Tales to Tell: Exploring Author's Voice Through Picture Books

When we read a truly wonderful picture book, one whose words resonate as much as the pictures themselves, we should take the opportunity to stand back and ask ourselves, "How did the author do that?" And more importantly, How can we get our students to find their own strong voices in writing?

If we recall the opening lines of some favorite middle-grade novels, we discover that the author's voice begins to take form in just the first few words. 

Consider Avi's Newbery winning The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, a fantastic sea yarn in which the protagonist finds herself at the center of a mutiny:

“Not every thirteen-year-old girl is accused of murder, brought to trial, and found guilty.  But I was such a girl, and my story is worth relating even if it did happen years ago.”

Or consider the ominous first lines of Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White:

“Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
“Out to the hoghouse,” replied her mother. “Some pigs were born last night.”

As both novels progress, we immerse ourselves in the narrator's point of view, falling in step with the rhythm of words, the tone, and the exacting word choice.

But neither picture books nor our students' own writing has the luxury of 200+ pages to build voice. It needs to happen much sooner.Here are three picture book exemplars to get us started.

Mentor Text: Jangles: A BIG Fish Story

David Shannon's recent picture book Jangles: A BIG Fish Story harkens back to the day of the traditional Tall Tale. Tall Tales, characterized mainly by their penchant for hyperbole (that is, their tendency to exaggerate to the point of lying!) developed a boastful and boisterous voice over time, due to the fact that many of the original Tall Tales were spread orally. Each subsequent teller would add his or her own embellishments (as well as quaint colloquialisms), resulting in crowd-sourced versions of the tales that were rich in both authentic voice and vocabulary.

Jangles: A BIG Fish Story would serve as an excellent introduction to this literary genre. Author and illustrator David Shannon writes in a style that harkens to the boasts of the Tall Tale tradition:

When I was a kid, Jangles was the biggest fish that anyone had ever seen - or heard! That's right, you could hear Jangles. He'd broken so many fishing lines that his huge, crooked jaw was covered with shiny metal lures and rusty old fishhooks of all shapes and sized. They clinked and clattered as he swam. That's why he was called Jangles.

Jangles was so big, he ate eagles from the trees that hung over the lake, and full-grown beavers that strayed too far from home.

Compare that with the beginning of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee (another Newbery Medal book):

“They say (he) was born in a dump. They say his stomach was a cereal box and his heart was a sofa spring. They say he kept an eight-inch cockroach on a leash and that rats stood guard over him while he slept…They say.”

And to be sure, you'll find the "They say..." phrase in Shannon's book as well, since, while the facts of any Tall Tale might not be verified empirically, they must undoubtedly be true, since so many people agree on them.
 
The story itself is an engaging narrative, with an ending that requires a bit of inferring on the reader's part. The story also begs the question, "What would you have done in his place?" Close rereadings can reveal simile, alliteration, personification, and many other wonderful literary devices masterfully woven into the tale.

And the illustrations! Fans of David Shannon know from earlier books such as A Bad Case of the Stripes and How Georgie Radbourn Saved Baseball that his pictures are lush and vivid and sculpturesque. Whenever I'm explaining to my students that their own illustrations should be saturated with color, Shannon's books are among the exemplars I share.

Extensions:

• To begin a Tall Tale unit, let children read a number of traditional retellings of Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, John Henry, and Slue-Foot Sue. Have them generate the critical attributes of this genre, explaining as well how it differs from (and yet takes cues from) legends, folktales, and myths. Find some online resources at 42explore.
• After reading Jangles: A BIG Fish Story, challenge students to write a Tall Tale about an animal of their choosing. You might consider supplying a simple story map based upon the mentor text which can guide students in their writing.
• Ask students to generate a list of some of their most memorable experiences (circus, baseball game, birth of a sibling, family reunion, recital, getting lost at the mall, etc.). Share the interview with the David Shannon at the Scholastic site. Discuss how personal experiences can often serve as the basis for writing fiction, and then have students choose one of their events to turn into a fictional account.

