Think scavenger hunt.
Found poems are snips of non-poetic language gathered from unexpected places collaged into verse.
Think scraps of newspaper, snippets of conversation.
Think clipped magazine phrases woven to phrases you've invented.
Think scramble, unscramble.
Keep your eyes open, you never know where a sliver of poem might be lurking.
E. Nesbit, storyteller extraordinaire, weaves quite a yarn. The Book of Beasts is a favorite of my
three sons. Why? Not because the protagonist is a small boy, but because that
small boy becomes king! What boy doesn’t dream of being king at one point or
another during childhood? But the adventure for Lionel does not begin at the
coronation. No, the adventure begins in the library when Lionel dares to open a
book.
And so the lesson begins.
And while the lesson can easily be accomplished without E.
Nesbit’s book, it’s the spark for the lesson in the first place and highly
recommended.
To begin, I asked my writing apprentices to consider the
things that we struggle with as humans. While they were contemplating on paper,
I wrote Latin on the whiteboard without explanation:
HC SVNT DRACONES
We generated our list below the Latin——greed, laziness,
gossip, gluttony. After we were sufficiently steeped in considering the flaws
of our flesh, we began a discussion of what shape these “fleshly foes”
might take. We started with thumbnail metaphors. Each child began sketching his
or her mythical beast, animating its beastly qualities.
From here we began to write the Beast Tale. They were to
describe the character of their beast in detail, to create a situation in which
the beast might feed, and, of course, they were instructed to concoct a way to
slay the beast. All this in 500 words or less!
The writers eagerly worked to draft idea to paper. I was
amazed by the depth of engagement I witnessed as they crafted minute details
about beasts that they encounter in the real world.
As drafts were completed I saw pencils released and
re-reading begin. I saw little hands making red marks—scritch, scratch—then
more re-reading until the stage of polish began.
Sufficiently satisfied with the stories, each writer then
moved back to the visual realm and began animating their thumbnail beasts to a
form that was ready for canvas—light pencil traced with Sharpee was then hand
painted with fabric ink. Beasts were hand-stitched to felt and felt was machine
stitched to calico.
But there was one more piece of fabric to deal with once the
visual project was accomplished a few weeks later. And so I asked the
apprentices to read, once more, their polished Beast Tales. To their surprise,
they stumbled on little errors, or bumps in the story. Everyone found a little
something to refine, which proved to them without me lecturing, that writing
needs to incubate, that writing is a process.
And so, after this final polish, the tales were written by
hand on the remaining scrap of canvas. And the stories were machine stitched to
felt and the back was stitched to the front and the pillows were stuffed. And
that’s how the Beast Tales came to be.
When it comes to writing… show don’t tell.
So the next time any child grumbles or complains about
engaging in the art of writing simply remind them that writing is an adventure,
lift an imaginary sword and cry, “Beyond Here be Dragons,” and let the
adventure begin.
In our world where
fast paced technological communicating is the norm, our lexicon is shrinking
hand over fist. But the potential of words is a great wonder. Words are salty goodness that pepper writing with flavor.
So this month at the Guild we are, once again, making words.
Last spring I
introduced my writers to the idea of “neologisms” coined by Lewis Carroll. I
began by asking the writers to remind me of the details from last spring’s
lesson. I was surprised that they remembered with great detail the suffixes we
explored so long ago:
» cosm
[From Greek kosmos, order,
universe.]
Universe; world
microcosm, macrocosm
» esque
[F., fr. It. -isco. Cf. –ish.]
An
adjective suffix indicating manner or style
Arabesque, Romanesque
» ism
[Greek -ismos, -isma noun suffix]
A
suffix used to form action nouns from verbs, distinctive doctrine, system, or
theory skepticism, truism
They even
remembered more than a handful of the words they crafted, words like: appleism,
s-e-e-ism, TVism, tablesque, pencilesque, windesque, bouncehousecosm,
balooncosm, and lollycosm
As I sat with the
group, I marveled at their retention, but more significantly at their
delight. can’t say the same
about any of the vocabulary development lessons that I’ve utilized through the
years from various curriculums that shall remain nameless!
The art of
crafting neologisms focuses the writer’s attention on the specificity of words
and their potential to enact ideas in a very meaningful way. And lessons that
are meaningful are lasting.
So we began our
exploration of suffixes, mining for meaning and application:
» able
[From Latin abilis, capable of, fit
for.]
washable, enjoyable, pitiable
ex.
Neologism – baloonable
» nomy
[From Greek nomos, system of rules
or knowledge.] astronomy, economy, autonomy
ex.
Neologism – iPodonomy
» ization
[From Greek izein, to become.]
popularization, organization, generalization
ex.
Neologism – basketballization
»
ology
[From Greek logia, to speak of, study or science of.]
biology, geology, anthropology
ex.
