Posts Tagged middle-grade fiction

Mini-Museums for Middle Grade Favorites

By on November 20, 2020   /   Articles  

Hello, fans of Middle Grade! I hope the school year is running smoothly for your students, your readers, or your own kids, whether they are learning in-person, remotely, independently, or in a hybrid or homeschool environment. While online learning and the use of technology are certainly helpful in this time of Covid, I know my own kids sometimes grow weary of screens and keyboards in their current environments. So I wanted to share a fun and engaging reading activity that can work equally well in both the home and classroom: A Mini-Museum display based on a great Middle Grade read.

As a teacher, librarian, or homeschooling parent, you can pose this idea before readers start or finish a book, or encourage readers to choose a favorite story with which they are already familiar. The Mini-Museum employs reading, writing, and creative/critical thinking skills, and culminates in a hands-on and 3-D product. You can include teamwork and presentation/delivery skills if you choose. The steps are simple and the supplies minimal—and the search for objects gets a reader out of his or her chair and away from the screen.

Step One – After (or while) reading a novel, the reader lists notable and important physical objects mentioned in the book that have some significant relevance and/or symbolic value to the plot, characters, theme, point-of-view, or setting. Eight to ten objects make a nice-sized museum collection, but the suggested or required number would be determined by your readers’ abilities, your environment, your time, and the book choice.

Step Two – Readers gather household, three-dimensional objects that are the real thing, a replica, or a constructed facsimile of each object on his or her list.

Step Three – Readers choose and prepare a display space. This can be a shelf, tabletop, or windowsill in the classroom, or a table or empty corner at home. Use cardboard boxes, recyclables, or piles of books to create museum stands and exhibit spaces. A variety of sizes and levels makes the overall look of the display more interesting and easier to see. Readers can cover these items with plain fabric or paper for a clean “museum look.”

Step Four – Readers fill the museum with their objects. Objects of greatest significance get the choicest spots in the display.

Step Five – Readers write brief descriptive captions to display near each object, like you’d see in a real museum. These can include the object name, the date of use (setting of book), the materials that form the object, and a few sentences on the object’s significance to one or more story elements in the book. Mount the typed and printed (or handwritten) captions on folded index cards and place each free-standing description near its object.

Step Six –Optional share and tell with the class! Thanks to smart phones and cameras, most readers can find a way to show their display distantly to their teacher and classmates.

If you’ve read or taught the excellent Stella by Starlight by Sharon M. Draper, you’ll recognize how these real objects make great representations of the novel’s important character and plot points:

  • Notebook (Stella uses one to practice writing late at night.)
  • Cigar box (Stella keeps her collection of inspirational newspaper articles in one.)
  • An edition of the Star Sentinel (This is the newspaper Stella creates.)
  • Small, unmarked bottle (Stella buys medicine for her sick brother Jojo.)
  • Clean rags torn into strips (Stella tends to her mother’s snakebite.)

Students can manufacture some objects when necessary, like Stella’s original newspaper the Star Sentinel, which she types on a donated typewriter. A description for the torn rags might be something like: “Extra wound dressings, circa early 1930s; wool and cotton. Stella uses dressings like these to help treat her mother’s snakebite. When she finds Mama unconscious in the woods, Stella brings water, whiskey, and dressings to clean and wrap the wound. Mama survives in part due to Stella’s quick actions.”

Benefits of a Mini-Museum Display:

  • It’s highly flexible with strong potential for individualization.
  • Visual-spatial learners will enjoy creating the display space.
  • Readers can work in groups or independently, depending on their situation and capabilities.

Thanks for reading and sharing this idea! Enjoy the holidays, keep safe, and stay well.

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Three-Act Structure: My Writer’s Compass

By on November 12, 2020   /   Articles  

Understanding three-act structure in storytelling isn’t just for writers. In a writing workshop for a crew of fifth-graders, I presented it as a framework for analyzing novels, plays, movies, and picture books with plots—anything with a story arc. The kids got into it, applying it to their own favorite books and films.

That said, I find that three-act structure serves as a compass in my own creative writing. If I wander off in the weeds or lose the thread of the story or mangle a mixed metaphor, I can return to these pivotal plot points to recalibrate the way forward. It ain’t perfect but I find it elegant in its functionality, and for someone who has almost no sense of direction, like me, it helps fend off writer’s block. It offers steady reference points that point to where the story is going.

