For Teachers

A Little Space

By on August 16, 2021   /   Articles, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers  

It’s August. Summer is rapidly slipping away. How did the time fly by so fast? What about all those things I was going to do this summer? (Looks at 2021 Summer Calendar To-Do List and sees very few things crossed out.) School is either here or just around the corner. Teachers, librarians, readers, and creators of all stripes are answering the call to duty. 

It’s go time!

There’s is excitement in the air with the prospect and potential of a new academic year. But the pangs of summer fading into the sunset settle deep into my gut. (Looks again at the 2021 Summer Calendar To-Do List.) The innocent and once optimistic list of uncompleted writing and drawing tasks screams at me, “HAYS, DID YOU FORGET US?”

The tight-knit ball of creative anxiety in the pit of my stomach rapidly spins with enough orbital angular momentum to force the panic to rise. My heart races. My eyes flitter around the room. My sketchbooks, journals, notebooks, even my own published books gathering dust on the shelf, laugh at me. 

I run outside, look up into the expanse of a beautiful, northcentral blue Kansas sky, take a deep breath, and close my eyes. My heart no longer races. It’s beating with the steady rhythm of rolling down I-70 through the Flint Hills at dusk. 

John P Salvatore, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I return to my office. The Summer Calendar 2021 To-Do List hangs unchanged on the wall. But it’s just a list again. A suggestion of potential things. A creative direction. The journals and notebooks are raw stories, packed with potential which hopefully someday find their readers. My published books on the shelf remind me I can indeed do this creative thing competently enough to give them a shelf life.

Ah…the beauty of space. The absolute raw power of space to put everything into perspective.

Space. What an awesome word!

Space is a Swiss Army knife word with so many uses and meanings. Space is a word we should celebrate and appreciate. A word we should vault to the top of the toolbox.

I need to make a token to hang on the wall or wear around my neck to remind me of the value and importance of space and creative space. I need the reminder that when stuck, a step back to create space is necessary in order to move forward.

As the season turns and we make fresh To-Do lists, it’s the perfect time to remember and appreciate the spaces in your life. The other night, I sat for a few minutes on the patio and took in the night sky hoping for a glimpse of the conglomeration of planets on the western horizon or spotting a meteor or two from the eastern sky. Unfortunately, cloud cover and poor timing thwarted these efforts but all was not lost. Mesmerized, as always, by the Big Dipper, I stared at the northern sky for a few minutes. 

Beautiful space. 

A reminder we are all impossible beings floating across the universe at 492,126 miles per hour. Insignificant and yet significant in everything we do. 

Amazing space. My relaxed brain started firing off the important “spaces” in my life. I made a list. 

  • Creative space
  • Outer space
  • Inner space
  • Backspace
  • Negative space
  • Garden space
  • Yard space
  • Patio space
  • Deep space
  • Near space
  • Public space
  • Private space
  • Workspace
  • Office space
  • Family space 
  • Spacebar (How about a Space bar?)
  • Writing space
  • Headspace
  • White space
  • Green space
  • Space Jam
  • Spacesuit
  • Open space
  • Wide-open space
  • Tight space
  • My Space
  • Personal space 
  • Closet space
  • Dream space

How about you? Have you ever considered the importance of space in your personal, professional, or creative life? Do you have a go-to space to open the mind or recharge the soul?

Have a great end of summer and enjoy the promise of tomorrow! 

If you find yourself running into creative walls, remember to take a step back, give yourself some space, and identify the best way to move forward. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly,

Space out, y’all!

The original uploader was Triddle at English Wikipedia.(original:Photograph taken by User:Triddle and User:Codedelectron), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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Back to School with Book Clubs and a Giveaway

By on August 6, 2021   /   Author Interviews, For Teachers  

An interview with Lesley Roessing, the author of Talking Texts  

Our guest today is Lesley Roessing, the author of Talking Texts: A Teachers’ Guide to Book Clubs Across the Curriculum.  As students head back to school, Book Clubs can be an important tool to promote social and emotional learning and to foster a love for reading and for learning. Parents as well as educators can use the techniques in the book to start and facilitate Book Clubs. 