Mentor Text: Touch the Sky: Alice Coachman, Olympic High Jumper
Another recent picture book which features a strong voice is Touch the Sky: Alice Coachman, Olympic High Jumper. Author Ann Malaspina tells the true-life tale of a young girl who dreams of being the first African-American woman to win gold at the Olympics. Her medals won while competing as part of Tuskegee Institute's famous Golden Tigerettes only increase her determination to reach that goal.

Tall Tale boasting would be inappropriate for this genre, of course, because as Dizzy Dean (and others) would say, "It ain't bragging if you can do it." Instead, the prose here is more lyrical, and almost poetic:

Alice Coachman raced
down the dirt road,
bare feet flying,
long legs spinning, 
braids flapping
in the wind...

LEAP!

She sailed over
a tree branch
and kept on running.

Students will come to appreciate the power of repetition, parallel structure, and flow in such lines as:

Fields shut.
Tracks shut. 
Doors shut
to girls like Alice.
No place to practice.
No crossbar to raise.

Alice and her friends got busy.
Knotting rags.
Tying rags to sticks.
Planting sticks 
in the red Georgia clay.

Then her friends stood back 
and let Alice jump.

Illustrations by Eric Velasquez (trust me, you know this guy; we all have chapter books in our classrooms bearing his work) fill each page, providing not only energy and emotion, but historical context as well.

Extensions:

• Check out the Teacher's Guide at Albert Whitman and Company for discussion questions, cross-curricular extensions, and ready-to-use assessments.
• In connection with biography readings for either Back History Month or Women's History Month, encourage students to rewrite key events from a famous person's life using the lyrical style of (fellow New Jerseyan) Ann Malaspina. Existing lines from chapter books can be reformatted into parallel structures (where possible), although I'd prefer for students to adapt those events or anecdotes they find most compelling.
• If you enjoy Malaspina's writing, which Kirkus Reviews called "spare and elegant free verse," then definitely check out Heart on Fire: Susan B. Anthony Votes for President, another spot-on writing exemplar for young authors, with superb illustrations by Steve James. Susan B. Anthony's law-defying act of voting is little known to students, but rivals the illegal actions of such "criminals" as Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks,  and Martin Luther King, Jr. See the classroom guide for this book which was named to the Top Ten of the Amelia Bloomer Project.

Mentor Text: Prairie Chicken Little
In the tradition of this age old tale, Prairie Chicken Little by Jackie Mims Hopkins chronicles the over-reaction of one prairie chicken who thinks the sky is falling, or more accurately, a stampede is coming!

Listen to this text's unique voice as the story begins:

Out on the grasslands where bison roam, Mary McBlicken the prairie chicken was scritch-scratching for her breakfast, when all of a sudden she heard a rumbling and a grumbling and a tumbling.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "A stampede's a comin'! I need to hightail it back to the ranch to tell Cowboy Stan and Red Dog Dan. They'll know what to do."

So away Mary ran, lickety-splickety, as fast as her little prairie chicken legs could carry her.

The onomatopoeia, the rhymes, and the word choice (such as "hightail it") combine to create a voice that matches both the book's setting and its levity. The book's fun is well supported by Henry Cole's splendid pictures. You might recall seeing his handiwork in Three Hens and a Peacock, mentioned here in a previous post.

Extensions:

• In the event that your students are studying other ecosystems such as as rain forests or polar regions, you could adapt this idea, challenging students to create a crisis or calamity, as well as appropriate creatures who would help spread the word. It's a pretty cool way to synthesize students' collection of random facts from a unit into a creative response. Can't you just see a penguin or a toucan as the main character?
• Fractured Fairy Tales are an all time favorite for kids to read, and they're fun to write as well. A recent post at the Peachtree Publishing blog provides some great titles to get you started.
• Have students research any of the animals from Prairie Chicken Little. Some of the real-life critters who populate this book sport some pretty amazing features. A good place to start? The Minnesota Prairie Chicken Society.

