it; write exactly what you see.
- Once you have that image on your paper, begin a poem with the word "I." The only rule is to write in the first person.
- Write as fast as you can. Write without a plan. Whatever happens, happens.
- Describing something, as a journalist does, is the Reporting Voice. That voice comes from the lips, the mouth, the throat.
- Writing about feelings comes from a lower, truer, sometimes scarier place. This is the Deep Voice. This voice attracts readers. It connects them to your story. Be brave. Find the feelings. Go there.
- When you’re done, write it again, taking out as many words as you can.
- Write it a third time. Do you really all those “the”s, “and”s, or “a”s? Try taking them out.
- Now, take out all the adverbs.
- Next, take out most of the adjectives.
- Poetry is word music. Read your work aloud. Do you like the sound of your poem?
- Don't hide your light under a bushel—your poem is a gift to be shared. Bring someone you love to that piece of art. Share your poem with them. Bring an extra copy and leave it by the artwork.
Tony says: asking your students (or yourself) to describe an image in the artwork is better than telling them simply to write something about the piece of art, which will make some students freeze.
Try it! Have fun!
And, apropos of nothing, here's a sign I saw in Seattle recently which made me laugh:
This post was written by April Halprin Wayland. Thank you for reading it!
(Our cruel and heartless blog mistress makes us put our names here so we can't hide from our subscribers.)
Today's
Wednesday Writing Workout is from our guest
TeachingAuthor, Melanie Crowder. If you haven't read my interview with Melanie, please go do so now, and enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of her debut novel,
Parched (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). The details are all in
last Friday's blog post.
Okay, now that you're back, here's a simple, yet powerful, Writing Workout from Melanie.
Find an audio clip that relates to your story. Maybe it’s the sound of a train, or crickets, or rain falling on a sidewalk (
YouTube is a good resource for this). Play the clip for about one minute before you begin writing. What rhythms do you hear? What metaphors can you pull out of the sound? What kind of atmosphere does the sound create? Wistful? Frustrating? Intense?
… and GO! Play the clip on repeat for 5 minutes while you write.
* * *
Thanks, Melanie. If any of you try her workout, please let us know how it works for you.
Happy writing!
Carmela
By:
Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 6/19/2013
Blog:
Teaching Authors
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
April Halprin Wayland,
Writing about Childhood Memories,
Wednesday Writing Workout,
Pat Brission,
Stephane Jorisch,
revision,
writing prompt,
writing exercise,
rewriting,
Add a tag
.
Howdy Campers! Welcome to another edition of TeachingAuthors'
TeachingAuthors--and most writing teachers--have taught and discussed versions of this exercise over the years—and it's worth repeating.
Last week I tweaked it just a bit and the raw results in student writing was much more personal than when I've used this exercise before--their stories were notably stronger.
In my UCLA Extension Writers' Program class on Writing the Children's Picture Book, I spend one of the three-hour classes on rewriting. I tell my students, "the information I'm about to tell you may be a tad depressng."
Then I show them a stack of revisions of my 1087-word picture book. I read an early draft, a middle draft and the final published book. I show a PowerPoint which details the long journey to publication:
TIMELINE OF ONE OF MY PICTURE BOOKS
• April 2000: interviewed expert on topic; wrote first version
• April 2002: additional interviews
• October 2004: accepted by publisher
• January 2005: author’s revision sent to Dial
• July 2005: editorial notes promised
• December 2005: editorial notes received
• January 2006: author’s revision sent to editor
• January 2006: line edit promised “soon”
• March 2006: line edits promised “May at the earliest”
• May 2006: no line edits yet
• May 2006: illustrator accepts offer
• September 2006: considerable line edits received
• September 2006 (about 12 days later): edited ms. sent off with new title
• May 2007 titles still under discussion—August 2008 projected publication date
• September 2007—book delayed until summer 2009 because illustrator is delayed.
• April 2008—tiny edit: five small word changes
• Fall 2008: illustrations arrive—wow, wow, WOW!
