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A Chat With Librarian Rachel Shulman

By on February 8, 2013   /   Author Interviews, For Kids, For Librarians  

Today we welcome Rachel Shulman to the Mixed-Up Files. Rachel is a youth services librarian at the Vernon Area Public Library in Lincolnshire, Illinois. She oversees the library’s creative writing program for young authors, Write Away.

MUF: Welcome, Rachel!

RS: Thank you so much for having me!

MUF: So, what prompted the library to have a young writers’ group?

RS: We had a couple of patrons ask about a writing group, including one patron whose previous library offered a monthly writing group. I was involved in a couple of writing publications in college, so I was excited to foster a love of writing in others, and Write Away was born!

rachelshulmanMUF: Tell us about the kids who participate. How often does the group meet?

RS: Write Away meets once a month in the fall and spring. I hold one session for grades 3-4 and one for grades 5-8 each month. It’s not necessary to attend every month. I love it when the kids come back because that means they had fun writing (at least I hope they did!).

MUF: What goes on at a typical meeting?

RS: Each month in Write Away, we explore a different theme ranging from mysteries or fractured fairy tales to creating characters or overcoming writer’s block. We usually start with a warm-up such as MadLibs to get the creative juices flowing. Another popular warm-up is making up creative definitions for some of the weirdest, most obscure words I can find. One of my favorites is kerfuffle which means disorder or agitation. Then there is circumfloribus, meaning flowery or long-winded, which I like because that could describe my own writing at times!

After the warm-up, I introduce the theme with brainstorming or an activity. At this point we usually take a snack break to fuel up before the main writing event begins. The most important part of the session is the 20 minutes of dedicated (and quiet) writing time. This is when the kids can really push the limits of their imaginations. And I just love the sound of pencils on paper as they let their ideas flow onto the page.

Last but not least, anyone who wants to share what they have written so far with the group can do so. It’s not required, and I have to admit that when I was that age, I was way too shy to share my work in public. I’m always impressed by the writers who are brave enough to share and then even more impressed by what they write.

MUF: This program encourages imagination and fun. Do you think it has helped the kids develop their creative writing skills?

RS: Sometimes I have to explain that this is not a class and I won’t be grading anything. My goal is to offer a safe and encouraging environment for young writers to flex their creative muscles. I provide the spark or the prompt for the kids’ ideas and help them develop their creativity with praise and positive feedback. I think their writing improves because I give them the opportunity to practice writing whatever they want.

vapldMUF: Many of the young writers participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this past November. What was that experience like for them?

RS: NaNoWriMo is a daunting task to complete. It takes dedication and a lot of time to write a novel in 30 days, but we had quite a few winners in the Young Writers Program. The participants loved hearing from local authors who presented three programs at the library: how to get started (and keep going); individual feedback and encouragement halfway through the month; and finally our Thank Goodness It’s Over party focused on what it takes to be published. Many of the kids who participated exceeded their word count goals. They took on an intimidating challenge, and I think they surprised themselves most of all with how well they mastered that writing challenge.

MUF: The library printed a literary magazine containing the kids’ stories and poems. How did the kids react to getting “published?”

RS: The first annual Write Away! Literary Magazine was a hit! The library was able to publish a sophisticated book of 50 young authors’ creative writing that is now cataloged in the library’s collection and can be checked out.

litmagcover2012 Check out Write Away

My favorite feature, besides the amazing writing, is the ISBN. It makes it look so official. The literary magazine would not have been possible without the library’s Integrated Communications department which designed the book. All the published authors and their parents were impressed, as was I! The kids really loved seeing their writing in print, in a real book. They also enjoyed reading all the other stories and poems by their fellow authors.

MUF: Do any of the young writers aspire to be authors when they grow up?

RS: My Write Away kids are quite an ambitious bunch. There are several who want to become authors before they grow up! After all, when they write their first novel at age 12 during NaNoWriMo, the sky’s the limit. I will be able to say I knew them when!

MUF: What’s planned for this year? How do you see the program evolving in the future?

RS: We’ll be accepting submissions for the second annual Write Away! Literary Magazine starting March 11 until April 8. The Vernon Area Public Library is completing more exciting renovations this spring, so unfortunately that means the monthly Write Away sessions are on hiatus until the fall. Luckily, writers in grades 3-8 can send in their creative pieces to become published authors in just a few weeks time! I will be offering one-on-one editing sessions for any writers who want to polish their work before submitting it for publication. Aspiring authors can click here to find the dates and times on our event calendar.

We plan to offer NaNoWriMo programs again in November and publish an annual literary magazine every spring. Beyond that, I’ll just have to leave you with a quote from Daniel Pinkwater: “Read a lot. Write a lot. Have fun.”

