Posts Tagged librarians

Promoting Summer Creativity: The Historical Fiction Premise for Middle Graders

By on May 22, 2019   /   For Librarians  

Most middle grade readers will soon have a months-long opportunity to reboot their imaginations after a busy school year. Summer is a great time to offer up creative writing activities to MG readers: through summer programs at the local library, at camps or enrichment workshops, in the homeschool activity center on a rainy day, or as a mid-summer pick-me-up when boredom starts to creep in. Many kids pursue their own writing projects when on break from school, free of classroom guidelines and assessment rubrics… but others might need an idea or two to ignite the creative fire. This post details a writing activity for middle grade readers and writers that has worked well for students in my 5th through 8th grade classes—and it can be adapted for younger or older writers as well.

Your group might include middle graders for whom the task of writing a whole tale is too daunting, along with those who would happily write an entire novel if given the chance, as well as everyone in between. Here is a plan and suggestions for kids of varying interests and language skill levels: Creating historical fiction premises.

Just a cautious word before we proceed: Kids generally don’t want to hear assignment or work while on break from school, and even activity and writing can send up flags of alarm. So take care with the pitch (story crafting, authoring, and premise design are upbeat and interest-piquing descriptions) and the stakes (no grades…no deadlines…sharing aloud is completely optional).

Step One. Explain that a premise is the idea behind a story, without the details or the actual words of the tale. Premises can take lots of shapes, such as the blurb on a paperback, or the inside jacket copy on a hardback. In a short form, writers try to sum up the premise of their story in a logline or “elevator pitch.” A tagline on a movie poster or book trailer can serve as a hint of the story’s premise.

However, a good premise reveals attention-grabbing info about each part necessary for a well-developed story. These parts are the story elements: Plot (Conflict), Character, Setting, Theme, and Point of View. Middle grade readers will be very intrigued at the notion of dreaming up a story idea…without having to write the story itself. (Of course, there’s nothing to stop those interested in penning the actual tale from doing so; it’s summertime, after all!)

Step Two. Provide a quick rundown of the story elements:

Plot (Conflict): Remember, it’s just the idea of a story, so no need to get bogged down in plot details or structure! Just an explanation of the big conflict the main character faces: what’s the problem? How does it worsen?

Character: A brief character design is enough for a premise: age, gender, name, background, occupation or talents; any character traits that are important to the conflict.

Setting: Here’s where you get to add a bit of history! Have writers brainstorm historical events they recall from recent studies, movies, documentaries, or books. Then they can narrow their list, and choose a time, place, and historical event for their premise. This is a great chance to do a bit of searching or use library resources for research, depending on skill and interest level. Let your MG-aged writers know that a historical element can add to (and not limit) speculative genres like sci-fi, fantasy, and action/adventure (examples include The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz, historical fantasy set in 1242; and several superhero blockbusters in recent years set during historical wartime).

Theme: In language arts classes, students learn about theme topics (“love,” “friendship,” “loyalty,” “pride”) and their more didactic accompanying theme statements (“True friendship can withstand tests over time.”) Simple, one-word theme topics work well for premise design.

Point of View: Remind middle graders that some stories are best told in the “I-voice” and others in 3rd person. As the premise designer, he or she gets to choose.

Step Three: How will your middle graders note their ideas and communicate their creative, original premise? This depends entirely on the size and abilities of your group. A handy activity sheet that you type up for distribution could list the story elements and allow lots of room for writers’ ideas, sketches, lists, and notes; this might be most efficient.  Some writers might prefer to design their premise on blank, oversized paper, sans “worksheet,” keeping in mind the story elements.

Don’t forget that middle graders can also communicate a story premise without writing a single word: they can cut and paste magazine images in a collage to represent each element. Drawings, iMovies, storyboards, and photo-journals all lend themselves to story premise design as well.

Step Four: Middle graders can share the premise aloud to the group, if they would like.

