I’m thrilled to share the news that someone has a birthday today. It’s Ernest the Sea Monster!
SEA MONSTER AND THE BOSSY FISH is out today, a follow-up to my picture book SEA MONSTER’S FIRST DAY with Chronicle Books. I’m super-excited about this book because:
1) Like the first book, it’s illustrated by the talented and hilarious Andy Rash.
2) I really love Ernest. I want him to live in my lake.
3) I’ve already heard from quite a few teachers and librarians that this book will be kicking off their school years when the subject of bullying and inclusion come up. In SEA MONSTER AND THE BOSSY FISH, there’s a new fish in town, and he hasn’t learned how to be a good friend…yet. The book takes a constructive look at bullying and will get kids thinking and talking about their own responses and responsibilities when it comes to bullying and exclusion in the schoolyard.
4) Along those lines, the fantastic Chronicle Kids team has created a “Friend Fish Pledge” handout and poster that you can display in your classroom and pass out to students during the first week of school. I think it’s a great reminder of what good citizenship looks like, for sea monsters and kids alike. You can download the pdf file here.
It’s time for your Tuesday Quick-Write, and guest author Amy Ludwig VanDerwater joins us with a little writing of gratitude today…
Amy is the author of two poetry books for children: FOREST HAS A SONG (Clarion, 2013) and READING TIME (WordSong, date TBA). She is also co-author (with Lucy Calkins and Stephanie Parsons) of POETRY: BIG THOUGHTS IN SMALL PACKAGES (Heinemann, 2013). You can find Amy at her blogs, The Poem Farm, a site full of hundreds of poems and mini lessons and Sharing Our Notebooks, a site celebrating notebooks of all kinds.
TUESDAY QUICK-WRITE: THANK A STRANGER
Look around. Wherever you are, strangers have touched your life: pioneers cleared the land, a faraway soul designed those shoes, someone unknown to you raised your puppy during his first weeks. Invisibly, strangers bump against and through our lives. Today stop to thank one. Write a letter.
The style of your letter does not matter. You may write a formal letter or you may simply write notes. You may write a poem or a story or a list. You may share or never share. But thank. And begin with a stranger. It will not be hard to find one. Just look around.
This is a snip from a letter I recently wrote to a stranger. Glancing atop my desk, I saw two dolls sewn by our daughters.
One quick glance reminded me of my own long-ago doll:
Dear Stranger,
When I was six years old, you sewed something for me. You did not know me or my family or what would land me in the hospital (tonsils), but still, you sewed. You sewed a doll by hand, a doll about seven inches long, her head the size of a silver dollar. My doll had yellow yarn hair and a full-skirted kelly green and white checkered dress. She was a post-surgery gift, given to me by a nurse.
In the 1970’s, you were a hospital gift-sewer, a hidden volunteer, my doll’s mother. You created this doll with simple peach hands and bits of lace on her collar and sleeves. You made her bright green satin legs. And I never said, “Thank you,” because I never knew who you were…
We are touched daily by those we will never know. As Margaret Tsuda writes in her poem Commitment in a City, “If we should pass again/within the hour,/I would not know it./Yet –/I am committed to/love you.” In his poem Candles, Carl Dennis encourages us, “But today, for a change, why not a candle/For the man whose name is unknown to you?” Why not? And as we sit in candlelight, why not write a few lines of gratitude too?
Note from Kate: Thanks, Amy! Campers, as always, feel free to share a few lines of what you wrote today in the comments!
We’ll be giving away a copy of Amy’s FOREST HAS A SONG to one commenter, drawn at random.
My latest picture book SEA MONSTER AND THE BOSSY FISH takes on the issue of bullying, and the terrific folks at Chronicle Books have put together a poster and classroom pledge for your students. It’ll be available at ALA, and you can also download to print copies for your students!
On Tuesdays & Thursdays during Teachers Write! Virtual Summer Writing Camp, we’ll be sharing quick-write prompts, designed to get you free-writing for a few minutes in response to a question or idea. Some of these will feel like writing memoir, some will focus more on fiction or nonfiction or poetry. Some of them will just be hard to categorize. Many will be prompts that you can bookmark and share with your student writers later on.