Do you have a favorite picture book to teach author's voice? If so, share it below!

And if you haven't entered yet, be sure to get in on the raffle for one of three animal picture books happening on this blog (scroll to the bottom of that page).

I Can Write Like That: Focusing on Mentor Texts

If you're here at this site, you're most likely interested in teaching with picture books. You recognize that these models provide excellent examplars for word choice, idea development, story structure, and many other skills and traits.

In fact,

You know the importance of using mentor texts when teaching author's craft to your young writers. But how do you- a busy teacher with only so many hours in a day - find great mentor texts? With so many children's books available and so little time to peruse them all, matching books to writers' workshop mini-lessons remains a challenge.

That challenge is met in I Can Write Like That! A Guide to Mentor Texts and Craft Studies for Writers' Workshop, K-6, an International Reading Association title by Susan Ehmann and Kellyann Gayer.

The excerpt above appears on the book's back cover, along with this:

In these pages you'll discover engaging fiction and nonfiction children's books and ideas for using them to their maximum potential as teaching tools. And you will find new ways to give your students a priceless gift - exemplary models for their own writing. Realize the reward of having your students listen to a well-written story then identify the author's craft and say, "I can write like that!"

Four years in the making, I Can Write Like That! serves as an invaluable resource if you're seeking to accomplish the following:

• Build a library of mentor texts;
• Uncover all that you can teach from each book in your growing mentor library, whether it be from an old favorite or a new discovery;
• Find the perfect mentor texts to teach specific craft elements; or
• Locate age-appropriate craft studies that support your writing curriculum and further serve as models as you develop craft studies of your own. (pp. 5, 6)

I was frankly surprised to see that half the book consists of annotated lists of picture books; upon closer inspection, however, I realized that this feature makes sense. So many teachers in workshops have come to me and said, "I have so many of those books in my classroom library, but I never really knew before how to use them for instruction," or, "I want to create a core collection of really great books, but I don't even know where to start."

My wife, a kindergarten teacher, confirmed the value of the lists. As she looked through the annotations, she remarked, "This is pretty cool. If you already own one of the books, you can see what skills to focus on. Or if you want to teach a mini-unit on a single skill, such as repetition, you can use the chart and choose books from there."

The straight-forward organization of the book allows teachers to easily locate exactly what they're looking for:

• Part I: Craft Elements provides detailed descriptions and teaching points for working with craft elements such as alliteration, breaking the rules, flashback, leads, personification, text features, and voice, a surprising twenty-seven craft elements in all.
• Part II: Selected Craft Study Lessons features sample lessons, providing teachers with models for their own instruction.
• Part III: Mentor Texts to Demonstrate Craft Elements contains an expansive matrix, aligning hundreds of new and classic picture books with the twenty-seven craft elements, followed by a through breakdown of these books by element (see figure to the right).
• Two Appendices feature student recording sheets and additional reading lists for teachers.

You and your colleagues will refer to this resource again and again. 

Writing About "What If" Using Picture Books as Models

What if we traveled back in time? Not an original thought, by any measure. Time travel tales populate our culture in just about every possible permutation. From the very recent and ridiculous Hot Tub Time Machine to more serious works such as Jane Yolen's Devil's Arithmetic, this device continues to find new narratives and new audiences.

But what happens when a young boy begins to experience time reversal in real time? That very funny premise is at the center of Otto Grows Down, written by Michael Sussman and illustrated by Scott Magoon.

When Otto blows out the candles at his sixth birthday party, he wishes baby sister Anna was never born. Then strange things begin to happen. His candles relight, his watch hand spins in the wrong direction, and he rewraps and returns his gifts to their givers.

Over the next few days, Otto's experiences are equally weird: going up the slide at recess, delivering bags of food to the supermarket, bringing in the garbage, and getting his hair longer at the barber's. In this course of events, Otto's sister is returned to the hospital (we're spared further details of that procedure), and Otto experiences his fifth birthday.