Writing JournalExtensions and adaptations:

  • Pose the premises of popular books or movies and have readers deduce the title. Or, have the readers tell a premise of a popular book or film (without character names or giveaway details) and see if others in the group can guess the work.
  • After a read-aloud session of famous opening lines–and the fun of guessing the book that is opened by it—have middle graders write the opening line of the story for which they have designed a premise.
  • Early finishers can dream up multiple premises while they wait for the group to finish. More methodical writers, ELLs, or anyone who finds the premise-design task too daunting might try focusing on just one or two story elements.
  • Story premises can easily drive drama exercises in the form of scene tableaus, character creation and development, monologue writing, or (if you provide plenty of guidelines) improv activities.

I hope you have fun adapting these ideas for your needs, whether that means a writing workshop of 25 student attendees at a library or camp, or your own child’s picnic blanket afternoons. Thanks for promoting inspiration and creativity in the sunshine of summer.

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STEM Tuesday — Epic Achievements and Fantastic Failures– In the Classroom

By on May 14, 2019   /   Common Core & NGSS, Cross-Curricular, Epic Achievements and Fantastic Failures, STEM Tuesday  

This week explore the importance of bringing epic achievements and fantastic failures to your classroom. Let the stories of people persisting in the face of seemingly impossible odds inspire your students to consider how STEM might figure into their everyday lives and future careers. And remember, managing failures is part of the arc of success. Set-backs and disappointments help STEM professionals improve, invent, and innovate their way to their dreams.

Create a “Dream Big” Bulletin Board. Before introducing this month’s books to students, ask students to respond to these prompts:

  • Think about the technology around you—everything from paper plates to bandages to medicine to transportation systems and more. All of these things were figured out by people. Which technologies impress you the most? Why? What else can you think of that’s a big-deal achievement in science, technology, engineering, or math?
  • Scientists explore the unknown and try to describe and explain the world and universe around us. What’s the most amazing scientific discovery you know of? What big questions do you wonder about that science might answer someday?
  • What’s the most amazing discovery or invention you can imagine making?

After students complete index cards or journal entries in response to the selected prompt, give them time to exchange ideas about their “big dreams” with each other. Encourage them to think bigger and bigger as they talk. After several minutes, ask students to consider their answers as a group:

  • What common themes can you find across different achievements and dreams? (For example, several ideas might relate to discovering a cure for disease or inventing a way to travel quickly from place to place.)

Post student ideas on a “Dream Big” bulletin board and refer to it as a context that will help them connect to any of the tales of success or failure in the books from this month’s STEM Tuesday list. As students read the books, ask them to identify the “big dream” behind each success, and motivating the people in the stories to overcome failures along the way.

Is it Failure or Just Practice for Success? In many quarters, failure has a bad reputation. Sure, we all feel like celebrating when things go right, but it’s important to understand that if we are going to achieve anything — epic or everyday — we are likely to encounter bumps, mistakes, hiccups, set-backs, and mess-ups along the way. The better we can accept failures and learn from them, the more we will learn and achieve. You can help students explore this idea with one of these engineering design challenge “launchers,” which focus on the engineering design process and how it embodies a growth mindset. After students test their first design ideas, challenge them to improve the performance of their designs. Lead reflection on how students’ final (and usually improved) designs evolved from the designs’ initial shortcomings and set-back (failures). Be explicit that in many ways, failure is something to embrace—as a chance to learn and explore in new directions.

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgConnect students’ experiences with design failures with highlights from a TED Talk and an interview with Astro Teller. Teller, the “Captain of Moonshots” at X, a Google company featured in Google It: A History of Google, discusses his own view of success and failure, and the importance of committing to projects that may or may not succeed. Speaking of moonshots…

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgMap the Ups and Downs along the way to an epic achievement, such as figuring out how to achieve powered flight or landing people on the Moon. You’ll find these stories in Countdown, Rocket to the Moon, and Epic Fails The Wright Brothers: Nose-Diving into History. To map the vicissitudes of these or any other accomplishments, begin by drawing a horizontal timeline across a piece of paper near the middle. Label the line with each chapter, episode, or student-identified turning point. Ask students to make a mark above or below each label indicating the degree to which the episode seems like an “up” or “down” moment (when people were meeting Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgwith success or failure/setback); then connect the dots. Students can also keep similar timelines in their journals representing their experience of projects in science, technology, engineering or math. Encourage them to focus on the relationship between achieving and navigating through—and learning from—failures.

