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STEM Tuesday– Mixing Science and Poetry/Verse — Writing Tips and Resources

By on April 23, 2019   /   Common Core & NGSS, Cross-Curricular, Poetry/Verse, STEM Tuesday  

There’s an old baseball saying that states, “The ball will find you.”

It’s based on this odd predisposition for a baseball to be hit right at you if:

  • You just entered the game cold (The closer and more intense the game, the more likely a screaming line drive will be soon be headed directly at your head.)
  • You’ve just made an error.
  • You have an injury but keep playing at less than 100%.
  • You’re playing a defensive position you don’t normally play.

“The ball will find you.” is a commentary on how a flaw or weakness in a system always seems to be exposed at a critical juncture. In baseball, we often attribute such a phenomenon to the wrath of the baseball gods.

The ball will find you.

I tell you this because there must also be a Mixed-up Files version of “The ball will find you.” that the middle grade, kidlit gods apparently have decided to haunt me with.

“Poetry will find you!”

Several months ago, after the STEM Tuesday leader supreme, Jen Swanson, emailed the group to announce she had posted the upcoming monthly STEM Tuesday themes. I rushed my mouse to the MUF bookmark, logged in, and scrolled to my assigned month of April.

Topic?

STEM Tuesday–  Mixing Science and Poetry/Verse.

I LOL’d

I rolled out of my desk chair to the office floor, laughing maniacally like the Joker after he’d just pulled one over on Batman. From the next room, my adult children expressed concern to my wife, who nonchalantly waved them off, “Just another of your father’s poetry fits. No worries.”

No worries. Here I am. Fully recovered. Poetry fit behind me? Well, let’s just say I’m ready to accept the sentence placed upon me by the MUF “Poetry will find you” curse.

Poetry will find me.

And you know what?

That’s not a bad thing.

I think I’ll give this poetry/science thing a go…

Roses are red

Violets are blue

When working with elephants

Don’t step in the doo-doo

 

Muses and Poets via Wikimedia Commons

Obviously, my poetry skills are lacking. I do, however, possess adequate mental faculties to observe poetry and STEM have quite a few similarities. We can even, for argument’s sake, go as far as to classify STEM and poetry as close relatives who manage to stay civil even outside of major holidays.

“What in the whiskers is he talking about this time?” you ask.

Poetry and STEM on level intellectual ground? Is this coming from a 30-year microbiologist? You must think this guy took way too many of those screaming baseball line drives to the head. (The answer is “No”. The majority of those screaming line drives went through my legs or off my kneecap, chest, shin, or various other body parts. Very few went off my noggin and even fewer went into my ball glove.)

Give me a chance to shine some light on this poetry/STEM connection with the following five points.

Both STEM and Poetry rely on elements that are quantifiable and measurable.

  • One can measure the beats in a couplet, a quatrain, or a septet just as one can measure the excitation and emission wavelength spectra of a fluorophore.
  • There are a definable rhythm and cadence to a poem just as there are for a parasite’s life cycle, embryo development, building a bridge, programming a robot, or quantum theory.

Both STEM and Poetry follow rules and formulas.

  • Just as we have theorems and equations to help define the physical world, poems have form, patterns of sound, meaning, and meter.

Both STEM and Poetry extract meaning from observation.

  • Poetry attempts to describe observations through words and form.
  • STEM attempts to describe observations with hypotheses, theories, laws, code, and blueprints to name a few.

Both STEM and Poetry are ways to look at the world around us in order to gain a greater understanding.

  • A poem has a thematic weight and uses figurative and connotative devices to deliver meaning.
  • STEM uses a device called the scientific method to better understand the natural phenomenon.

Both STEM and Poetry are organized by classifications according to certain properties and traits.

  • There are many types of poems.
    • Lyric poems, narrative poems, descriptive poems.
    • Odes, elegy, epic, sonnet, ballad, haiku, limerick, etc.
  • Mammals, bacteria, viruses, plants, insects, atoms, orbitals, planets, electrical systems, aeronautics, etc. are all STEM groups that we classify according to properties and traits.

 

Next time someone (especially your favorite STEM-crazed middle grader) poo-poo’s the poetry, remind them,

POETRY WILL FIND YOU!

When it does, show them the STEM Tuesday Mixing Science and Poetry/Verse book list and tell them to give it a chance. Even the most STEM-centric mind can benefit from the beauty of a poem.

Mike Hays has worked hard from a young age to be a well-rounded individual. A well-rounded, equal opportunity sports enthusiasts, that is. If they keep a score, he’ll either watch it, play it, or coach it. A molecular microbiologist by day, middle-grade author, sports coach, and general good citizen by night, he blogs about sports/training related topics at www.coachhays.com and writer stuff at www.mikehaysbooks.com. Two of his science essays, The Science of Jurassic Park and Zombie Microbiology 101,  are included in the Putting the Science in Fiction collection from Writer’s Digest Books. He can be found roaming around the Twitter-sphere under the guise of @coachhays64.