The gross details of time reversal are made crystal clear when Sussman writes, "Otto took baths when he was clean - and they made him dirty. And going to the bathroom was downright disgusting." Think about it. My sixth graders did, and they died laughing. The author and illustrator of this book have their audience pegged!

I won't spoil the ending for you, but in my opinion, this book is a winner. Yes, it tells a funny, heartfelt story, but for my purposes, it's a fantastic writing model for students using the "What If..." premise.

The fact is, thousands of stories are based upon various "what if" scenarios. One of the most common literary motifs is for children to be separated from adults and left to their own devices. It's a device that simply asks, "What if children were removed from the rules, guidance, and nurture of adults? How would they fend for themselves?" We see that motif take center stage in Harry Potter; Lord of the Flies; and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. In discussing this motif with my sixth grade classes, we discovered that it likewise occurs in a number of our classroom novels: Holes, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and The Outsiders.

So playing "What If..." not only helps you to identify common themes in reading, it can also help your students generate ideas for their own writing. For example, What if

• there were only night?
• the world had no numbers?
• everyone had a twin?
• America had lost the War of Independence?
• Earth began to lose its gravity?
• our school were divided into four houses like Hogwarts?

Whether these prompts are used for simple poems, reflections on current reading selections, or free creative writing, you'll find that the "What If..." model really opens the doors to some divergent thought. Using a simple picture book model such as Otto Grows Down is a fun way to kick off the writing. This book proves that a short story can contain humor, vivid details, and a plot line that works on multiple levels.

Have you read this far? Terrific! Sterling Publishing has kindly offered a giveaway copy of Otto Grows Down, and it's all set to go! Email me to enter the drawing (just type Otto in the subject line). Deadline is 10:00 PM EST on Tuesday, April 6, 2010. Good luck!

What Makes a Good Children's Book?

What makes a good children's book? I'd suppose that's a tough question to answer, otherwise Microsoft would have already written Newbery Notebook 1.0 and Caldecott Creator for Windows. A good children's book is far from formulaic.

It seems, however, that Little, Brown Books has done a pretty good job of nailing some of the more prominently recurring traits of good children's books (both novels and picture books). See the whole list at the Upstart Crow Literary blog (a cool place to peek behind the curtain of the writing and publishing biz).

What use is this list to the average classroom teacher?

• It may help you understand why some books win with children while others fail. The list explains, for example, why a common literary motif of many children's novels (Harry Potter, Lord of the Flies, Narnia, Holes) is the removal of the protagonist (and other main characters) from adult supervision and control.
• The individual attributes may help you create some connections between otherwise unrelated texts. One successful exercise with every novel, for example, is looking at how a character grows or changes over time. I've used this approach with Number the Stars, Because of Winn Dixie, Crash, Flipped, and Island of the Blue Dolphins to name just a few. Check out this sample recording sheet.
• The list can be used a fairly accurate indicator of a book's overall value when teachers must choose just two or three titles for study. Many teachers, for example, complain that their boys just don't "get into" books which feature strong female protagonists. A book like Poppy, however, which features a female animal protagonist, is somehow more readily embraced.
• Teachers can use the list as a reference for writing minilessons. If these are the traits that make good children's books work, and if these are the attributes with which children have the most first-hand experience, then perhaps many of them could inform student writing as well.

How else do you see putting this list to work for you? Email me or leave a comment below!

(This same post appears at my How to Teach a Novel blog).

National Picture Book Writing Week

Yesterday marked the launch of National Picture Book Writing Week (or NaPiBoWriWee as it is affectionately called). As a lover of picture books, and one of the most ardent advocates for their use in the classroom, I should be on board with this, right?

I'm not.

In fact, at first, I hated the idea. But slowly I'm warming up to it.