• June 2009: book ship—yippee!
• Summer 2009 lots of PR
• September 2009: official launch—bricks-and-mortar and blog tour
= 38 versions from start to finish.
After depressing them with the timeline, I did something different this time. I read them the touching picture book,
I Remember Miss Perry, written by
Pat Brission, illustrated by
Stéphane Jorisch (he's also the illustrator of
New Year at the Pier). It's about the death of a beloved elementary school teachers and how her students work through it by sharing happy memories of her. It's a delicious book about a topic no one wants to talk about--the kind of book that every school needs in its library, because when you need it, you need it immediately.
I want my students to feel they can tackle
any topic in a children's picture book as long as it's written honestly. As long as it rings true.
So, here's the exercise:
1) Have your students brainstorm for five minutes, writing a list of
experiences from their childhood that rocked their world.
Tell them to jot down whatever comes to mind, writing quickly. They don't need to worry about neatness or spelling or complete sentences--they're making notes for themselves.
Here are some possible topics:
When did you do something that made you feel grown-up?
Maybe you helped paint the kitchen.
Maybe you did something that helped someone older than you solve a problem.
When did something scary happen to you?
Maybe your dog ran away.
Maybe your parents separated.
When did something joyous happen to you?
Maybe your family moved into a nice home for the first time.
Maybe you learned how to skateboard or read.
2) Give them just
five minutes to circle one of the things on their list that they want to write about
and then write a brief outline of the whole story.
3) Tell them to change one thing about this story.
Tell them:
BE WILD!
Tell them:
STAND ON YOUR HEADS AND BALANCE SAUSAGES ON YOUR TOES!
They might change:
~ Point of view. Instead of first person, try third person. Or perhaps the family dog tells the story.
~ Time period. Instead of the present, try setting it in ancient times, in the 1920s, in the future.
~ Place: Instead of on a farm, try setting it underwater, in a volcano, on an island, in New York.
~ Characters: Instead of people, try ground hogs, lightning bugs, elevators, a jar of pickles or cows.
~ Plot: Instead of the cricket finding his home at the end, perhaps he gets even more lost. Or instead of the bully getting her comeuppance, throw a party for her and see what happens.
As I said, this is the first year I've read my students that book before we launched into this exercise; the stories were more heartfelt than in the past.
They tried riskier subjects, subjects that were closer to their skin--and every idea was worth pursuing.
I hope you try it--either in your own writing or with students. Then let me know what happens!
And, hey--thanks for reading this!
April Halprin Wayland
When my kids were young, they'd often find nests on the ground after violent spring storms. Sadly, doomed baby birds were sometimes lying in the grass nearby . . . vulnerable to hungry barn cats.
Once, we tried to save a little robin that was hopping around, only a week or so from being ready to fly. I put a ladder against the tree and climbed up, holding the little guy gingerly in one hand, and returned it to its (too low) nest. Trouble was, he jumped right out again. One of the kids ran inside for an Easter basket. We tossed in a few handfuls of grass, tied the handle to the branch near the nest, and, once again, I took the little bird up and placed him inside. Ploop! He was back on the ground before I was.
Photo by Sande LaFaut (used with permission)
Four or five cats were closing in fast, and one snatched the little guy before we could retrieve him, then streaked away. Nature can be cruel, or at least it would seem so to us humans.
But it always bugged me that that little bird, so close to independence, met such a tragic end. Which is why I wrote
Tom's Tweet, a story in which a curmudgeonly cat's impulsive good deed goes wildly haywire when he ends up having to babysit a demanding little nestling all day. This time, I made sure the story had a happy ending, the one I
wished had happened in real life: the two become friends.
So for today's writing workout:
Think back to a real-life situation, one in which you made the wrong decision or that you simply wish had ended differently, then create a story around the incident – not the way it really happened, but with a happier or more satisfying ending.
Meanwhile, remember to enter our contest to win a copy of
Angry Birds Playground: Dinosaurs. Contest ends June 18th.
