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Speaking to the COSMO group in Columbia, MO

Today, I have a few things to share with you about Finding My Place: One Girl’s Strength at Vicksburg: a story about my recent “book tour” , a story from someone who bought the book, and a quick lesson on VOICE, one of the 6 + 1 traits of writing–so let’s go!

Going On a Book Tour
Last week, my good friend, who is just like a mother-in-law to me (that’s a story for another post!), Pamela Anderson from Columbia, MO invited me to stay at her house with my two-year-old and speak to her COSMO group (diabetes research) and Pachyderms (the first club ever in the U.S.) and then organized a breakfast for me of old friends–all to promote my book. My husband came, too, and the trip was a huge success! I was worried about my talk because I was used to speaking to either groups of writers, teachers, or kids; but I tied the story of taking 11 years for my book to be published (FIVE after I signed the contract) to never giving up and following your dreams. People seemed to really relate to it, even if they weren’t writers because when I finished talking, there was actually a line to buy a copy of my book! I met the most interesting and nice people–one woman was almost 90-years-old and had been researching her family on the Trail of Tears for over 30 years. Her determination and spirit made my trip. The breakfast with old friends was so great, and my two-year-old came to that–I was a little worried about this, as she is not in the “patient” stage. But even she was so good and ATE, too. (You mothers of toddlers know what an accomplishment this is.)

I am so thankful to Pamela Anderson (the retired air traffic controller, not the actress) for organizing AND my husband Rick and my good, good friend Michelle Pfeiffer (I swear–I have a friend named Pamela Anderson and Michelle Pfeiffer–both married last names!) for helping me with KB!

A Cool, Heartwarming Story
My mom’s friend, Bobette, bought a book for her grandson, Gavin. He is in fifth grade. My mom and Bobette have been friends for longer than I’ve been alive (not telling you how long that is!); and I’ve met Gavin before, but he lives in a different state–so I don’t know him well. Anyway, as the sweet kid that he is, he took my book to his fifth grade teacher and said that he HAD to read if for independent reading because this was written by a family friend. The teacher was reluctant–this is understandable because she has NO IDEA who I am–but agreed to read the book to see what she thought. (What an awesome teacher!) After she finished reading it, she agreed Gavin could read it, and even better–she put my book on her reading list. WOW! Thank you!

A Lesson in Voice: 6 + 1 Traits of Writing

This is a quick lesson you can do with ANY book, not just Finding My Place. But it works better with novel length books.

1. Once you and your students have read at least half of the book, they should be familiar with the main characters’ voices. For example, in Finding My Place, students should be able to recognize Anna, Sara, James, Mrs. Franklin, and possibly Dr. Franklin and Stuart, too.

2. Review what VOICE is. This is such a hard concept for children to understand–there is an overall voice to the book, which is Anna’s in FMP, but then each character also has their own voice. Voice is the way the words sound together, and authors have their own distinct voice. For example, you can easily tell the difference between my book and one written by Mark Twain! (HA!)

3. Each student should have a piece of paper, numbered 1-10. You, the teacher (or students can take turns doing it to) or parent, read a line or two from FMP–it could be Anna’s narrative or dialogue OR dialogue from one of the main characters. Then ask students to write down whose VOICE they think that is.

4. After revealing the correct answers, discuss with students how they knew that Mrs. Franklin said what she did or that it was Anna speaking–what is different about the VOICE?

Today we are talking about the new, pretty-much WORDLESS, book from Mercer Mayer. But don’t forget to enter the giveaway for Meredith Zeitlin’s YA book Freshman Year and Other Unnatural Disasters and check out her book trailer here.

Now. . .Octopus Soup

*Picture book for preschoolers through third graders (really any level if you see my activities)
*A poor little octopus as the main character
*Rating: I love wordless books for all the opportunities they provide. My 16-month-old daughter sat STILL while I shared these illustrations with her and told her what was going on! Octopus Soup is a winner!

Short, short summary:

So what do I do with this book?

1. VOICE– You can do so many 6 + 1 traits of writing activities with this book. You can do VOICE. Let students write and give the characters a voice. What is the little octopus thinking/saying? How about the chef? What about the parents in the end? How about the lady shopping for melons? And so on. Students can write in paragraph or sentence form depending on their age. They can even write dialogue and practice punctuation.

2. WORD CHOICE–pick a page and tell what is going on. Concentrate on word choice when writing descriptions or even emotions of the characters. The students can use ANY WORDS THEY WANT because the story is there, but Mercer Mayer hasn’t put any words in their head yet (except maybe the ones in the illustrations!) Challenge students to come up with different words to describe the octopus, the soup, the ocean, and so on.

3. SENTENCE FLUENCY–Again, since there are no words, students (in shared writing or on their own) can write the story. Work on telling the story with sentences that start different ways or are varying lengths. This is the PERFECT sentence fluency, 6 + 1 traits lesson!

Forget-me-nots by ThirdHandArt www.flickr.com

So, I was in the bathroom, just home from the Little Gym with my daughter and thinking about nap time, when I realized, OH MY GOD! I FORGOT TO DO MY BLOG!

I never forget to do my blog. On Sunday and Wednesday nights, I always read a book or prepare a guest post, blog tour, etc and schedule them to appear the next day. I’ve been doing this for about 14 months now. (That tells you about how old my daughter is–before her, I blogged a little more.) Yesterday, I forgot.

So in the bathroom, I thought of all these things I could do–read and do it real quick during nap–no, I had to finish my critique group critiques. Okay, I could do it tonight–no, I have critique group and then some other stuff to take care of when I get home. Okay, what can I do?

How about. . .be honest? I am tired. I am staying home with my daughter AND working from home on writing. I have editing clients, am teaching two online classes, and had to clean my house. I had bills to pay, photos to order from Walmart since October 2, and I can go on. I don’t want to bore you. IN all of this, I forgot my blog.

So I decided to do this quick, honest post and leave you with two meaningful things. One, I did manage to remember to do a blog interview for WOW! with Lori the Change Agent who is helping people just LIKE ME change their lives. She has a book, an audio series, a free video coaching series and more that she offers women to figure out what they want their lives to look like and change them to get there. It is a great interview, and she is an inspiration. You can check that interview out at this link! You can USE her book to change YOUR life!

The second thing I’ll leave you with is an activity I liked to do with my students when I was teaching. You could do it in a classroom or at home with home school. Find 5 books you like and your child knows. Read the beginning and rate it on a scale of 1 to 5. A beginning is SUPPOSED to introduce the reader to the character/problem/setting and KEEP THE READER INTERESTED, so he or she will keep reading. Some GREAT books have AWFUL beginnings. It helps your child to be a more critical reader and to write better beginnings, which is a 6 + 1 traits of writing organizational trait exercise.

Must run–nap is over. I will have a regular blog post for on Monday.