Our Tuesday-Thursday quick-writes can be used as a simple free-write, brainstorming, warm-up activity OR as a way to deepen your thinking about a work-in-progress. So feel free to approach the prompt in whatever way works best for you, even if that means ignoring it and writing about the other thing that sprouted in your head when you sat down to do the quick-write. Okay… got your keyboard or pencil ready?
Tuesday Quick-Write: Sometimes…
Imagine a place that you love… It can be your own kitchen or backyard, a faraway beach, a bustling city market, or a hard-to-reach vista at the end of a hike.
Start by writing this:
Sometimes, (in your place, on your beach, wherever you are)…
Then brainstorm all the things you might see, hear, smell, feel, taste and wonder in that place.
Feel free to scribble this in prose or just as a list, or if you want, you can write it as a free-verse poem. Here’s part of a poem that I wrote, called “Sometimes on a Mountain in April,” that you can use as a mentor text if you’d like. It starts like this…
Sometimes, on a mountain in April the rocks are so slippery you have to slow down and this is good. It’s when you’ll notice a quiet curtain of moss that drips with melting snow.
It’s when you’ll hear the rush of streams, swooping up tired old leaves carrying them off in dizzy laughter to somewhere warmer, open, free.
Or go in your own direction. The idea here is to mine some memories and focus on sensory language. If you’re working on fiction and want to do this activity writing in a character’s voice, feel free to try that, too – you may find that what your character notices will be interesting to you. If you love science writing, try “Sometimes in an electron field…” or whatever fits your passion.
If you’d like to share a few lines of what you wrote today in the comments, we’d love that – and promise that all our comments will be friendly supportive. (We’ll talk about more constructive critiques later on. Let’s just get our feet wet with compliments today!) If you’d rather keep your writing to yourself today, in your notebook or on your hard drive, that’s fine, too.Please feel free to TALK to one another in those comments, too! Some things you read there will resonate with you or spark memories or simply make you sigh. Writers will appreciate hearing about that… I won’t be able to comment on every single post today, but I’ll pop in and read, and you know that cheering one another on is part of this community, too!
Please note: If you’re a first-time commenter, I’ll have to approve your comment before it appears. This may take a while if I’m not at my computer, but don’t worry – I’ll get to it and it will show up later on!
A quick note about blogging your Teachers Write experience: It’s GREAT if you want to set up a blog where you share all of your writing from this summer. One important request: Please do not copy and paste the mini-lessons or writing prompts – publish only your own writing on your blog. If you’d like to reference the ideas shared here, providing a link is the best way to do that. Thanks!
Today’s mini-lesson is all about keeping a writer’s notebook. When people ask me about how to get started writing, I almost always share the same two pieces of advice, whether those people are nine years old or thirty-five, or seventy. The first thing is this: Read. Readers develop an ear for what good sentences sound like and a sense for what makes a story work. Reading will make you a better writer. The second piece of advice is: Write. This may sound ridiculous, but you’d be surprised how many people talk about wanting to write without actually sitting down and doing it. A writer’s notebook is a good way to start.
There are some very strict rules for having a writer’s notebook. Here they are:
Rule #1: Write in it.
Rule #2: There are no other rules.
Because here’s the thing… A writer’s notebook can have a million different jobs. Some people scribble a few lines first thing every morning when they wake up. Some write throughout the day, at breakfast, in the grocery checkout line, waiting for the kids to get out of school. You can use a writer’s notebook to journal, to scribble story ideas, to record snatches of conversation or names you like or the way the leaves make swishing sounds in the wind. You get the idea…
So if you don’t already have one, choose a notebook. And write things in it. Here are some of mine…
I am a multiple-notebook kind of writer. I usually have at least three going at once. The little black ones are “idea books,” and every time I get a new book idea while I’m working on a project, I scribble a note on one page — it only gets a page — and then I go back to work on my work-in-progress. These books are where I go sniffing around for stories when I’m ready to start something new.