Jill Esbaum
Returning to my recent obsession with
outlining, I would like to offer a cool
exercise from author Alicia Rasley that allows you to lay out the key points of your novel in a mere thirty minutes. It covers many basics that I typically consider for months and collects disparate pieces of information in one place. [I suspect that this would be a great exercise to complete in preparation for NaNoWriMo.] The timer aspect is also compelling in that it requires you to figure out all of the broad strokes in short order before you are tempted to sit down and try to fill in the details.
I particularly appreciate the fact that this exercise focuses on making the main character likeable and helps you figure out where to begin telling your story. While I have not yet tried this particular approach to the outline, it also seems that it would be extremely helpful in determining how external and internal conflict intersect (a particular difficulty of mine).
If you try this technique, please let me know how it works out for you. Look for me to do the same. Happy outlining! --Jeanne Marie
Now you –
and/or - your students - can write a Success
Story, thanks to the Revision Tips our Monday Student Success Story
Interviewee, children’s book author Nancy J. Cavanaugh, shares in today’s
Wednesday Writing Workout!
Thanks, Nancy, for introducing our readers to ThePlot Whisperer, Martha Alderson.
Let’s hear it for that prefix “re”!
Esther Hershenhorn
* * * * * * *
My main character Ratchet knows a lot about engines,
and I know just a little bit too. The
way I learned about engines was by taking them apart. Taking something apart is a really great way
to learn how it works. It’s also a great
way to figure out what’s wrong with something when it doesn’t work. When you bring your car to a mechanic, you
don’t expect him to open the hood and just stare at the engine. You expect him to get out his tools and start
taking things apart. It’s really the
same way with writing. It’s called
revision, and it gets messy. When you
finish a draft, your first inclination is to love it and to think it’s
perfect. It feels so rewarding to have
that clean copy in your hands, and it looks so good! But, the reality is, if you want to make it
better and take it to the next level, it’s got to get messy all over
again.
Martha Alderson’s Blockbuster Plots and The Plot Whisperer provide me a lot of direction when I am taking apart
a manuscript. In her books and DVDs,
Martha uses a plot planner and a scene tracker.
Very simply put, it’s a method of taking apart your story by listing
each scene. Putting your story into this
format allows you to get your head around the whole thing at one time. Listing your scenes this way enables you to
determine whether each scene works within itself and to determine whether each
scene works within the overall plot. Taking
apart your manuscript his way also helps you clarify which parts of the overall
plot are not working or what parts are missing altogether. (Martha’s books and DVDs give detailed
instructions on how to create the scene tracker and plot planner. Check out Martha’s website to learn more.
At first, Martha’s method seemed much too tedious
and time consuming. I didn’t want to take
apart my manuscript piece by piece after I had worked so hard to write it, but
when I finally got tired of my story not working, I decided to give it a
try. I did my own version of Martha’s
scene tracker and plot planner, but I used her basic format to find what was
missing in my plot and make my story stronger.
It took a lot of work, a lot of time, and made a big mess of my
manuscript; but if I hadn’t taken things apart in this way, I never would’ve
been able to see what was really wrong with my story and why it wasn’t
working.
My advice? Find
a revision method that works for you, and take the time to do it because when
it comes to revision there really are no shortcuts. Taking apart your story is necessary, and
that takes time and gets messy, but when you put in the time and clean up the
mess, your story will run like a race car.
# # #
Today’s
Wednesday Writing Workout comes from Holly Thompson, a fellow TeachingAuthor, just in time to
celebrate yesterday’s Delacorte/Random House release of her second young adult
novel in verse, The Languge Inside.
The novel tells
the story of Emma Karas “who was raised in Japan; it’s the country she calls
home. But when her mother is diagnosed
with breast cancer, Emma’s family moves to a town outside Lowell,
Massachusetts, to stay with Emma’s grandmother while
her mom undergoes treatment.