 

The O.O.L.F Files

The Out Of Left Field (O.O.L.F.) Files this month take a look at a connection between poetry and STEM.

Elements of Poetry

  • A nice overview of the nuts and bolts of poetry from Lexiconic Education Resources. Even I was able to understand and learn the fundamentals.

Science and Poetry: A View from the Divide

  • “What science-bashers fail to appreciate is that scientists, in their unflagging attraction to the unknown, love what they don’t know.  It guides and motivates their work; it keeps them up late at night; and it makes that work poetic.”  – from a beautiful 1998 essay by poet Alison Hawthorne Deming on the intersection of science and art.

‘Technimeric’ = Poetry + STEM

  • How about a STEM-focused Technimetric Poetry Slam? YES!!!

Poetry for Science, STEM & STEAM by Pomelo Books

  • A Pinterest page LOADED with STEM poems for kids. My kind of poetry!

Engineering the Perfect Poem by Using the Vocabulary of STEM

  • Lesson plans from ReadWriteThink all about how to engineer a poem about…engineering!

 

 

 

 

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The Most Important Thing that Beverly Cleary Taught Me About Writing

By on April 22, 2019   /   Articles  

When I was writing one of my middle grades, Queen of Likes, I momentarily forgot what it was like to be a tween. In that book, 12-year-old Karma Cooper gets her phone taken away. At first, I got right to this punishment and had Karma communicating her regret.

Wrong! I had forgotten what it felt like to be a seventh grader. How could this happen? After all, I teach an online course, Middle Grade Mastery with the Children’s Book Academy, and exhort my students to crawl into the head of a kid and stay there. Instead, I was writing the text like—gulp–a mom. I hate how my children and their friends are on the phone in the car and don’t talk to each other. I don’t allow phones at the kitchen table. I constantly make them put their phones away. But a kid might feel different. She might feel as though Mom is really patently unfair. In revision, I had to remember how Karma felt about her phone, not me, the Mom. When I had Karma name her phone Floyd, I got back into a child head space.

Let’s look in more detail how to do this. Beverly Cleary recently just celebrated her 103rd birthday, and I can think of no better middle grade mentor to learn from than her. Cleary clearly (I just have been waiting to put those two words together for a very long time), understands and remembers what it is like to be a child.

Cleary’s Ramona Quimby, Age 8, focuses on tension over a beloved eraser. As an adult it is too easy to forget the attachment that children have to small inanimate objects. Sometimes as grown-ups we see things merely as tools whereas to a child an eraser is an entire sensory experience and imbued with magic. When Ramona first receives her eraser this is how it is how her new treasure is described: “smooth, pearly pink, smelling softly of rubber, and just right for a racing pencil lines.”

Of course, this treasure is taken away from her on the bus by some boys. To an adult losing an eraser may seem minor, but to Ramona, it’s a catastrophe. From an eight-year-old perspective, it is not just an common school supply but a “beautiful pink eraser.”

And because the family is struggling financially, as Mr. Quimby has left his job to go back to school, it is even further appreciated.

I love how efficiently Cleary sets up the importance of the eraser. After its introduction, within a few page turns, the eraser is missing. This all happens on the first day of school. Not an ordinary day but one that is ritualized.

Try this exercise to get back to the child mindset:
1. Go back to being 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12. Think about an inanimate object.

2. Consider how much you love the object.

3. Name the object.

4. Touch it. Smell it, feel it. Using your senses describe it.

5. Write down why it is so important to you.

6. Why do you have such strong feelings?

7. Not consider how you would feel if that object were taken from you!

If you’re getting all the feels—then pat yourself on the back. You’re remembering the magic of childhood. Let’s all celebrate the master of understanding children, Beverly Cleary.

Hillary Homzie is the author of Ellie May chapter book series (Charlesbridge, Dec 18, 2018), as well as Apple Pie Promises (Sky Pony/Swirl, October 2018), Pumpkin Spice Secrets (Sky Pony/Swirl, October 2017), Queen of Likes (Simon & Schuster MIX 2016), The Hot List (Simon & Schuster MIX 2011) and Things Are Gonna Be Ugly (Simon & Schuster, 2009) as well as the Alien Clones From Outer Space (Simon & Schuster Aladdin 2002) chapter book series. She teaches at Hollins University Graduate Program in Children’s Literature, Writing and Illustration and at the Children’s Book Academy. She can be found at hillaryhomzie.com and on her Facebook page as well as on Twitter.

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PROJECT ME 2.0 by Jan Gangsei + Giveaway

By on April 19, 2019   /   Articles, Author Interviews, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, Giveaways  

Today we’re thrilled to welcome Jan Gangsei, whose newest middle-grade novel was released this week from Simon & Schuster/Aladdin. She’s here to tell us all about PROJECT ME 2.0 and her journey to its publication. Plus, she has generously offered to send one lucky reader an autographed copy of the novel. A winner will be chosen at random from those who comment below by midnight Wednesday. (U.S. only please.) Don’t miss your chance to win! Read the interview and let us know your thoughts at the bottom of this page!