Thanks so much, Lesley, for joining us at the Mixed Up Files of Middle-Grade Authors!  I love how Talking Texts  provides practical guidance about how to use Book Clubs to engage students more fully. Your book also provides templates for doing exactly that. Can  you share with us  your inspiration for this book?

 

My inspiration was seeing readers, especially “reluctant” readers, engaged and motivated by collaborative reading and the small-group discussions that Book Clubs allow. This was true both in my middle school classes and classes from grades three through high school that have invited me to facilitate Book Clubs. Book Clubs give readers a choice of books at their individual reading and interest levels and a social, safe space in which to discuss their reading. Most classroom teachers agree that, in whole-class discussions, only three to four students talk and it is usually the same students. In small groups that have had training in social skills, I observe all students talking. Because of peer pressure or a wish to take part in their group, students keep up with Book Club reading.

 

Talking Texts provides detailed support for every recommendation in your book.  Why it is so important that students be allowed choice in reading?

There is a decline in, or even a halt to, reading both for pleasure and academics at the middle grades, sometimes earlier. Aliteracy occurs when students are capable of reading, but choose not to read. Many students have told me that they don’t read, mainly because they don’t like the books the teacher chooses. We first have to grow readers, students who think of themselves as readers and are on their way to becoming life-long readers. I had many eighth grade students who admitted they previously never had read an entire book or had read only one or two books in the previous grades or rather fake-read those books. Those same students became readers of twenty to thirty books by the end of that eighth grade year. Choice was the prime motivator. There are very few topics or writing styles or genres that interest everyone.

This has been verified by research: “A meta-analysis of 41 studies examined the effect of choice on intrinsic motivation and related outcomes in a variety of settings with both child and adult samples. Results indicated that providing choice enhanced intrinsic motivation, effort, task performance, and perceived competence, among other outcomes.”– (U.S. National Library of Medicine)

 

What is another advantage of Book Clubs?

After students have read and discussed their novels, Book Clubs can prepare a presentation of their books for the rest of the class through skits, puppet shows, narrative poetry, talk shows, and a variety of other means explained in Talking Texts. This synthesizes text for the readers while sharing texts with students who haven’t had the chance to read. This is particularly effective when clubs read articles about a topic being studied in class.

 

Can you tell us about your experience and review of research that resulted in your book and its appendices?

I would call it action research. During my time at the Summer Reading Institute of the Pennsylvania Writing Project, I read all the “experts” in reading. In my role as Director of the Coastal Savannah Writing Project facilitating our Summer Reading Institute as well as teaching reading strategies to pre-service and in-service teachers, I kept up with the research, but most of my “research” was in my middle grade classroom and when facilitating Book Clubs in classrooms to which I was invited.

 

Can you share with us some best practices in setting up a Book Club?

a. Let the students choose their books, after a teacher book talk and a few minutes to read a page or two, and form Book Clubs based on the books rather than the other way around.

b. Teach social skills: how to prepare for a discussion with reading notes and bringing a well-designed discussion question (Book Clubs should be student-led); how to hold a discussion; how to extend a conversation when everyone agrees; and how to respectfully disagree.

c. Provide a range of reading levels and characters but if the books have something in common—a topic, a genre, a format—it allows for whole-class focus lessons and for inter-club discussions.

 

Can you provide insight on how educators can use Book Clubs to teach subject-matter content in any discipline?

Book club strategies and techniques can be used with articles and nonfiction books in any discipline as I explain in Talking Texts. My college students would meet for the first 15 minutes of class in Textbook Clubs, discussing what they had read for that class meeting and resolving any questions they had about their reading. Any questions they still had, they could write on the board to be covered in class. This would work for any grade level in any subject.

 

Book Clubs can be customized to any genre or interest. You regularly update your social media with lists of books organized by a variety of factors to provide a wide range of options for educators, parents and readers.  Where can we find your book lists?

I’ve included some lists in Talking Texts and I regularly post on Facebook when I think of a topic, like Bullying or Kindness, or format, such as verse novels, or genre, such as Historical Fiction. I share with other Facebook groups but always post on mine.

 

Do you have any advice for people organizing virtual Book Clubs?

I would suggest keeping those groups small. Educators who have held on-line Book Clubs said that they followed the strategies in my book and students meet in breakout rooms. If the teacher feels they need to observe, each Book Club would have to meet at a different time or day.

 

What would you most like for educators and parents to take away from Talking Texts?

That we need to not teach reading but reach readers. Students of all ages, but especially adolescents, are social and if we can make learning social, they will be more engaged. Also the power of Book Clubs is that they are student-led. If teachers put the students into groups and give the students questions to answer, they are no longer student-led.

 

What has been your favorite part about seeing Talking Texts make its way into the world?

I am happy that Talking Texts provides me with opportunities to share strategies and what I have learned through my many experiences. I really love that teachers who were nervous about trying Book Clubs say they feel confident and are excited to start Book Clubs and  that veteran teachers who have included Book Clubs in the past write that Talking Texts gave them new strategies and new ideas, such as article and poetry clubs.

 

How do you have students prepare for Book Club meeting other than reading?

Reader need to come to meetings with notes from or reflections on their reading. Short informal written reflections cause students to interact with text, thereby increasing comprehension. Having notes give readers something to refer to, a basis for discussion beyond the member-prepared discussion questions, and proof that they have completed the assigned reading for that meeting. Talking Texts includes many reader response forms that readers can use as well as forms to reflect on their Book Club meetings.

 

Thank you, Lesley!  To learn more about Lesley and her latest book lists, you can follow her on Facebook- @Lesley Roessing and Twitter @LRoessing.  We are offering a giveaway of Talking Texts  to one lucky winner. Enter here by August 16 for your chance to win.  Note:  Only residents of the contiguous United States, please.

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Interview with Jess Rinker and Giveaway

By on July 5, 2021   /   Articles, Author Interviews, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, Giveaways  

Our guest today is Jess Rinker, author of the middle-grade novels Out of Time: Lost on the Titanic, The Dare Sisters, and The Dare Sisters: Shipwrecked (coming this September). Jess has also written picture book biographies on feminist Gloria Steinem and Brenda Berkman, one of the first female firefighters for the New York City Fire Department.

Thanks so much, Jess for joining us at From the Mixed-Up Files of Middle-Grade Authors! It has been fun witnessing your publishing success since meeting at the Highlights Foundation workshop several years ago. Can you offer a bit about your journey?

Thank YOU for having me! It’s funny, I always think about our time at Highlights as if it was “last summer”, when in fact it was four years ago! Wow. A lot has happened since then for sure—it’s amazing how connected we’ve all remained and hopefully, we’ll begin to cross actual paths again soon.

My journey started way before then, probably more around 2005 when I went from one of those people who said “someday I’ll write a book” to someone who actually sat down and wrote a book. It would be the first of many shelved manuscripts, but learning I could write a novel changed my life trajectory. Fast forward through years of practice, attending conferences, and taking classes, by 2014 I graduated with an MFA, signed with an agent the following year, and sold my first book Gloria Takes a Stand in 2016. I definitely put in my “10,000 hours” as Malcolm Gladwell says. 2018 was a bit of an explosion for me regarding book sales, and so now I just turned in my third middle-grade novel, which brings me to a total of six books by next summer. Whew.

I know you love the outdoors and rural settings, which shines through in your middle-grade works of fiction. Would you share your inspiration for these settings?

So far, yes, all of my middle grade takes place in rural/small town settings. (Even the super secret one we’re just about to pitch to my editor) I grew up in rural NJ and PA in the ’70s-’80s and my parents were pretty hands-off so I was free to explore all of the woods and creeks and rivers around me. Other than a library card, it was probably the biggest gift they gave me. I had few friends as a young child and the woods and wildlife became my entire world—the perfect place for an imagination to blossom. My mom gave me countless nature books as well, and so learning the names of flowers, trees, bugs, animals, even fish, and frogs, became a way for me to “know” the wildlife around me, as well as order my otherwise chaotic world. I think my mom always had an innate understanding that when you give something a name (or learn its name), you gain an appreciation for it. In my upcoming book The Hike to Home, I give my mom and my young self a little nod in that the main character has a similar proclivity to know all the names of the natural things around her. It’s something I still do and now living in a brand-new place—West Virginia—there are so many new creatures to get to know! West Virginia is an incredibly biologically diverse state with New River Gorge (The nation’s most recent National Park!) being the highest, I believe.

Your picture book biographies feature strong, independent women. Your middle-grade fictional work shares the adventures of strong and independent girls. Tell us a little bit about the background behind these stories.

To be completely honest, I never intended to “brand” myself and when I first started, I was writing angsty YA that didn’t sell. I’ve always approached the writing life—and publishing as much as possible—as someone who just truly loves writing stories. I don’t have a very altruistic sense until the book is on the shelf. Once it’s out there, it’s on its own, but before that it’s all mine and I treasure that creative stage. So ideas come and go and whatever grabs a hold of me the most, I write it. I have plenty of stories and ideas that are not strong-girl stories per se.

That being said, back in 2015 I was reading Gloria Steinem’s canon of literature and that, paired with the sale of the biography, fueled me in a new way as a woman and as a writer. I absolutely became conscious of wanting to write characters who had agency in their lives. I had next-to-none as a child, and many children are powerless because of their circumstances. I chose not to write about those circumstances (yet) and instead write stories that showed children the power they CAN have. Somehow, that turned into strong girls, strong women. I’m not complaining! But it was a natural evolution, driven by my own education and internal revolution, the love of storytelling, and a desire to empower children in whatever little way I can.

I know that you and your family experienced a tragic fire, which engulfed and destroyed your home, including all of your childhood journals. How has writing helped you move forward through that loss?

That was a huge blow, for sure. Sometimes I don’t even remember it happened until someone mentions it and other times I look in my closet and mourn the loss of my favorite summer dress or those precious journals. I mentioned earlier that 2018 was a bit of an explosion for me book-wise, and I think that’s what really helped me quickly recover from that trauma—which was also caused by a literal explosion! I don’t know that we will ever be “over it”, only through the worst of it, but we have found a secure new normal since then. The book sales kept me focused. I’d lost everything I owned, but I still had my family and my job, and it completely kept me going. I’d also been married only a week before the fire, so while it slightly marred our anniversary month, which is August, we had a lot of love and joy.

Exactly a week after the fire, even though we were technically homeless, we still had our wedding party that had been planned for months. Sometimes I wish we could do it over again since my husband and I were in a bit of a fog, but I’m grateful we were able to celebrate. In another wonderful, but long story my wedding dress had been somewhat spared from flame and smoke because of the way it was stored, so a dear friend of mine stole it away, had it cleaned and repaired, and I got to wear it again at the party. We made the news for the fire and the dress. Kind of a beautiful juxtaposing, I think. Everything is writing material, right?!

Whenever I do school visits, both students and teachers are interested in my writing process. Tell us about yours.

Gosh, it changes so much all the time—especially with writing under a few different categories. This question is always tough to answer, but I suppose my main process is to first let myself be entirely swept away with an idea. Whether nonfiction or fiction, I dive into research, notetaking, scene ideas, dialogue, and especially character development before I really write anything. When I’m drafting, I’m in my PJ’s on the couch. Sometimes I try to get away to a place like Highlights where I don’t have to think about normal day-to-day stuff, but that’s not possible as much anymore since I’m also teaching now. I don’t have any fun rituals or anything—it’s just me, silence (when possible), the notebook or computer, and a comfy place to sit.

What stories did you enjoy reading as a child?

Everything. I was never once told I wasn’t allowed to read something so I read everything from the nature books to kids’ books to my mom’s collection of Stephen King and Dean Koontz. My favorite stories often involved survival aspects, like Island of the Blue Dolphin, or My Side of the Mountain, but I also loved classics like Little Women and The Secret Garden.  (Which, come to think of it, have survival aspects in other ways) All of EB White and Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, and Katherine Paterson. But I quickly graduated to adult books and loved horror and dystopian. I weirdly enjoyed reading about grown-ups. I also really loved my grandparents’ shelves of encyclopedias and would page through them quite a bit. It wasn’t until having my own kids, and especially while working on my MFA, that I really got a good dose of the huge variety of children’s books.

I know you teach writers at the collegiate level. What have you learned through this process?

My husband and I were just talking about this! Teaching writing forces you to be a better writer and that’s one of the reasons we both really enjoy it. (Although don’t ask me that when I have 25 essays to grade in two days) Teaching stretches you, keeps you on your toes. Not only for the college but with freelance clients as well. We team up as a couple to coach writers through their projects and we bring different skills and insights to the table, so it becomes a pretty well-rounded process. When you have to help someone craft and revise an essay or plot a novel, it reminds you of all the things you do on a more subconscious level. It’s very eye-opening. My favorite part of teaching, however, is encouraging young writers who want to be better, assuring them that it is a lifetime of practice and devotion, and none of us masters it. We just get better. Hopefully.

As you are married to children’s book author Joe McGee, what is it like working and living with a fellow creative soul?

It’s pretty wonderful. I won’t say there haven’t been some tough spots, because when we first partnered, he was a bit “ahead” of me in the business. I was struggling to sell anything, as well as unable to find a decent job. I had a couple of years of a lot of disheartening “No’s” seemingly coming from everyone and we struggled financially. Those couple years were hard on me. I wasn’t competing with him, but I remember thinking if nothing ever happened for me, and I had to settle for retail jobs for the rest of my life, I didn’t know if I could survive the relationship. This came from my own personal baggage of always feeling like the cheerleader in my previous marriage, and I was very aware of that, and so was Joe. With patience and continued determination, it obviously all panned out. And Joe is probably my biggest cheerleader. 

I’m often asked which is my favorite book that I’ve written…do you have a favorite?

I get that question a lot too—especially from kids. I always tell them my favorite is the one I’m writing right now because it’s true! It’s that special creative time where the story is all mine and I can be lost in it before handing it over to the world. So right now, my favorite book is the one we’re about to pitch to my editor…hopefully more on that very soon!

What is your absolute favorite thing about writing for children?

I do not know. How’s that for an answer! But I really am not sure how to choose one thing. Writing is what I love and it just happens to be for children. I’ve been writing for myself since I was a kid, and then when my kids were little, and I read to them all the time, I thought, “I could totally do this”. So, I did and I never looked back. I’ve never tried writing an adult book, I never have ideas for adult books, and I’m fine with that. I could get super psychological and really pull it apart on a deeper level that has to do with suffering a lot of trauma as a child, and the fact I was treated like a peer to my parents from day one, and so never had a true, care-free childhood….but nah. It doesn’t really matter. Because those very things also made me the writer I am. The fact is, the ideas and voices in my head are always kids and teens, and I just love writing their stories. When a young reader tells me they loved the book, or a parent tells me that it’s the first book their kid ever finished, that is a major heart-warming bonus, for sure. But I’d keep writing regardless.

 

Thank you, Jess! To learn more about Jess, visit her website, www.jessrinker.com. Jess has graciously offered to give a copy of both The Dare Sisters and the upcoming Dare Sisters: Shipwrecked to one lucky winner. Enter here by July 15 for your chance to win. Note: Only residents of the contiguous United States, please.

 

 

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