Neologism – pickleology
» phobia
[From
Latin phobia, abnormal fear] claustrophobia, arachnophobia, xenophobia
ex.
Neologism – flipflopphobia
» ward
[From
Middle English ward, specifics of direction] toward, homeward, backward
ex.
Neologism – chocolateward
Bonus Suffix:
» biotic
[From
Greek biotikis, of life, method of living] antibiotic, probiotic, microbiotic
ex.
Neologism – fauxbiotic
Ultimately, I challenged the
writers to create a list of neologisms for each suffix. Now I challenge you to do
the same. And as you do, keep in mind, words are a great wonder! Go and salt the earth.
-Kim
My son Taylor has remarked more than once that Danny Champion of the World is his all time favorite elementary
read. Having a dad who is a real life inventor, I’m my son could really relate
to this story. But like many young readers, I’m sure Taylor was simply drawn
into Roald Dahl’s clever tale of the antics of Danny and his loving
poacher/inventor dad.
Obviously Taylor did not build a habit of being for reading and
writing over night. The arduous process involved days upon days of providing my
son with the tools that pressed him into the work of becoming literate—in the
not just able to read and write sense, but in the able to apply and create
sense. The work was complex and the process was longitudinal. Looking back,
providing consistent opportunity for Taylor to participate in a series of small
steps, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other over time while incrementally increasing
the complexity of the reading and writing expectations was key.
Still, sometimes the task of helping Taylor learn to read and write
was like a game of limbo. Increase expectations too much and the pole was
knocked down. Increase the expectations too little and Taylor would knock the
pole off just for fun. The game all said and done, I’m pretty sure that my
son’s investment in learning to not only read great stories closely, but to
mine for applicable riches and learn to communicate his spoil in the form of
words has strengthened his ability to bring an original idea to fruition. Taylor
built a habit of being and that habit of being keeps him on his toes.
A habit of being is forged over time as our children engage in the
work of learning to tackle complex processes, processes such as exploring
literature and the process of mathematical problem solving, such as the process
of crafting a poem or an essay or a fictional story. Establishing habits of
being, best achieved slowly over time, is like transforming coal to
diamond.
Habits of being spark imagination and imagination sparks curiosity
and curiosity is the stuff from which we forge original ideas. And guess what?
Bringing an original idea to fruition simply will not leave room for boredom.
Recently my seventeen-year-old son,
Taylor, was bored.
Not for long.
One Cannon FD lens, one
iPod, and a stack of cardboard. I watched my son think in threes.
The next thing I see can not exactly be
captured in words. Think the bump and jolt of stop motion. Think the colorless
blur of fast motion. Think the patience and precision of a piano tuner.
This mom moves into his kitchen studio on
a pretense. I am not noticed scouring a counter or two to spy on his process.
Soon the lens projects the screen of the iPod onto a white wall surface.
Problem is the image is in reverse.
I see his interior voice utter, “Hmmm.”
Then I hear, “WAIT.”
I see my son scramble to the art cabinet and reemerge with a piece
of tracing paper. He constructs a screen.
“I made an iPod television!” Suddenly my
presence in the kitchen studio is acknowledged.
“Let's see if I can get the image bigger
on the screen.” A few seconds later, “Whoa!
Look Mom!”
And so, the next time your child is
bored, slide a book across the table. And when they’re done reading hand them
paper and pencil and ask, “Now what’s your idea?”
–Kim
Reading and writing should be first and foremost a fun endeavor.
That’s right, fun.
But fun—the true kind—is not a byproduct of easy.
Fun is hard work.
Developing reading fluency takes years.
Developing writing proficiency takes years.
One can’t really be accomplished separate from the other.
Still, more often than not, we isolate the task of teaching the child to read from the task of teaching the child to write. Worse yet, we subdivide these tasks into smaller tasks—phonics, comprehension, grammar, capitalization, punctuation, syntax—until the disconnection is a grim mountain to climb.
The joy of learning to read a great story should not be overshadowed by the work of learning to glean its riches.
The joy of writing should not be overshadowed by the work of learning the mechanical process of setting words to the page.
Words on the page have the power to inspire, to inform, to exhort, to clarify, to persuade, but ultimately words on the page are a gift. When words on the page offer an expression worth expressing, the voice is authentic and the reader is engaged. Robert Frost himself reminds us, “No tears in the writer no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” Words on the page are worthy on the giving and receiving end.
Blackbird & Company titles represent a selection of authentic classic and contemporary literature that are near and dear to our hearts. We’ve painstakingly created our literature discovery guides with an integrated approach to reading and writing in mind. Our goal is simply to help students engage in the work of loving to read and write.
Teaching a child to write and to value their imagination go hand in hand. Writing for real begins when children believe that their ideas are important enough to do the work of shaping words on a page that will communicate that idea.