I have a shameless addiction to Eco-Jot notebooks, and I often have a big one that I’m using for taking research notes on whatever book I’m working on as well as a small one that I carry around for all sorts of scribbles. The thing about my writer’s notebooks is this… They aren’t sacred. They are full of all kinds of things, often all mixed together. Here are just a few random notebook pages:
Here’s a page where I was brainstorming ideas for HIDE AND SEEK…
Here’s a list of questions I wanted to remember to ask one of the tornado specialists I went to interview in Oklahoma when i was researching EYE OF THE STORM…
Here’s a page I scribbled when I was outside one spring day, writing with my 7th grade students. We were practicing noticing details.
My notebooks are full of things like this, as well as collections of names, descriptions of clothes I borrowed from strangers to save for my characters later on, blurted “what-ifs” that I scribbled because I thought they might help solve story problems, funny things my kids and their friends said, all mixed in with a scattering of to-do lists, grocery lists, and things like this…
This eclectic mix makes for a lot of searching when I need to find something, but the whole mishmash also creates a fertile breeding ground for fresh ideas. It works for me. You’ll figure out what works best for you.
Your writing notebook doesn’t have to be perfect or sacred. It doesn’t have to be tidy. It should be something you reach for often, something that hangs out with you so much you feel naked if you’ve left home without it. Practice having it and using it. Practice writing.
In the comments:Share a few lines of what you wrote in your notebook today, OR tell us a little about what kinds of things you like to write/sketch in your writer’s notebook! Please note: If you’re a first-time commenter, I’ll have to approve your comment before it appears. This may take a while if I’m not at my computer, but don’t worry – I’ll get to it and it will show up later on!
Giveaway:In honor of the first day of writing camp, I’ll mail a signed copy of HIDE AND SEEK to one commenter, drawn at random. The winner will be announced Friday morning!
I’ve been getting more mail than usual lately, most of it from mystery fans who have read the first two books in my Silver Jaguar Society series with Scholastic.
Pretty much everyone has the same question: WHEN will the third book be out???
The third book is called MANHUNT, and it comes out in May. Some kids aren’t satisfied with this answer. One kid asked me to just send it to him now; he promised to keep it under wraps. One girl wrote back and said, “Well, do you think you and the publisher could speed it up a little?”
Sadly, no… Books take time. MANHUNT still needs to be illustrated (there are cool maps in this one!),the cover needs to be designed, and the text itself needs to go through final edits. The last time I saw MANHUNT, it looked like this…
Not exactly ready for readers just yet. But I want to share two kids’ mysteries that I read and loved recently. I think readers who love the Silver Jaguar Society mysteries will love these, too.
THE WIG IN THE WINDOW by Kristen Kittscher (out now) features best friends and spy partners Sophie Young and Grace Yang. These two tween sleuths face all the struggles of middle school’s changing friendships AND the dangers of a real life-or-death mystery that starts when they *think* they’ve just seen their school guidance counselor commit a terrible crime. This book is funny, realistic, and suspenseful — a pitch-perfect mystery for the tween set.
Erin Dionne’s MOXIE AND THE ART OF RULE BREAKING (comes out July 11th) is another action-packed choice. I’m a sucker for a book with a strong sense of place, so this Boston-based mystery based on the real-life Isabella Stewart Gardner heist didn’t disappoint. Moxie and her best guy-friend Ollie get wrapped up in searching for the stolen art after Moxie begins to suspect her grandfather, now suffering from dementia, was involved in hiding it back in 1990. Moxie and Ollie are real, imperfect kids – best friends who have great family relationships that are explored in this novel, along with the Boston-based treasure hunt.
Both of these are great summer reads for mystery fans ages 10 and up – and both will be especially popular with middle school readers who love the idea of doing a little sleuthing on their own!
One of my favorite things about Teachers Write is that it gives me the opportunity to introduce some of my favorite people (teachers & librarians!) to some of my other favorite people (children’s and YA authors!).
When you join Teachers Write, you’re signing up to be part of a writing community, and all summer long on this blog, you’ll have the chance to talk with people like me (I’m Kate, by the way, in case you were stumbling around and found yourself here. I write books for kids and host this online summer camp), Gae Polisner of Friday Feedback fame, and Monday Morning Warm-Up guru Jo Knowles, as well as a whole bunch of kind, smart, funny guest authors. We’re all volunteers, so please check out our websites and support our books by asking for them at your local bookstores and libraries, reading them, and sharing the ones you like. Here’s our author list for Summer 2013!