Emma feels out of place in the United States. She begins to have migraines, and
longs to be back in Japan. At her grandmother's urging, she volunteers in a
long-term care center to help Zena, a patient with locked-in syndrome, write
down her poems. There, Emma meets Samnang, another volunteer, who assists
elderly Cambodian refugees. Weekly visits to the care center, Zena's poems,
dance, and noodle soup bring Emma and Samnang closer, until Emma must make a
painful choice: stay in Massachusetts, or return home early to Japan.”
The starred School Library Journal review called the
novel “a sensitive and compelling read that will inspire teens to contemplate
how they can make a difference.”
Kirkus described the novel as “an artistic picture of
devastation, fragility, bonds and choices.”
The Horn Book Magazine remarked that “readers will finish
the book knowing that, like Zena, the Cambodian refugees, and the tsunami
victims, Emma has the strength to ‘a hundred times fall down / a hundred and
one times get up.’”
-330+-+Holly+Thompson.jpg)
Many
TeachingAuthors readers met Holly in 2011 when my March 16 Student Success Story
interview celebrated the release of her first
young adult novel in verse, Orchards.
Orchards went on to win the APALA Asian/Pacific
American Award for Literature.
Raised in Massachusetts,
Holly earned a B.A. in biology from Mount Holyoke College and an M.A. in
English (concentration creative writing/fiction) from New York University’s
Creative Writing Program. A longtime resident of Japan, Holly teaches creative
writing at Yokohama City University and also serves as Regional Advisor for the
Japan Chapter of SCBWI. Holly’s fiction
often relates to Japan and Asia.
Congratulations,
Holly, on yet another successful book!
And, thank you
for sharing your expertise with our TeachingAuthors readers – who happen to
have only until Sunday, May 19 to enter our TeachingAuthors Blogiversary
Giveaway!
Click here to
enter – if you haven’t already – the raffle to win one of 4 $25 Anderson’s
Bookshop Gift Certificates.
Esther
Hershenhorn
. . . . . . . .
Holly Thompson’s Wednesday Writing
Workout: Poetry with a Plot
When I do author
school visits, I love to introduce students to narrative poems and narrative
verse and get them started on writing their own. You can write and/or teach
this type of poetry, too – poetry I call “Poetry with a Plot.”
Beforehand:
1. Gather some
narrative poems—poems that tell a story—to share with students. Examples are
Gary Soto’s “Oranges,” Jeffrey Harrison’s “Our Other Sister,”
Naomi Shihab Nye’s “My Father and theFig Tree,” and “Fifteen”
or “Traveling Through The Dark,” by William Stafford, and my poem “Cod” (published in PoetryFriday Anthology Middle School)
2. Also gather
some verse novels. Select one scene to share with students. Choose a scene that
has a fairly clear beginning, middle and end. Chapter 22, Visitors, of my novel Orchards
is an example of a scene in verse with
a clear plot arc.
3. Create a list
of situations to share with students. Here are a few examples of some
situations that I like to use:
a mistake
a decision
a first time
a last time
a betrayal
an encounter
an argument
a mix-up
a lie
With the students:
1. Read the
narrative poems aloud. For each narrative poem, ask students to react. Ask:
What lines or stanzas do you like? Why? What is the mini plot of the poem—what
happens in this poem? Then have them look at the structure and style of the
poem. Ask: Do the structure and style help create the narrative? How?
2. Read aloud a
scene from a verse novel. Ask students to react. Ask: What lines or stanzas do
you like? What lines move you? What lines are powerful? Where did your breath
catch? Where did the pace pick up or slow down? Why? What is the basic plot arc
of the scene? Did any action happen off the page? How did the writer structure
the scene and create tension—with repetition, white space, short lines, long
lines, particular images, or sounds and rhythms?
3. Next, give
students your list of situations. Have students brainstorm examples of the
various types of situations. Students will then choose one type of situation
from which to create a narrative poem or scene in verse. Point out, for
example, that “Oranges” can be considered a first time poem; “Our Other Sister”
a lie poem; “Fifteen” and “Traveling Through the Dark” decision poems; and
“Cod” a betrayal poem. Chapter 22 in Orchards
might be considered an encounter scene. Tell students they can start from a
true situation, or partially fictionalize a situation, or veer away from actual
truth to completely fictionalize a situation.