You could begin to teach a child to write like this:
“A paragraph consists of one or more sentences focusing on a single idea within a specific structure that enables a reader to understand the idea.”
Or, you could begin like this:
“Let’s write a chocolate cake!”
In my experience, the second option is nearly groan free.
Set out paper and pencil for later. Begin with discovery. You might bake a cake from scratch or assemble a cake with pre-baked cakes, pre-made frosting, and a variety of decorations. You might try several chocolate cake recipes and have a taste test. Either way, as you are exploring chocolate cake, discuss the process of discovery along the way. Once the discovery session is complete, encourage your writer to pick up their paper and pencil to begin the process of communicating what they discovered to someone else. Remind them that their writing is a gift twice as delicious as chocolate cake.
Walking writers through the process of crafting a paragraph about chocolate cake is easy as 1, 2, 3… I promise!
1. Hook: The first sentence in a paragraph outlines the idea that will be presented. But more importantly, this is the sentence that grabs the reader’s attention, first impressions matter. This sentence can be a statement, a command, a question, or even an exclamation. The goal is simply to entice the reader to read on. Honestly, once writers have crafted the Hook, words flow until they hit the Clincher.
Ask the writer, “For our paragraph about chocolate cake do we want a flavorless, bland topic sentence like this…?”
I am now going to tell you about chocolate cake.
Of course the resounding response will be, “NO!”
At this point remind them that the bland sentence is not wrong, but it’s not original, not creative, and it certainly will not inspire the reader. Now, together try playing with the sentence to make it grab the reader’s attention.
Craft a small sentence in collaboration and focus on finding just the right adjective to describe chocolate cake. Here “mouthwatering” can be exchanged with a variety of great words and phrases: tasty, lip smacking, scrumptious. Begin the list making until the writer come up with their own words to fill in the blank. Add the word and the hook is their own.
Chocolate cake is a mouthwatering treat.
Or…
Provide a few facts about chocolate and encourage them to choose one that they find amazing and then, encourage them to write it in their own words.
Did you know that a long time ago, chocolate cake wasn’t chocolate, but a spiced cake more like gingerbread made to eat with a cup of hot chocolate?
Or…
Have them begin narrative style, “Tell a story that includes chocolate cake facts in a make-believe story.”
It all began on a dark and stormy night when I decided to bake a chocolate cake.
2. Body Sentences: This is the part of the paragraph that presents the details, facts, and examples that support the main idea. With reluctant writers, three sentences is a good place to begin, “Now write three more sentences that tell the reader something you discovered about chocolate cake.” As writers become more confident, not only will sentence count increase, but more specific details and more interesting language will begin to emerge.
3. Twist: This last sentence of the paragraph should not only summarize the main idea of the paragraph but it should leave the reader with something to think about.
Ask the writers again, “For our paragraph about chocolate cake do we want to end with a flavorless, bland topic sentence like this…?”
That is all I know about chocolate cake.
And, again, the resounding response will be, “NO way!”
Remind them, “Bland sentences are not original, not creative, and certainly will not inspire the reader.” I begin by modeling ideas, allow them to use a phrase from my twist, and soon enough the writers come up with some pretty fantastic ideas of their own.
Chocolate cake reminds my taste buds to blast off!
Chocolate cake, even the smallest silken-spun morsel is just right any old time.
Chocolate cake, like a well-crafted paragraph, is worth every single bite.
Taking notes is a foundational skill that will accompany your student throughout their entire educational journey, and beyond. Even though there is no “right” way of taking notes, it is important to learn how to extract relevant and pertinent information from a text in a neatly organized, concise manner. This takes practice. When students are encouraged to practice note taking, and engage in the work of capturing the most important facts from their reading, they will begin to recognize how all the parts of a story fit into a larger picture. Learning to take notes helps to lay the foundation for rich, clear, and organized writing.
When readers observe character development, trace a setting, and watch a plot thicken, they are learning more than just the skill of recording facts, they are actually beginning to realize the potential of storytelling. Teaching students to dig into a story, to do the “work” of reading for meaning, enables them to discover how language has the power to communicate significance.
Consider what is gained as students learn to infer abstract traits and values from literal details embedded in great stories.
curious, wise, boastful
shy, witty
arrogant, reliable,
courageous
devout, outlandish
stable, tricky, vain
List poem?
No! This list is a portion of the lexicon that develops over time as readers dig into the work of thinking deeply about fictional characters.
As students reach for just the right descriptive adjective to assign to a character's unique personality they simultaneously expand their vocabulary, recognize the profound specificity of language, engage with the story at hand on a deeper level, and gain deep understanding of abstract real-life concepts from a make-believe situations.
The sample page above is student work in response to Leo Lionni's It's Mine, a simple fable about the blessings of sharing. Our Earlybird literature guides provide your youngest students with the opportunity to share classic read-alouds with you, while exploring simple literary concepts like characterization and plot. Find all of our Earlybird guides here!