Some of these folks will be sharing mini-lessons on Mondays, others will be offering quite-write prompts on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and some will be answering your questions for Q and A Wednesdays. While these are the “official” guest authors, I have to admit that I also have some surprises planned for various Fridays, and many other authors drop by to chat and answer questions even if they haven’t committed to visit on a particular day.
If you’re a teacher or librarian and you’d like to join us, you can sign up here! We’ll be starting with our first Mini-Lesson Monday on June 24th!
Starting a week from today, this blog will be hosting Teachers Write, an online summer writing camp for teachers and librarians from all over the world. I’m too excited about this to sit still, so I thought we’d have a quick preview post today – think of itas the official Teacehrs Write warm-up!
Today, to get us ready for next week, I’d like to address two big questions that have come up from teachers who have heard about the program but feel a little hesitant about diving in.
Question 1: How do you find the time to write? I’d love to do this, but I’m busy, even in the summer months.
Answer: I’ve always found the idea of “finding time” to be kind of misleading, as if you can poke around in the garden and come up with an extra couple of hours a day if you look hard enough. The truth is, you don’t find time to write; you have to make it. And you make it by choosing to spend a little time each day – maybe just 15 minutes – writing, instead of doing something else. That something else that you give up might be one television show, or fifteen minutes of sleep, or (gasp!) time on Facebook or Twitter. You have to choose to make that writing time. It’s worth doing if writing is something you really want to do. I posted about this last year on Teachers Write, and you can read more of my thoughts here. Writer John Scalzi also wrote on this topic – in a blog post that is the rougher-language, tougher-love version of mine. Not really suitable to share with kids, but great if you really want a kick in the pants – it’s here.
Question 2: I’d like to do this writing thing, but I’m kind of afraid.
Answer: Yeah…me, too. Still. Every time I start a new book. I don’t have a magic answer for this one, other than to tell you that you’re not alone. Writing can be scary, but in the best possible way. Here’s a 2012 Teachers Write post about Writing Scared, and I also recommend this book – ART AND FEAR. But mostly, I recommend that if you want to write, you write. We’re all in this together, and we’ll be cheering you on if you do.
My last author visit of the 2012-2013 school year was a warm, wonderful, welcoming day spent with readers in Bloomingdale and Saranac Lake, NY. I was a little worried about making it to the schools because the night before this visit, our weather radio went off at 3am, warning of flooding rivers in the area. It was obvious on my drive that the waters were threatening, but the roads were fine.
I made it to both schools and was so, so glad. The kids were amazing readers and had so many terrific questions after my presentation – I could have stayed to talk books with them all day.
Me with with librarian extraordinaire, Allison Follos.
These readers were full of surprises, too. In Saranac Lake, the school had two T-shirts waiting for me — one from the school to show my Petrova spirit, and one from the Saranac Lake Teachers Association that I loved, too, because we share the same values.
Many of the students surprised me with posters they’d made themselves, illustrating scenes from my books or creating idiom illustrations like the character Sinan loves to do in CAPTURE THE FLAG.
Thank you, Bloomingdale and Petrova Elementary Schools, for making my last school visit of 2012-2013 such a day to remember!
Teachers Write! is an online virtual summer writing camp for teachers and librarians who understand how important it is for people teaching writing to walk the walk. If you’re a teacher or librarian who would love to work on your own writing, we’d love to have you join us. If you already know about Teachers Write, you can go straight to the sign-up form. Otherwise, read on…
Here’s how it all works:
Primary Location: www.katemessner.com/blog (Post Category: TeachersWrite) New posts will be shared each weekday morning, and you can check in whenever it’s convenient.
Dates: June 24th – August 16th
Schedule:
Schedule is kind of an ugly word for summer, isn’t it? So let’s call this the plan-of-the-day instead. Feel free to participate in whatever floats your boat and skip the rest.
Mini-Lesson Mondays: Mondays will feature a mini-lesson on writing craft or logistics (how to make time has been a big question already!). I’ll share a workshop-style lesson with ideas, tips, and examples, and then there will be something to work on during the week. Or not. You can also just bookmark it for later. It’s summer, after all.