4. After
students create first drafts of their narrative poems or scenes, have them work
at revising, individually and in peer workshops, checking for the narrative
arc, details, poetic elements, line breaks and spacing.
5. Finally when
students have polished their work, have students read, perform, create
multimedia presentations, publish in zines or submit their narrative poems or
scenes in verse to school magazines.
Be prepared to
be amazed! Good luck and let me know if you try this approach to introducing
narrative poems and and narrative verse.
# # #
By:
Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 5/8/2013
Blog:
Teaching Authors
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
April Halprin Wayland,
writer's prompts,
Beck McDowell,
Wednesday Writing Workout,
Blogiversary,
writing prompt,
writing exercise,
newspapers,
Teaching writing,
Teaching Tips,
Add a tag
.
Howdy, Campers!
Before we get to today's Wednesday Writing Workout, I wanted to share author and bookseller Elizabeth Bluemle's latest post on her Publishers Weekly blog, ShelfTalker. It moved me. It's called "The Best Author Letter Ever."
Yes, Virginia, we--authors and teachers--can change a child's life. Here ~ in case you need to dry your eyes:
And now, on to today's
Wednesday Writing Workout! But first some background:
Last month I was fortunate to participate in the beautifully organized
Fay B. Kaigler Children's Book Festival in Hattiesburg, Mississippi...
April Halprin Wayland, Robyn Hood Black, and Irene Latham
play with food poems for their panel,
“Take Five! Create Fun with The Poetry Friday Anthology"
photo by Beck McDowell
...where I met the wonderful
Beck McDowell,
Author Beck McDowell
...author of the eerily timely novel,
This is Not a Drill (Penguin), published just a few weeks before Sandyhook.
Beck gives us today's
NEWSPAPER STORY STARTERS
1) Give this exercise about 20 minutes.
2) Divide the class into groups of two or three.
3) Let them choose newspapers and magazines from a stack you've brought in.
4) Their job will be to select a news article and make up their own story using the article as a starting point. They'll add characters, twists, etc. to create an even more engaging story.
4) Each group elects a spokesperson. The spokesperson shares a two-to-three minute synopsis of the "story" they've outlined, beginning with what the article actually said so everyone knows their starting point and how the group changed it.
Beck says, "...
you're demonstrating where ideas come from and how a real event can trigger a story idea that's ultimately totally different from the original."
Thank you, Beck!
Monkey combs his favorite paper for story ideas
P.S: My
Writing Picture Books for Children class in the UCLA Extension Writers Program (which I've taught since 1999) started this week. I hope to use the newspaper exercise in class this quarter. Let me
know how it works! And if you have any suggestions on how to make it more effective, my students will be most grateful--
please take a moment to scribble a comment!
Finally, don't forget: there's still time to enter our blogiversary
giveaway for a chance to win one of four $25 gift cards to Anderson's
Bookshops.
See this post for details.
And after you've entered, take five minutes and do a free write. Remember to breathe...and to write for the fun of it ~
picture of Monkey and drawing of dancer by April Halprin Wayland.
posted by April Halprin Wayland 
The end of the semester is nigh in the higher education realm (can we have a collective cheer?). As my classes approach the dreaded research essay, we spend a fair amount of time discussing the importance of using pathos, logos, and ethos in concert in persuasive writing. [I would argue that the same precept applies to writing fiction.]
I like to give my students an exercise to practice these techniques, using a subject with which they are already well acquainted. I ask them to write me a letter (another important skill for this generation of digital natives) describing what they feel their final semester grade should be. While their information needs to be fact-based (logos), students who may not be strong expository writers are often expert at applying these persuasive strategies. [On the other hand, last semester I had several students who tried to appeal to my sense of ethos with the contention that it was my duty to give every student at least a B. If their rhetorical purpose was to persuade me to grade more leniently, they achieved quite the opposite, as I subsequently took great care to explain.]
I find that self-evaluative assignments tend to be quite valuable for students and for me, too. Those students who chafe at the strictures of an expository writing class often respond positively to an assignment that allows them an unaccustomed measure of creativity. I suspect I get a fair amount of fiction in these responses, as well. :)
Happy end of semester, one and all! And, if you haven't done so already, don't forget to enter our
Fourth Blogiversary Gift Card Giveaway for a chance to win some great summer reading material!
-- Jeanne Marie
Here in the South, there is an all purpose word that drives me nuts. The word? "Nice." Depending on the tone of voice, "That's nice" can mean something really wonderful, or truly venomous. It's a phrase that doesn't translate well in print. You have to hear the tone of voice that goes with the statement.
"Nice" is just an example of any number of words that sound perfectly fine spoken aloud, but are rendered meaningless on the page. Here are my Top Ten Useless Words in Writing. 1. Nice 2. Very
3. Cute 4. Sweet 5. OK 6. Cool 7. Good 8. Bad 9. Fun 10. Sad/happy (I cheated...that's really eleven words). There are a lot more, but these are the ones that show up the most often in my students' work, and the ones that set my teeth on edge.
All of these words work fine in conversation, both spoken and written. As descriptors, they leave a lot to be desired. They are junk food words. They just lounge around your writing, doing the least amount of work possible. So how do you get those words off the couch to carry their share of your writing?
For today's workout, I turn to one of my all-time favorite craft books, Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K-8 (2nd edition) by Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi. This is an exercise that can be adapted for any age student, or for your own writing. For the purpose of today's lesson, I will pretend I am working with first or second graders.
1. Have the students to write a short description of a person. Let's say, little Courtney has chosen to describe her best friend, Emma. Here is what Courtney writes.
I like my best friend Emma. She is fun. We like the same things. (Uh oh...I just hit word number 12..."thing").
2. Ask Courtney to close her eyes. "Courtney," you say. "What makes Emma fun?" Closing the eyes is the important part of the exercise. For some reason, if you look a student in the eye and ask the same question, you will get a defensive "I dunno. She's just fun." (Subtext; what's wrong with you, Adult Person? Don't you understand the word fun?)
3. Hopefully, with her eyes closed, Courtney can see Emma doing fun things; she snorts when she laughs, she only eats the icing off her cupcake, she can do cartwheels. If Courtney really gets into her description, she may go on to describe fun things that she and Emma have done together; gone to Six Flags and gotten soaked on the Log Flume Ride, bake cupcakes (but only eat the icing), ice skate.
4. Now have Courtney re-write her description using some of her new fun details. Maybe it will read something like this:
Emma is my best friend. She snorts when she laughs, and that makes me laugh, too. We like doing the same things like ice skating and baking. Emma makes the best cupcakes, but she will only eat the icing. I don't mind, because I like to eat the leftover cake part.
5. Ask Courtney to compare her first and second versions of her description of Emma. Which one would make her want to know more about Emma (that is if she didn't already know Emma?) Cross your fingers that she picks version two.
In my writing workshops, I go so far as to forbid the use of the Deadly Twelve Do-Nothing Words, unless they are being said by a character in dialog. It can be a laborious task to get even older writers to give up their "comfort words". But after practice (lots of practice), one fine day your writers will discover that they have written a whole page without using any of the Deadly Twelve. They don't need their training wheel words any more.
Posted by Mary Ann Rodman
View Next 5 Posts
+by+April+Halprin+Wayland.JPG)
-330+-+Holly+Thompson.jpg)
.JPG)
Jill, thanks for this great WWW, and for sharing your magazine success story (and for telling us about Chad!). I often recommend to my students that they submit to magazines. The ones who take my advice often reap the very rewards you mention. :-)
You're very welcome, Marti. :) I think lots of us start out with magazines. It's a great training ground.