Posts Tagged reading

The Power of the Reread

In 2011 when my twins were still in high school, our local school held its annual Academic Awards/National Honor Society Initiation/Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony event. It was a weeknight during one of the busiest weeks of the year. 

Since there were no local sports heroes were being inducted into the Hall of Fame, my usual strategy would have been to stay home and skip the event. But, as my kids were part of the academic festivities that evening, I went with the plan of sliding out the back door right after their names were announced.

For some reason, though, I decided to stay for the Hall of Fame induction ceremony to listen to the inductee’s speeches. In the end, what a great decision that was! 

One of the inductees that year, Dr. Rachel Schmidt-Brown, Clay Center Community High School Class of 1981, gave an acceptance speech that was pure gold. Dr. Schmidt is a professor of Spanish at the University of Calgary and a world-renowned DON QUIXOTE scholar.

She has spent an entire academic career studying and researching one great work of classic literature. Dr. Schmidt spoke about finding and following your passion in life. Good stuff. But, what stuck to my ribs was when she mentioned how she sits down every five years and rereads DON QUIXOTE.

I just about jumped out of my seat. Do you mean a person who spends every day of her illustrious career studying one book, written 400 years ago in Spanish, and reads it for FUN every five years? 

Huh. 

Then came her take-home message; Dr. Schmidt explained she reads DON QUIXOTE every five years to get a fresh perspective of the manuscript from where she currently is in her life.  She knows she has changed over the five years; changes in her family, kids, and career. She explained how the story takes a new life; a new meaning with every successive read. What a beautiful concept!

 

 

So that got me thinking. What books or stories do I read over and over again? How does an older and, hopefully, wiser perspective affect me? Below is my list of stories I read over and again with an expanded understanding developing with each read. It’s truly a gift to be able to cultivate a deeper understanding of not only these wonderful stories but of who I am as a person. Reading is indeed a superpower.

Novels

  • The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett 
  • Coraline by Neil Gaiman.
  • How I Became a Ghost by Tim Tingle
  • Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
  • Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt
  • Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
  • Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos

Short Stories

  • Platte River by Rick Bass
  • To Build a Fire by Jack London
  • The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
  • Big Two-Hearted River by Ernest Hemmingway

Inspirational

  • Lenten Gospel Rotation (Every Lent, I read Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John in a four-year cycle. Always surprised by how my life perspective affects the way I read the Gospels.)

Do you have books or stories you read over and over again? How do time and life influence your reads? Do you pick up a certain detail in a different way? Please leave a comment, I would like to know.

It’s Almost Spring! Bringing Books to Life in the Great Outdoors

Whether the children in your lives are eager lovers of literature or more reluctant readers, finding ways to bring books to life with outdoor activities can be a fun way to encourage thoughtful reading practices and to make books even more engaging. Below are a few ideas for how you might create activities to bring the events of a novel to life for the young readers in your life.

 

Nest, by Esther Ehrlich, can be adapted into real-life activities in many ways. Set in the 1970’s, this is the story of a family dealing with mental illness. Despite these heavier tones, there’s still a lot of joy in the story from which to pull inspiration. Young readers could go birdwatching just like the main character Chirp and look up the birds they spot in a field guide. Similarly, Chirp creates a dance routine to the song Help! by the Beatles. Young readers can do this too. It doesn’t need to be anything professional or elaborate but getting up and moving to a song (Beatles or not) provides a lot of physical fun and memorizing a dance routine is a good brain exercise, too! And it’s even more fun if it’s performed outdoors.

 

Book Jacket for Time of the Fireflies

Kimberley Griffiths Little’s novel The Time of the Fireflies also provides more opportunities for readers to engage more fully with the novel.  A picnic dinner to watch fireflies would be ideal for bringing Larissa’s story to life. Other  ideas for bringing her book to life include exploring one’s family history through word of mouth or old pictures and objects or, like Larissa, experience some time travel. Pick a year, help your readers do some research, and then spend an hour or two as though you’ve slipped through time!

 

Winner of the Newberry medal, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly, is another novel rich in the natural world and centered around a loveable, strong female protagonist. Readers of Calpurnia’s story can follow in her footsteps by exploring their yards, neighborhoods, or local parks with a notebook and pencil in hand. Walk slowly and observe with all the senses, taking notes and making sketches of what kinds of flora and fauna are found. A field guide could come in handy for this as well, as some young readers  might want to learn the scientific names of plants and animals they observe. This is a great activity to encourage mindfulness, art skills, and offer a foray into being a naturalist.

 

The First Last Day, by Dorian Cirrone, is also perfect as the weather is warming up. Main character Haleigh finds herself in the midst of a never-ending summer…literally! One activity to bring this novel to life is to encourage young readers to paint memories of their favorite days or to keep a journal of their life through paintings. The passage of time might not freeze as it does for Haleigh, but this is a great way to encourage artistic creativity as well as personal reflection. Other art supplies and mediums can be added or substituted, too.