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org

Combined with hands-on activities and opportunities for student reflection, stories of STEM successes and failures can’t fail to inspire and engage students. How do you help students identify their own, personal “moonshots”? What do you do to foster risk-taking? Drop us a line in the comments suggestion below!

As a co-founding consultant at Blue Heron STEM Education and a partner in STEM Education Insights, LLC, STEM Tuesday contributor Carolyn DeCristofano, MEd, supports the development of high-quality, research-based STEM education resources that inspire students and teachers alike. An acclaimed author of STEM books for kids, including A Black Hole is NOT a Hole and Running on Sunshine: How Solar Energy Works, she enjoys bringing the joy of STEM, creativity, and writing to school groups.

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Hurricane Season with Author Nicole Melleby & a Giveaway!

By on May 8, 2019   /   Articles, Author Interviews, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, Giveaways  

It’s always exciting to share upcoming releases and hear directly from their authors. Today, we’re visited by middle grade author Nicole Melleby and her debut novel HURRICANE SEASON. “This debut novel—about taking risks and facing danger, about love and art, and about growing up and coming out—will make its way straight into your heart.”

Fig, a sixth grader, wants more than anything to see the world as her father does. The once-renowned pianist, who hasn’t composed a song in years and has unpredictable good and bad days, is something of a mystery to Fig. Though she’s a science and math nerd, she tries taking an art class just to be closer to him, to experience life the way an artist does. But then Fig’s dad shows up at school, disoriented and desperately searching for Fig. Not only has the class not brought Fig closer to understanding him, it has brought social services to their door.

Diving into books about Van Gogh to understand the madness of artists, calling on her best friend for advice, and turning to a new neighbor for support, Fig continues to try everything she can think of to understand her father, to save him from himself, and to find space in her life to discover who she is even as the walls are falling down around her.

Nicole Melleby’s Hurricane Season is a stunning novel about a girl struggling to be a kid as pressing adult concerns weigh on her. It’s also about taking risks and facing danger, about love and art, and about coming of age and coming out. And more than anything else, it is a story of the healing power of love—and the limits of that power.

Hi Nicole! We’re thrilled you’ve stopped by. Tell me,  how did you begin writing?

When I was eight, I saw the Nickelodeon movie Harriet the Spy. I was obsessed, I loved everything about it, but I especially loved the main character, Harriet, and the way she always carried around a notebook to write things in. I used to beg my parents to buy me marble composition notebooks just like the one Harriet had every time they went to a store that carried them, and I would fill those notebooks up with everything. I started off by taking notes about the people around me much like Harriet did while spying, and from there I started writing stories instead. I’ve been writing stories ever since.

The movie also gave me this quote, which I’ve kept in mind ever since, and speaks to why I keep writing: “You know what? You’re an individual, and that makes people nervous. And it’s going to keep making people nervous for the rest of your life.”

Interesting quote, and an important one for kids to remember. Thanks for sharing it here!

Your main character Fig’s growth is pivotal as readers venture toward the climax of her story. How did you decide to show this internal growth and understanding of her father and their relationship?

I knew from the start I wanted to do two things with Fig and her father’s relationship: I wanted to show that, regardless of his mental illness and limitations because of it, Fig’s dad is a loving, wonderful father. They love each other; the mental illness doesn’t get in the way of that. And I wanted to have a scene where a young daughter comes out to her father and it’s a non-issue. Fig’s dad doesn’t make a big deal about Fig’s sexuality. He accepts it, full stop.

With those things in mind, I knew that Fig’s growth had to center more around her understanding of her father’s mental illness more than their actual relationship, along with the avenues of help available to them, and how to accept the help provided to her. Throughout the novel, Fig finds comfort in learning about Vincent van Gogh, whose story is all too relatable in how it reminds her of her father. While Van Gogh helps Fig understand how serious mental illness is and how important it is to seek help, she also has to learn that her dad is not Van Gogh—mental illness isn’t one size fits all, and Fig and her dad have to learn together how to deal with their own circumstances.

What was the hardest part about writing Finola (Fig)?

For me, getting inside Fig’s head wasn’t hard—I don’t know what it says about me that my natural voice is that of an eleven-year-old. What was hard was making sure I took the time and did the research to do Fig justice. What would school look like for Fig, how ostracized would she feel because of her lack of cellphone and her dad’s limitations? It’s been many many (many) years since I was in sixth grade. What’s different now that I needed to be cognizant of while developing Fig? What would social service visits be like for her and her dad? What responsibilities would the adults around her have in reporting the strange behavior her dad exhibited? What parts of Vincent van Gogh’s life would really resonate with her (and what parts were maybe too mature for the story I’m trying to tell)? How would an eleven-year-old in 2019 react to the flutters in her stomach from a first crush on another girl?

Much differently than I would have in the year 2000, I’m guessing, and it was important to remember that while I was writing. I’m not writing about my childhood—I’m writing about today’s middle grade readers’ experiences.

This is a very good point to keep in mind for any writer reading this.

As the rawness of mental illness is strongly threaded throughout Hurricane Season, what suggestions can you give to educators on how to breach this subject using Fig’s journey?

My first suggestion is always that educators don’t shy away from discussing mental illness. It exists in so many people and families, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of or to hide away and whisper quietly about. Books like HURRICANE SEASON and Tae Keller’s THE SCIENCE OF UNBREAKABLE THINGS and Cindy Baldwin’s WHERE THE WATERMELONS GROW that show kids dealing with mental illness in their lives in a raw and real way I think is a good way to open up conversations with kids.

I also tried to show that both medications and therapy are useful and sometimes necessary, and I think being able to read about a young character experiencing both helps to put both of those into a context that becomes less scary and unknown.

What do you hope readers gain from reading this book?

I think a lot about the books I read when I was younger, and what characters meant the most to me. Who were the characters that were around when I needed them? Which characters gave me comfort, and why? What do I wish I had been able to read about but didn’t get the chance to growing up that could have been life changing?

With HURRICANE SEASON, I wanted to write a story for readers who needed a character like Fig: someone who is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and who is struggling with her love for her father and what his mental illness means for both of them, but is also going through the all too real pains of growing up. I hope that readers find a companion in Fig. I hope they see someone they can relate to, who maybe can be there for them in ways that characters were there for me when I was younger—whether it be a reader struggling with mental illness, or sexuality, or just the beginnings of a first crush or the struggles of sixth grade.

I also hope they gain a love and understanding for Vincent van Gogh!

Can I just say how much I love that you included work from Vincent van Gogh. #love

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing new writers in the constantly evolving publishing world?

With social media right at our fingertips, it’s ridiculously easy to see who sold what book how quickly, who is getting starred review after starred review, who gets to go to the big conferences, who gets to be on the most lists, and so on and so forth. Between that and having Goodreads reviews and Amazon stats a click away, it’s easy to get caught up in your own head about what defines success and whether or not your rejections or disappointments equal failure. Jealousy is human nature, and we’re all going to compare ourselves to others from time to time. The challenge is keeping your head up and focusing on your own path. I think it’s important to just try and remember (which I’ll admit is sometimes easier said than done!) that there are a million different paths in publishing, and most of it is subjective. Give it your all, be resilient, but keep your eyes on your own paper.

Also, protip: When I get a rejection, I sing a silly little children’s song that makes myself feel better. Mostly because by the time I’m done singing it, I’m not taking myself so seriously anymore, and I usually end up giggling.

Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I should just go eat worms. Worms, worms, worms!

Haha! I’m definitely going to try that!

Care to share what readers can expect from you next?

Yes! You can expect another Algonquin Young Readers middle grade book from me out in 2020—a story about a soap opera loving Catholic school girl with a complicated relationship with her mother and her first crush on a girl.

Fantastic! We’ll be looking for it. Thank you for sharing yourself with our family of readers. All the best to you always, and stop by anytime.

Nicole Melleby is a born-and-bred Jersey girl with a passion for storytelling. She studied creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University and currently teaches creative writing and literature courses with a handful of local universities. When she’s not writing, she can be found browsing the shelves at her local comic shop or watching soap operas with a cup of tea. Find Nicole on Twitter and Hurricane Season here.

 

 

Enter to WIN your very own copy of HURRICANE SEASON!

Giveaway winner will be announced via Twitter on May 14th.

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