Kids and the Writing Process
Posted by: amywrites4kids on: October 1, 2009
The large card was one of our scene markers.
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I’ve written several original pageants for our church. A few years ago, I decided the children of our church should help write the pageant and we focused on Christmas Cards. The group of ten elementary school kids and I met three times for thirty minutes in October to discuss these images as if they held real people.
I asked questions like “What did the Shepherds feel like on the hill at night? What did Joseph think as shepherds walked in?”
The kids’ were shy for a while, but got into calling out responses, and spontaneously acting out the scene. My job after the question was to be a reporter and note what they did and said.
I took those notes and the Bible and wove the narrative around the existing story. This part of the play was easy. We already basically knew the plot. We just didn’t know the attitude and motivation of all the characters.
After I wrote a basic script, we tried it out. The kids opted to change a line here or there. I listened for the original intent to stay the same — since the person suggesting the change was not always the person who had written the original line.
After Thanksgiving we went into production. We froze the script, with one exception. We thought everyone would recognize these scenes, since we had picked the most basic of Christmas card images. But we needed an introduction to invite the audience to think as we had. We wanted them to wonder what the shepherds felt, or if the angels were happy with their job.
The play Christmas Cards, is a 20-minute pageant with four scenes. The show is logistically easy on both the performers and the parents assisting. But it is also funny and charming, showing the people in the cards to have real hopes and fears that aren’t usually mentioned during the Christmas narrative.
Here is a sample from a scene.
“SHEPHERDS”
[Walk shepherd card across the stage and place on easel]
Narrator: On that night, shepherds were watching their sheep.
Or at least some of them were watching.
This one slept. [Narrator points at sleeping shepherd then faces front again]
Well, it was late.
Shepherd 1: I’m cold [Shepherd 1 pulls cloak tighter]
Narrator: Yep, it was cold too.
When suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared
[Enter angel with bright light if possible]
[All shepherds dive for cover]
Angel: Do not be afraid.
Narrator: The shepherds, however, were not convinced.
Hearts raced. Hands shook.
Some ran to protect their sheep.
I think this was one of the most successful of our pageants. And I’m looking forward to working with the kids again on a new one.
The Reading Life
Posted by: amywrites4kids on: September 16, 2009
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Our elementary school PTA has a huge used booksale every year. It is the main source of income for our PTA. We hold it during the city’s Labor Day Festival, a four-day, all-consuming affair. This year we added two new events: Guest Readers and A Reading Life.
Guest readers were local celebrities — the mayor, a local music producer, the local director of a favorite drama camp, the school security officer etc. They each sat near the main stage, chose a favorite book and read into a microphone for 15 minutes between the paid acts. They introduced stories, kept kids from wandering off between acts, and offered a calm, lovely image that contrasted with the rest of the frantic festival. I’ve already started asking people for next year.
A Reading Life was an attempt to make the booksale more interactive. I know people are already sifting through the 25,000 donated books, but I would love it people would stop and talk more to their neighbors about these books. So I compiled a list of favorite books. I asked the teachers, the principal, parents, neighbors, friends on facebook, and anyone else I could think of to tell me a favorite book or two. I typed those up and stuck them on poster board near the sale. Then I added paper and markers, asking festival-goers to add their own favorites. We had maybe 80 names of books, until the rain soaked the paper. My hope is that you might see a friend’s name, or a favorite teacher’s name and say, “I want to try that book.”
Complaints Accepted
Posted by: amywrites4kids on: September 16, 2009
Playing in the sand
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I can’t claim this is my original idea, but I don’t know where I heard it, so I can’t give credit. This summer I told my children that I would only listen to complaints if they were submitted in the form of a haiku.
These complaints usually came while we were out doing something that I considered both exciting and educational, like touring our capital, or hiking. I told them the form was 7-5-7. Later I realized it is 5-7-5 oops! It was my fault they blew the form, but the poetry took their minds off of walking for a little bit. Next time we’ll consider word choice.
While walking to the Lincoln Memorial on a hot day:
I want to go home right now.
My stomach hurts a lot.
Can we go home? I’m tired.
Walking in a park in North Carolina
We want to stop walking.
We have seen it now.
We would like to leave right now.
As they composed the last one, we arrived at our destination, a small inlet with quiet water and clean sand. They played for another hour.
Writing science for early elementary.
Posted by: amywrites4kids on: September 16, 2009
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If the explanation looks simple on the page, you can guess that someone took hours writing it.
Every now and then there is a straight-forward explanation of how the world works, but more often, the science is complicated and does not fit the early elementary school format. Young readers get pages of maybe 100 words. Giving them an explanation that is both interesting and accurate is hard.
Light, for instance, seems easy. We all know what light is. But explaining how light works quickly becomes complex. Why can the sunlight go through your car window and not come out again? (The answer is that it bounces off the dark seats and loses some of its energy, now the light is slightly different than stuff that came in, and the window lets in and out only pure sunlight. So now the light stays in the car, bouncing all over, losing energy on each bounce. That lost energy is transformed to heat, and your seats get too hot to sit in.) That explanation right there is 66 words, leaving little room for other uses of light.
Should we be giving these kids more explanation? Or is it enough to say the windows trap the light? And how can we make both types of books available?
The Write Stuff (at the right time)
Posted by: amywrites4kids on: September 16, 2009
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There have been very few times in my life when I knew I was doing exactly the right thing at the right time. The day that I got married, it was right. When I was feeding my infants, I was doing right. Otherwise, as a freelancer, I second-guess almost any project.
Should I work on my career, or take the day to help the school? Should I write a new piece or edit? Should I edit or spend time investigating possible publishers? Should I invest time in a writing course on a new genre, or work harder on the ones I’m published in? Oh, and my next book is coming out, I need to prepare a publicity packet, maybe I should be doing that. Sometimes the jobs get only half done.
This anxiety is compounded by a study I recently read that said we could all learn to be proficient at anything; it just takes effort and time (on the order of 10,000 hours). The people who are naturals at sports, singing, drawing and any of the other goals I could set for myself, may have had more natural talent, but they also work harder. This means I cannot make the excuse for myself that I can’t learn Spanish because I don’t have a good ear for languages. I could learn; I just need to work.
The amazing thing to me is that freelance writers get anything done at all. Somewhere along the way I must have decided that writing is the core of what I want to be doing, because even with all the questions and doubts, it is what I do. I would love to move from project to project with less anxiety, but I do know I will fight my demons back enough to spend part of every day with words.
Chicago ALA 2009: We had a Blast
Posted by: amywrites4kids on: September 16, 2009
Amy's postcard description of her new book
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Non-fiction Book Blast
Non-fiction for the Reluctant Readers.
My trip to Chicago’s ALA meeting began with mixed fortunes.
Bad fortune: I forgot my jacket in the car. The jacket was necessary both because the convention hall was cold and because my outfit looked less than professional without it.
Good fortune: I now had the desire, nay, the need to get out of the sterile halls, see some of the sights of the city and buy a substitute. Macys had an 80 percent off sale. A beautiful black sweater was mine for $10.
Bad fortune: Our panel was scheduled at the same time as Judy Blume’s book signing.
Good fortune: We still had a crowd of over 300, far beyond what most of us had hoped for. I was naive about the demand for good nonfiction, as well as about the enthusiasm with which it would be greeted.
All of this was fortunate, but in the end, not surprising. We had worked hard at advertising our event. We had worked hard at being organized, having all of our handouts online and showing the diversity of kids non-fiction. Most of all, we worked hard at our own writing and created our own best fortune: a receptive audience.
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