 

Finally, in my novel, Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe, the main character Cricket goes on a wilderness adventure to try to find her mother. A series of clues leads the way. There are several ways Smack Dab could be brought to life, but one idea is to create a clue-based scavenger hunt for your young readers to solve. This could be as simple as leaving hand-written notes with riddles or descriptions that lead from one location to the next. You can also create more complicated clue trails involving cyphers or clues that relate to poetry or history. Even better if the clues incorporate the outdoors or wilderness! A small prize could be added at the end of the clues or simply solving the scavenger hunt can be the victory. Plus, older kids could orchestrate clues for one another. You can find some activities here.

 

These are a few ideas to get started. Once you start reading with potential outdoor adventures in mind, the sky is the limit. –literally.  Happy reading!

“What I Didn’t Do This Summer” and Other MG Narrative Writing Ideas

A hearty thank you to all the teachers and librarians who are off and running in a new school year! We certainly wish you the best. Educational settings of all types have seen wild change and plenty of challenges in the last year and a half, but educators continue to rally, adapt, instruct, and inspire.

For those of you on the lookout for ways to offer your middle grade writers new and creative ideas, here are some suggestions to try!

These ideas:

  • Capitalize upon and promote students’ start-of-the-year enthusiasm and excitement.
  • Can be used as icebreakers and in peer-response circles (in which each student provides one “This is awesome!” and one “This is just a suggestion!” remark for a fellow writer).
  • Will fulfill one of the most fun Common Core State Standards—Narrative Writing (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W3)!
  • Will connect to (relatively) pain-free grammar and composition mini-lessons as students revise and edit, which account for additional Writing Standards.
  • Will connect to Reading: Literature CCSS if you tie the writing lesson to the study of a novel and Speaking and Listening CCSS if students share their original work aloud (with a bit of coaching on presentation skills).
  • Can serve as a foundation for powerhouse lessons and quality use of instructional time–not to mention a chance for kids to use imagination along with skills in a memorable and fun writing experience.

The “What I Didn’t Do This Summer” Composition

Students might need a little explanation if they are not aware of the traditional “What I Did This Summer” essay that kicked off each year of English class for so many generations of students. Then, turn the notion on its head: Kids write an imaginative piece that includes events their summer certainly did not showcase: didn’t talk to penguins at the South Pole, didn’t go back in time and meet pirates or ninjas, didn’t even try to dig a hole to the other side of the world, didn’t get the cell phone to work as a portal to another planet. Offer more structure to those who don’t jump in on their own, for example, “Three Adventures I Wanted to Try This Summer But Didn’t,” or “Three Things I Wouldn’t Have Done This Summer Even for Ten Thousand Dollars.”

The First-Line Fest

The best part about a First-Line Fest is the time involved; you can spend a few class periods on this activity, use it for a five-minute filler, or utilize any length of time in between. You might want to start by offering a read-aloud of first lines from some great test-of-time middle grade novels (and letting kids guess the titles is a nice intro). Some possibilities:

“It was one of those super-duper cold Saturdays.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number Four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

“There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.”

“I am born on a Tuesday at University Hospital / Columbus, Ohio, / USA— / a country caught / between Black and White.”

“My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni and cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes and I came back with a dog.”

Then, coach students to compose an attention-getting first line to a story or novel that they do not have to write. Use whatever guidelines or fun twists suit your purposes: must be a full sentence with an action verb; must contain at least two characters; must jump in with a conflict; must be a setting description with an animal; must be more than 20 words but fewer than 25; etc.  Or, throw rules out the window (except, of course, for your classroom-appropriate guidelines 😊 ) and see what first-line creations students come up with.

The Favorite Genre Never-Been-Done Premise

Explain the concept of a premise to your would-be writers and allow them to guess a book based on its premise. Knowing what books they covered as a class the previous year ensures success here, so for example, if they read Other Words for Home: “A seventh grade girl leaves Syria for Cincinnati, bravely auditions for a musical, and remains hopeful for the safety of the missing brother she left behind.”

Next, review genre as a literary characteristic, and have kids narrow their favorite genres. Finally, assign a fun one-to-three sentence premise for a story or novel in their favorite genre they’d love to someday read or write. Some facet of the imagined storyline must make the premise never-been-done before (a challenge, as we writers are well aware!). Look to recent releases in some favorite genres for inspiration and recommended reads for your students to dovetail with this writing assignment:

Fantasy: The Ship of Stolen Words by Fran Wilde, The Hidden Knife by Melissa Marr, Arrow by Samantha M. Clark

Sports/Outdoors/Activities: Samira Surfs by Rukhsanna Guidroz, Soccer Trophy Mystery by Fred Bowen, Much Ado about Baseball by Rajani LaRocca

Scare Stories: Ghost Girl by Ally Malinenko, The Forgotten Girl by India Hill Brown

MG contemporary: Thanks A Lot, Universe by Chad Lucas, To Tell You the Truth by Beth Vrabel, The Magical Imperfect by Chris Baron

Also, consider genre mash-ups to make the never-been-done objective a little easier—and a lot more creative.

Have a great year filled with creative opportunities for your middle grade writers, and thank you again for your devotion to educating kids.

 

First lines: The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis;  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling; Holes by Louis Sachar; Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson; Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo