Envisioning...

Many of your wonderings seem to be around the idea of creating a piece of writing. What kind of writing piece do you envision that you want to write? What are the possiblities that you see as you begin to practice reading like a writer on your own and with your students? Think about the Seven Stories of your summer. Is there something from there that you can envision as a piece? What kind of piece? A poem? An essay? A short story? An article? What about your work with your reading and writing history as demonstrated to our class? What are the stories that were found in your Bio Book Bags? Each of you had stories for many of your pieces. How can you envision those stories? Remember, that often talking a story through is the beginning of writing that story. This is all a part of the process of writing. I believe we "write" all of the time. When we are driving and thinking about our piece..this is a part of writing.
"Our goal in this teaching was to help the students take the material they had gathered around their seed ideas and read like writers to find possiblities for how they might draft those ideas and write well. We wanted them to be able to envision doing many different kids of texts with a single idea, to know that they didn't have to be limited to just "telling about" their idea in a draft." Katie Wood Ray pp. 52
Let's go beyond "just telling" by envisioning your peice in as many different ways as you can! Have some fun with this!

Wondering.....

What are you wondering about? What are some of the questions that you have in relationship to our work together, our classes, your teaching, your own writing, the reading, mentor authors etc.? Take a moment to explore what it is you are most curious about right now...

Favorite Authors

Who are some of your favorite children's authors? What is your all time favorite? Get to know that author more intimately so that we can get to "Know a few authors well", as Katie Wood Ray talks about. Who will be that author that you can quote inside and out? What can you discover about this author's craft that makes them unique? Let's begin this process together, realizing that as we get to really know these authors we are planning for infinite teaching situations ahead! You never know when you might need Patricial Polacco's help through a lesson!
And yes, Patricia Polacco would be one of my all time favorites because of the way that she structures each of her texts. But the one text that I know the best and that I use over and over is a book called Emma by Lisa Say. I love this book because of it's rich illustrations and how it allows you to get to know the character, even though she never says a word. I love how this author creates a story that forces it's readers to wonder, think and feel with and for the characters. I have used this book to teach questioning, inferring, connections, sensory images, writer's craft and more. It is because I know this story so well that I can use it well. It is not about getting to know a million different stories on the surface, but going deep with one that you love that you can have by your side as you teach everyday! As we want our students to live with a stack of their mentors on their desks, you too need to have yours!! draft

Strong Leads...

"I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine's father over the top of the Standard Oil sign. I'm not lying. He got stuck up there. About nineteen people congregated during the time it took for Norman Strick to walk up to the Courthouse and blow the whistle for the volunteer fire department. They eventually did come with the ladder and haul him down, and he wasn't dead but lost his hearing and in many other ways was never the same afterward. They said he overfilled the tire." The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver.
I just LOVE this lead. This is the very first paragraph of this novel and instantly I am engaged and wanting to read more. From the language we get a sense of place, somewhere pretty remote with only a volunteer fire department and I am thinking somewhere down south. The imagery of the man being thrown through the air and hanging in limbo while everyone gathers and watches is so small town. This is the event of the year that everyone will be talking about. Then there is the humor of the fact that he was trying to blow up a tire. It makes me wonder...was he filling his own tire or was he the gas station attendant? Either way, it just seems so UNbelievable that it is believable!! This kind of good writing gives SO much information without giving it. That is what good writing is! It SHOWS us the situation instead of telling us about it. I am right there, in the crowd staring up in disbelief, putting us right in the middle of the action, if you will. It starts us out right in the middle of this scene without any lead up to it, but it works and it works well.

What makes a good lead or beginning? What makes us want to read on? Find an example of a good lead and post it as I have with your thoughts about what makes it a good lead. This can be from any source, a book, a newspaper article, a magazine...what makes you, the reader, want to read on? Look at it with the eyes of a writer and delve into it to discover as you read like a writer, what this writer did to win you over!