Some of my initial thoughts:

• I thought it denigrates picture books and belittles the process which creates them.
• I thoughts it works in direct opposition to what I'm trying to do, which is to elevate the status of picture books.
• I thought that those writers who truly have "stories within them" will find a way to let them out, without a contrived reason to do so.
• I felt badly for writers who take the process more seriously, in that their submissions may now be lost in a tidal wave of "one day wonders," as thousands, if not tens of thousands, more manuscripts may find their way to publishers because of this project. Imagine you're a picture book author, riding in an elevator at a national conference. The person next to you asks, "What do you do for a living?" After you reply, "I create picture books," this person retorts, "Oh yeah, picture books. I wrote seven of those last week."

See my point of view? Fortunately, I was level-headed enough to reach out to some professional authors for their point of view. Mark Noble, author of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, pointed out that Goodnight Moon was allegedly written in one morning. I guess that counts as an "in-favor-of" vote. A couple other authors I queried weren't ready to commit either way (bawk, bawk!).

But the response from Daniel Kirk, author of Library Mouse, finally convinced me that perhaps I was really off-base with my criticisms (a rare occurrence, as my long time readers will attest). In his response to my tirade, Daniel made some good points:

Never heard of National Picture Book Writing Week. At first glance it seems a
bit contrived, but sometimes it takes contrivances to get people motivated.
Writing, or doing anything creative, requires monumental expenditures of energy,
hope, courage and perseverance. Few have what it takes. It's easy to get
frustrated in the process, and beyond writing, getting published is another
formidable hurdle.

What is successful in the marketplace is often something that panders to the
lowest common denominator, and financial rewards often have little to do with
the intrinsic value of a story. As you know, if you go into a Barnes and Noble
and look at the picture book shelf, it is pretty hard to find a good
book--ordinary people see what's out there and think, "Hey, I could do that!" I
get requests all the time from people who want to get their stories published,
and from my own experience it is VERY hard to get work published, though I've
done over thirty books. For every one that finds a home at a publishing house,
there are at least five or ten manuscripts I write that won't find an interested
publisher.

So I find that I am motivated more by my own inner need to create than anything else...the striving for perfection, clarity, elegance and to bring
heart to what I conceive intellectually. I encourage kids to write, but not
necessarily with the goal of getting published. It's more about learning how to
think, plan, empathize, clarify and express feelings, etc.

There are times when I brainstorm ideas and come up with many projects in a
week, and I suppose that this is the kind of thing the sponsors of this
"National Picture Book Writing Week" are thinking of. When my "Library Mouse"
editor asked me to come up with five new Library Mouse stories, so he could pick
the one he liked best for us to work on, I carved a week out of my schedule to
do just that. And I guess it's good to prod the imagination into working at full
speed for a while, like sprinting on the track. If folks come up with seven
ideas, they can then go into editor mode and see which of their ideas have
promise. The hard part is the follow-through! Some people need a kick in the
pants to get started, and that's okay, but it's important to recognize all the
hurdles still to come.

I think that most people who give a shot to coming up with seven stories and
bringing them to completion are going to find it more difficult than they
imagined, and maybe that will teach them something about the process. Might be a
hard lesson, but certainly a worthwhile one. One can't look at Tiger Woods on
the golf course and say "it looks so easy, I can do that, too", then go out and
be a pro after an afternoon. It's part of the job of a professional to make
something very difficult look completely effortless. There are lots of
analogies--you can't run a marathon without building up speed and endurance for
months, you can't be Yo You Ma and play the cello without a lifetime of grueling
practice. But for some reason people look at picture books and don't get it.
Maybe it's good for some of them to give it a try, and see what happens!

Thanks, Daniel, for taking the time to respond with such insight.

While I still have some reservations, I can certainly see now how this project can be a good thing for fledgling and veteran writers alike. For those of you who take part in NaPiBoWriWee, I sincerely wish you the best, and I hope to be discussing your book in a couple of years.

Comical Relief for Reluctant Writers

MakeBeliefsComix is a terrific interactive site which will help to motivate even your most reluctant writers. Okay, so this isn't my usual "teaching with picture books" content. But lately, I've gotten a few emails from teachers looking for ways to get their hardcore haters excited about writing. "Picture books helped with the reading," one follower said, "but what about the writing?"

First, if you haven't checked out my small collection of Interactive Writing Sites, head over there now. We'll wait. You'll find some really good stuff that has proven effective in many classrooms. There's a poetry generator there that's just perfect for Poetry Month!

Then, check out MakeBeliefsComix. For our graphic novels generation, what could possibly make more sense? I won't spend long selling you on the site, because I think you'll see for yourself that it's well designed, highly intuitive, and very open-ended.

If you'd rather not unleash such unbridled freedom upon your young writers, there's good news for you. MakeBeliefsComix has just launched a printables section, with teachers and parents in mind. These aren't coloring pages! We're talking prompts, people!

If you try any of these activities in your classroom, let me know how they work out!

Daniel Kirk: Words and Images in Perfect Harmony

If you don’t know Daniel Kirk. I’m going to change that. Or possibly, if you're like me, you've seen two or three of his books, but never made the connection that this "one guy" was behind them. This triple-threat author, illustrator, and performer is an incredibly talented and prolific writer whose work is worth a look.

My first experience with Daniel came through a recent school visit. It’s a rare visiting author who can equally charm both kindergartners and eighth graders! Students (and teachers!) at every grade level were entertained and enlightened by his mix of words, images, and music.

My own fourth graders were especially eager to learn about the life and work habits of a writer, and during an up-close-and-personal classroom visit Daniel deftly fielded their myriad questions about his trials and tribulations as a published author.

So where to begin with his books? Most of my students would unanimously select Dogs Rule! as Kirk’s finest. This richly illustrated book is loaded with poems about dogs we all readily recognize: the Bad Dog, The Lap Dog, the poor bulldog with the Purple Rhinestone Collar. Booklist raved: “The pleasures of tail chasing, hanging out a car window, gnawing bones and taking walks past a fire hydrant have never been captured with more slobbery exuberance.”

Other students, however, those I refer to as the “cat people,” would conversely hold up Cat Power as Kirk’s finest achievement. Both Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal praised the illustrations and the unique cat’s-eye view of the world (which is still a mystery to us dog lovers!). Both books come with a CD of the poems set to music, which adds to the reader’s enjoyment.

Kirk’s website provides readers with fascinating back-stories of his books, and teachers and parents alike will appreciate the follow-up questions for each book. For example, Daniel provides these follow-up suggestions for Dogs Rule!:

1. If you were a dog who could talk, what would you say about your life?


2. What would the world be like if there were no dogs? What kinds of pets would people choose instead?


3. Draw a picture of what the world looks like from the point of view of a dog.What kinds of things are important to show? How do things look from down on the ground?


4. Find out more about the different breeds of dogs, the history of dog breeding, and the history of dogs as pets. Find out what kinds of personalities go with the different breeds.


5. Read about dogs senses, and how their sense of smell, taste and hearing compare to humans and other animals.

The site also features a number of activities in pdf format, free music downloads of the songs that accompany his books, and a number of interviews that provide a glimpse of a writer’s life.

Whether you’re a lower grade teacher looking for poetry and picture books in a number of topics or themes, or an upper grade teacher seeking writing models for developing students (be sure to check out his highly-praised novel Elf Realm), you’ll find abundant ideas and resources in Daniel Kirk’s books and web site. Truly fun stuff that will get your kids excited about words, rhymes, and writing!

Ralph Fletcher: A Way with Words

Tonight I had the genuine pleasure of hearing Ralph Fletcher speak on Helping Young Writers Develop Writers’ Craft at an event sponsored by the Tri-County Reading Council here in New Jersey. For those who may not know him, Ralph Fletcher is a writer of picture books, novels, and poetry. He is also a teacher of teachers, having created such excellent writing instruction books as Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K-8 and Writing Workshop: The Essential Guide.

What I personally took away from his talk is that we, as teachers, make writing far too complicated. We perhaps attempt to accomplish too much in any given writing lesson, which makes the average student reluctant to write (How can I possibly get all that stuff right?) and the average teacher reluctant to teach (How can I possibly choose from among all those skills that students must demonstrate?).