But first, here’s a little bit about Jan and PROJECT ME 2.0.

Jan Gangsei writes fast-paced thrillers and humor with heart for teens and tweens. Her debut novel, ZERO DAY, a political thriller set in Washington, DC, was published in 2016 by Disney-Hyperion and has been named to several state award and reading lists. She’s also the author of THE WILD BUNCH (S&S/Aladdin, 2017) and nearly a dozen middle grade novels written for book packagers under pen names and published in multiple languages and countries. Jan was one of the founding members of the MUF blog, and she’s thrilled to be back here today as a guest!

 

An eleven-year-old boy on a quest to impress his suddenly cute, longtime friend accidentally manifests a tiny internet guru into existence in this hilarious MAX novel!

All class clown Farley Andrew Turner (yes, that spells FAT) wanted the summer before seventh grade was to give his image a little boost . . . and maybe, just maybe, impress his oldest pal, whom he has a secret crush on.

But when Farley accidentally manifests a tiny internet guru into existence (think genie, but far more annoying and without any ability whatsoever to grant wishes), his entire plan goes sideways.

Now, in order to rid himself of the four-inch tall pest spouting ridiculous self-help advice and doing yoga on his mouse pad, Farley must complete all “Seven Steps to a Whole New You!”—no matter how embarrassing they may be. Which is how Farley finds himself outfitted in too-small spandex and suffering through daily jogs with his super-athletic dad, attempting to read WAR AND PEACE, and agreeing to play toy guitar in his best friend Burt’s newly formed off-pitch boy band. Unfortunately, it only goes downhill from there . . .  But hey, no one ever claimed the path to enlightenment would be easy, did they?

1. What was the inspiration behind PROJECT ME 2.0?

It started with a character — Farley! And to be quite honest, I’m not exactly sure what caused him to pop into my brain. But one day, there he was — and I had to figure out what to do with him. At the time, I was an unagented, unpublished author-hopeful. So in retrospect, I think I felt a lot like Farley — wanting to be taken seriously, trying to figure out how to be “better” and get noticed. Farley’s story just sort of evolved from there. (Also, I like to laugh and I was cracking myself up as I wrote, so I guess I was having fun, too!)

2. What was your road to publishing this book like?

It was long! (And winding and occasionally bumpy with a few detours . . .!) I actually wrote the first draft of PROJECT ME 2.0 (aka “The Farley Project”) nearly ten years ago. It was the book that landed me my wonderful agent, Sarah Davies, back in 2010. But it didn’t land me a publisher straight away. Instead, I wound up writing several other books. But Farley always stuck with me, and a couple of years ago inspiration hit: what if the self-help guru guiding Farley on his quest to improve himself actually popped out of his computer and wouldn’t go away until Farley completed ALL of his very embarrassing self-help plan? (Pretty much the opposite of a wish-granting genie!) I revised the story, it went off on submission, sold to Simon & Schuster, and now after ten years is a real book! So yeah, long! But I wouldn’t have it any other way, because I think it’s actually a much better story now than the one I wrote all those years ago!

3. That’s a really inspirational story of perseverance. You’ve done such a great job tackling a tween boy voice, what is your secret?

Thank you! Honestly, I’m not quite sure, but when I go to write I often find myself channeling the voice of a tween boy. I’m guessing it’s just that I’ve had a lot of boy influences in my life — from my brother who was my best friend growing up, to my son, and my husband who is the source of at least 90% of my fart jokes (please don’t tell him I said that, haha ;)!

4. What kind of research did you have to do for PROJECT ME 2.0?

Just the spy-on-your-kids sort of research all children’s authors are guilty of . . . (please don’t tell them I said that, either ;)!

5. What was the hardest part about writing PROJECT ME 2.0?

Stopping, probably. I mean, the book is out and in print, and I’m still dreaming up ridiculous scenarios for Farley and Tomy (his self-help guru) to get into, and wanting to revise random lines!

6. Do you have a favorite writing tip you can share with us?

Be yourself! That’s really the message behind Project Me 2.0, and the one that has resonated most with me as I’ve grown as an author. Everyone has their own unique stories to tell — and their own unique ways to tell them, so don’t compare yourself to other people. I know I’ve picked up books — especially those that tackle heavy-hitting topics and win awards — and have felt a combination of awe at the writing, and a tinge sadness that I don’t write like that. But then I remind myself — it’s okay, I write like *me*! And if I can make a kid laugh or have them on the edge of their seat, or just put a smile on their face, I’ve done something worthwhile. So don’t worry about being the “next big so-and-so” . . . be YOU! Find your own voice as an author and let it shine through!

That’s great advice, Jan! Thanks so much for joining us here at MUF today! Readers: be sure and comment below for a chance to win an autographed copy of PROJECT ME 2.0!

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