 

Thank you, Rachel, for visiting the Mixed-Up Files and telling us about the Write Away program. If you have questions for Rachel, feel free to email her at rshulman@vapld.info. The library’s website is: www.vapld.info.

Michele Weber Hurwitz is the author of Calli Be Gold (Wendy Lamb Books 2011) and The Summer I Saved the World in 65 Days (Wendy Lamb Books, coming spring 2014).

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Teaching with Themed Literature Units: Older Middle Grade

By on February 6, 2013   /   Book Lists, For Teachers  

Recently, I wrote about the value of Themed Literature Units, structured units of study designed to develop crucial literacy skills as students read, write about, discuss, and sometimes respond artistically to high-quality children’s literature.  My previous post, “Finding My Way: Teaching with Themed Literature Units,” introduces a strategy for organizing meaningful literacy instruction around memorable middle grade literature.  The post also offers a glimpse into three classrooms where teachers and middle grade students are reading great books on themes such as “Adapting to new situations,” “Taking risks to help others,” and “Courage is inside all of us.”

Today, I’d like to expand our list with an additional themed literature unit for older middle grade readers in an unusual context — a middle school Spanish class.

Overcoming Obstacles in the Search for Identity ~ 8th grade
Ceinwen Bushey is teaching 8th grade Spanish in a Seattle middle school.  She developed her unit, “Overcoming Obstacles in the Search for Identity” to help her students understand their own quests for identity and to recognize similar struggles in other adolescents in Latin America.  She introduced her students to the unit this way:  “For most teenagers like yourselves, middle school is a time of fast growth – physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. It’s also a time for developing your sense of identity, self-esteem, and relationships with your peers. This is true for kids all around the world, but some have it tougher than others. Imagine having to deal with all the things everyday teens have to deal with, then adding to them some really big obstacles. Think about what it would be like to have to move to a new country, learn to speak a new language, make new friends, eat food you’ve never seen before, not have MTV to watch, not have iPhones or iPads or Facebook, and have people thinking you look weird because you’re different from them. Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to read, write, and discuss the lives of kids your age that are trying to figure things out, just like you, but who are from Latin America and have to overcome really big obstacles like the ones I just mentioned. They are teenagers who have to move to the United States from other countries, and try to figure out who they are; they’re searching for their identity. The end goal of our work together is to promote cross-cultural understanding and develop awareness that the journey toward understanding oneself is universal; that is, it connects us all to one another.”

Big Ideas
The unit guides students to understand two big ideas:
The path to self-discovery is a universal human experience and connects us all; and
Tough experiences are often the ones that teach us the most about ourselves.

Book List
            

As older middle grade readers grow, they yearn to figure out who they are and how they can make a difference in this world.  Ceinwen Bushey’s unit guides her middle schoolers to take a cross-cultural look at ways that young people, like them, find ways to overcome the obstacles in their lives as they search for identity.

Katherine Schlick Noe teaches beginning and experienced teachers at Seattle University. Her debut novel, Something to Hold (Clarion, 2011) won the 2012 Washington State Book Award for the middle grade/young adult and has been named a 2012 Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People.  Visit her at http://katherineschlicknoe.com.

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Announcing: The Midgrade Football League!

By on February 4, 2013   /   Book Lists  

Congratulations to the Baltimore Ravens for winning a football game during last night’s Destiny’s Child reunion concert. I have always admired the Ravens for being the only literary-themed franchise in professional sports, and they get bonus points for picking a dark, 19th-Century poem filled with themes of heartbreak and death.

literary football

Also considered: the Longfellow Waysides and the Miltonian Lost Paradise.

This championship team and its three authorial mascots (ravens named Edgar, Allan, and Poe) have inspired me to imagine a league of our own with names based on works of middle-grade literature. These might include:

Atlantic Division

  • The Connecticut Tesseracts: Named after the four-dimensional constructs in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.
  • The Washington Bridges: Named for the titular construction project in Bridge to Terebithia by Katherine Paterson.
  • The Mixed-Up Files of New York: Named after this blog (and also From the Mixed-Up Files of Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg).
  • The Mississippi Thunder: Named for a farmhand in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor.
  • The West Virginia Beagles: Named for the dog in Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.

Pacific Division

  • The Seattle Yonders: Named for A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck, and based in a city that’s a long way from Chicago.
  • The California Whipping Boys: Named for the character in The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleishman.
  • The Green Lake Holes: Named for the products of hard labor found in Holes by Louis Sachar.
  • The Alaska Wolves: Named for the pack encountered in Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George.
  • The Seoul Shards: Named after the pottery pieces in Linda Sue Park’s A Single Shard.

Have ideas for additional teams? Leave them in the comments!

Greg R. Fishbone is the author of the “Galaxy Games” series of midgrade sports and sci-fi from Tu Books at Lee & Low Books. Visit him at http://gfishbone.com.

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