Throughout his presentation, Ralph shared many examples of student writing which were equal parts skillful, humorous, and charming. Some pieces made us laugh out loud; another piece, when shared, caused a colleague at my table to remark, “If one of my students wrote that, I would not be able to hold back the tears.” These authentic examples reminded us, in Ralph’s own words, that “story comes first,” and that we, as readers, need time to respond in a natural way to students’ writing.

Interspersed between picture book readings and student examples were the “nuggets of wisdom” we had all come to hear. How shocked we were to learn that we already knew them! As writers, as teachers, we already knew what he had to share. But in our attempts to follow the curriculum, meet the standards, and pound every nail, we had forgotten the simpler things.


Ralph had three straightforward, yet powerful, ideas to share on the topic of Craft Elements His first: Take advantage of micro-texts.

The readers of this blog know how I feel about picture books and the unique role they play in modeling colorful, yet concise, writing. As I posted at the sister site (which provides support for picture books in the middle grades):

When we ask our students to "write a story," we rarely mean a story with chapters. Why, then, should we have students read only those types of books? Picture books provide succinct models for student writing. Nonfiction picture books also exemplify brevity versus exposition in presenting the facts that the reader needs.

Ralph illustrated that very idea by pointing out that in first grade, children write what they are reading: few words with many pictures. This changes as they move up in grades, however, until by fourth grade students are reading novels that they couldn't ever hope to write, given their existing skills. In other words, (mine, not his), children who have little or no access to micro-texts are being denied accurate, realistic models for their own writing.

As an example, Ralph shared his wonderful picture book Grandpa Never Lies. He then recounted a classroom lesson he had observed about that very book, and how the teacher had used the analogy of a snowball rolling downhill, growing ever larger as it progressed. The recurring line of the book acted in much the same way, growing with importance each time it was repeated.

Such a concept is easy to study in the context of a picture book; so much harder to extrapolate from the noise and confusion of a novel.

Ralph’s second observation: Use literature that kids already know. (By the way, I dig Ralph because he uses the word kids. Too many teacher bristle at that!).

Is it okay to reread books? Absolutely! According to Ralph, “Really deep connections come from rereading books.”

And if students say, “But we read that book last year,” your response can be, “Great! Then this time we can read it the way that writers read.” That, in turn, leads to new, fertile ground for understanding: How do writers read differently from readers?

And lastly: Note what your student writers are already doing.

Yes, we can spend time marveling over what professional authors have produced, but are we taking time to recognize our own students as writers? Are we acknowledging their efforts? Are we, in Ralph Fletcher’s words, “putting kids into the game” and allowing them to be in the “circle of authorship?”

Celebrate the successes you see, no matter how small. Use students’ work to model strengths, but never to illustrate deficits.

It is so tempting, he says, to try to teach everything (voice, leads, character development, etc.). This leads to teachers “mentioning” elements of writing rather than actually teaching them. One of the most important skills that we miss, due to our efforts to “teach it all,” is that of having children critically reread their own writing. How can they improve their writing if they never take time to reflect upon it? It is so much more beneficial to take your time, focus on just a few aspects of writing, and teach those well.

In closing, Ralph reminded his audience that when looking at student writing, it’s important to “respond as a human being first and a teacher second.”

I’m glad he said that. Sometimes I forget. Even though I already knew it.

So check out Ralph’s work, both for your students and for yourself. Craft Lessons is my favorite (I bought my third copy tonight, since colleagues have “borrowed” my previous two), A Writing Kind Of Day: Poems for Young Poetsis hugely popular in my class during Poetry Month in April, Marshfield Dreams: When I Was a Kid is an autobiography with authentic voice, and Grandpa Never Lies is on my “Gotta Have” list after hearing it tonight. (These and several others are featured in the slide show at the bottom of this page).

Also check out Ralph Fletcher’s homepage, which features tips for teachers and young writers, plus additional information about the author and his work.