Monday Morning Warm-Up:Hosted by author Jo Knowles, this features a weekly warm-up to get you started after teh weekend!
Tuesday Quick-Write: Tuesdays will feature a writing prompt that can be used to brainstorm new ideas or deepen your thinking on the project you’re working on now.
Wednesday Q and A: Ever wished you could just pick an author’s brain about how they do it? Each Wednesday, we’ll have a post where anyone can ask questions about writing . I’ll answer, along with an awesome panel of author friends who come to visit.
Thursday Quick-Write: Like Tuesdays, Thursdays will feature a writing prompt that can be used to brainstorm new ideas or deepen your thinking on the project you’re working on now.
Friday Bonus: There will be some Friday surprises, too. Book giveaways, special guests, photos of bullfrogs…it’s hard to say.
Sunday Check-In: Weekends are for recharging, spending time with family and friends…and that includes online writing friends, too! Amazing teacher-writer Jen Vincent is having a weekend get-together on her blog, Teach Mentor Texts. Jen will be hosting an online writing group there. Each Sunday, she’ll be sharing reflections on her journey as a teacher who writes and encouraging others along the way. Think of it as a support group for writers, and head over there on Sundays to talk about goals, progress, struggles, and more.
Beyond these daily posts, you can expect the occasional surprise along the way – guest posts and some book giveaways for your classroom libraries, because teachers & librarians who write are worth celebrating.
Teachers Write! Virtual Summer Writing Camp Q and A
Who can join?
This writing camp is for teachers and librarians who work with kids of any age in any capacity. I’d ask that the Q and A and feedback requests be limited to them and the published authors who agree to help out, so the people who are working with kids get plenty of attention when it comes to mentoring and feedback. If you’re not a teacher or librarian, you’re still more than welcome to follow the posts and do the writing.
What does it cost?
It’s free. You’ll see that on the sign-up page, we’re asking that you buy a couple books to support the work of the authors who organize, if you can. Otherwise, there’s no cost at all. If you’re a teacher or librarian who’s found this, you’ve probably put a lot of my books in a lot of kids’ hands already, or nominated them for state award lists, or reviewed them online, or purchased copies for your library. I’m thankful for all of those things– and this seemed like a fun way to say so. Our guest authors you’ll meet along the way are volunteering their time for the same reasons — because we appreciate teachers & librarians and value the work that you do. Please support all of their books when you can.
Umm…I followed a link on Twitter and ended up here. Who are you, exactly?
Oh, hi! I’m Kate. I write books for kids of all ages, and I wrote a book about revision for teachers. I was a middle school English teacher for a long time and will never really get that out of my system. You can explore my website links to learn more. My favorite things are my family, being outside, reading, writing, and chocolate. All that should help you decide if you’d like to hang out here for the summer or not. I’m friendly, I promise.
What if I’m brand new at this whole writing thing?
Then the Teachers Write! Virtual Summer Writing Camp is especially for you. Welcome. You don’t need a license or a creative writing degree or permission from anyone to be a writer. All you need is the desire to write. Beginners and experienced writers are all welcome. Don’t worry… you can go at your own pace and only share what you want to share. If you’re happier lurking as a stealth writing camp member, that’s okay, too.
So will you respond to our questions and give us feedback?
Yes. But be patient with me, okay? I have three writing deadlines and some book travel this summer and marshmallows to roast, too, so it may take me a while for me to approve and reply to all the comments sometimes. The good news is that this camp can run quite nicely even if I’m away. Daily posts will be scheduled, and all of you can cheer one another on and provide feedback. Our guest authors will be around to help with that, too.
What if I can’t start until later? And what if I’ll be on vacation the last week of July?
That’s fine. Sign up. Join us when you can. Take breaks whenever you like. We’ll keep your lemonade cold while you’re away.
Fire away in the comments – and watch for an exciting list of Teachers Write! guest authors soon!
Note: 1st-time commenters on this blog need to be approved, so don’t worry if your question or sign-up comment doesn’t appear right away. I promise to get to them all within a day or two.