I began the writing workshop with Cuisinare rods and colored pencils. My writers looked puzzled.
“Today you're going to make a Cuisinaire construction and then describe how you made the construction with words on paper so that a reader will be able to navigate through the paragraph to create an identical construction.”
This is my idea of a hands-on How To paragraph.
“Just like math, when writing instructions you have to show all your steps.”
Young writers need to practice working through the process of crafting words. It's challenging teaching young writers that words need to be wisely chosen and crafted carefully to accurately communicate a specific idea to an audience of readers. This is challenging because the task is a process that involves tremendous effort on the part of the writer and young writers want to skip steps. Participating in this work over time sets a foundation for the rhythm of the writer's routine to be established.
Before beginning, I challenged my writers to keep in mind the cardinal rule of our writing workshop:
“Words are scribbled on paper for a reader to read… your words are a gift.”
The young writers eagerly spent an hour an a half contentedly drafting rough drafts paragraph that they took home to self-conference and craft to final draft.
“Next week we will exchange final drafts and see if readers can make the construction.”
Begin all writing experiences by breaking the task at hand into steps. Remind writers that writing is a process. Getting young writers to engage in process is a tricky business that takes time to root, but truth be told, process alone takes the daunting out of writing.
We broke this specific project down as follows:
What's your big idea?
Make a construction with Cuisinaire rods. Map the construction on graph paper with colored pencils.
Write it down…!
Begin by use a topic wheel to outline each step involved in the construction. Craft a paragraph following the topic wheel outline. Be sure to introduce the topic with a sentence that hooks the reader into the big idea. The supporting sentences should include specific details that will allow the reader to navigate through the Cuisinaire construction without a hitch. Craft a single sentence at the end of the paragraph that will conclude the exercise and add an interesting clincher that makes idea of the paragraph echo in the mind of the reader.
Conference with yourself and someone else…
Now, re-read what you wrote and decide, as a reader, if you are accurately communicating your big idea. Use a red pen to make changes. Ask someone else to read your work and to add red marks when they find confusing areas, holes, or dead ends in your “How To” paragraph.
Revise
Make a final sweep with the red pen for common errors—spelling, punctuation, capitalization, tense, and so on.
Final Draft
Use your best handwriting or type up a final draft!
This year we are collecting words.
My high school literature workshop began with an eight-week close reading and explored a kaleidoscope of Shakespeare’s words.
This past Monday, as the curtain closed on The Tempest, and culminating essays were handed in, I had an idea, “Open your lexicons, I have a word for you.” We pulled out the dictionaries (old school and iTouch) and raced for the definition.
ADVENT
L. adentus "arrival"
The coming or arrival, especially of something important.
One thing led to another, and by the end of the spontaneous lexicon activity, “wait” and “anticipate” and “expect” and “hope” all led to another idea.
As we wait, anticipate, expect, and hope during the month of December, we’ll create a collaborative collection, one word and one image per day. In January we’ll craft a poem from the verbal and visual advent lexicon as a reminder that waiting, anticipating, expecting, and hoping remind us to marvel in joy, in peace.
We’ll be posting what we gather on our Facebook page. We’d love for you to join us!
I shrink in the company of Sarcasm. I’m admittedly deficient, two steps behind when it comes to her volley of shrill phrases. When she enters the building, I chuckle a bit but rarely participate. I acknowledge that, on edge of her spectrum, chatter is light-hearted, friendly. Still, try as I might, I can’t quite squeak a giggle in the midst of her raucous presence.
Recently two students in my guild moved on to explore new education paths. Both students had been part of the guild for many years. My idea was to provide an opportunity for closure by challenging writers to craft a farewell phrase. I decided to incorporate this exercise into our regular writing workshop. What better way to put my “writing is a gift” motto into action?
So we began, “Let’s craft kind words to encourage our friends as they set out on a new adventure.” Sounds simple, right?
As I watched the card I provided move from writer to writer, I anticipated reading the messages before posting them the old fashioned way. But later that day, when I sat down with a cup of tea excited to read the phrases inscribed on the card, my heart sank. There she was, Sarcasm, smirking in all her glory, “Have fun wandering the halls,” and “Happy Easter (jk),” and “Yeah, whatever, thanks for leaving me behind,” and “Life is good (not),” …not a single kind word. There were careless spelling, capitalization, and punctuation errors.
Decibels peaking, Sarcasm crossing over to the caustic zone, I wanted to shrink. At one point in the reading, I wanted to cry. Our guild is not a typical classroom where children come and go annually, most of these children have been learning together for many years. These children are respectful of and grateful for friendship. Still, not a single phrase in the card was crafted vulnerably. What in the world? I knew that this group would really miss their friends who had moved on. I knew this must be something else. Maybe they did not know how to craft vulnerable words.