 

Back to Basics

So here’s a refresher course, as much for me as other readers and writers. Let’s start real basic:

BEGINNING, MIDDLE, END

Seriously, those are a story’s essential three parts whether it’s Click, Clack, Moo, Chicken Little, or Hamlet. Three-act structure helps define and refine this, expanding the story and managing its pace and flow.

ACT I

Exposition: As a rule, the very beginning introduces the central characters and gives us reasons to care.

The Catalyst or Inciting Event: This sets the story in motion. (In movies, it usually occurs 10 minutes in—check your watch!) If the catalyst doesn’t happen the story doesn’t happen.

ACT II

Turning Point 1: This event sends the action in a new direction. It makes clear what the main conflict is. The plot, or storyline, now gets more and more complicated as the protagonists face obstacle after obstacle.

Halftime Smooching: About halfway through the story or movie, there usually comes a period of calm. Now the main characters have time to reflect on what has happened and plan what to do next. Sometimes there is kissing!

ACT III

Turning Point 2: Like Turning Point #1, this shoots the action in a new direction. Everything now accelerates toward the climax.

Climax: This is the BIG MOMENT when the central conflict of the story is resolved: The protagonists win, the antagonists lose, the sweethearts fall in love, etc.

Denouement: This answers any remaining questions and shows characters reacting to how things turned out.

 

The Three-Act Structure of an Old Favorite

Yada, yada, right? Example please! For the sake of familiarity, let’s use a story many of us know and dissect its three-act structure: Star Wars—A New Hope.

ACT I

Exposition: We are introduced to Princess Leia, Darth Vader, and some kid named Luke Skywalker.

The Catalyst or Inciting Event: Luke buys the droids C3-PO and R2-D2. If he doesn’t get those droids, he never meets Obi-Wan Kenobi, never leaves his home planet, never learns about The Force, never becomes a Jedi.

ACT II

Turning Point #1: The heroes discover the Death Star and the Millennium Falcon is captured with a tractor beam. They also learn Princess Leia is being held prisoner there and plot to break her out. The main conflict and what’s at stake becomes crystal clear. They must get the plans for the Death Star to the Rebellion or all is lost!

Halftime Smooching: There isn’t much of a break for reflecting or kissing in A New Hope. Halftime Smooching fans have to wait for The Empire Strikes Back.

ACT III

Turning Point #2: The Death Star tracks the Millennium Falcon to the Rebel base. The Rebels, including Luke Skywalker, launch a desperate attack to try to destroy the Death Star before it obliterates the moon where the base is located. All looks lost when …

Climax: Luke trusts the Force. At the very last second, he drops two torpedoes into a small thermal exhaust port … and … and … BOOM! Conflict resolved: Protagonists win, antagonists need to go build a new Death Star.

Denouement: This is very short and weird in the movie. The rebels celebrate and Luke and Han Solo get medals. (Hurray! Hey! What about Chewbacca?!)

Whether by Nature or Nurture, three-act structure seems to appeal to our story-loving minds across cultures. For writers, it can be a reassuring road map that can guide us true from first draft to The End.

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STEM Tuesday – Diseases and Pandemics — In the Classroom

By on November 10, 2020   /   Diseases and Pandemics, STEM Tuesday  

Throughout history, infectious diseases have impacted humans around the world. Whenever a strange new disease emerges, scientists called epidemiologists study it to learn how it spreads, its effects on humans, and how to stop it.

The books we’re highlighting this month focus on some of the most infamous and deadly infectious diseases in history and the scientific work to study and contain them. They are a great starting point for different sciences activities and discussions in the classroom. Here are a few to try:

Outbreak! Plagues That Changed History by Bryn Barnard

Here’s an extensive evaluation of the causes and human reactions and interactions (from the 1300s to the present) to bubonic plague, smallpox, yellow fever, cholera, tuberculosis, and the 1918 influenza pandemic. This book examines how these diseases changed societies and what it will ultimately take to eliminate cholera worldwide. It also looks at how wealth, bias, and prejudice continue to affect governmental reactions to microbial evolution.

Classroom activity: Divide the class into small groups and assign each an infectious disease to study. Have them answer the following questions: What type of disease is this – virus or bacteria? How does it enter the human body? How does it spread? What effect did this disease have on people around the world? Have scientists been able to stop the spread of this disease? If so, how? If not, why not? Have each group present what they have learned to the class.

An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy

This book dramatically examines another “invisible stalker.” Using both first-hand witness and medical accounts, newspaper clippings, and contemporary images, it follows yellow fever’s arrival and spread throughout Philadelphia. Detailing the social, political, and medical conditions and struggles to combat this disease, this book examines the changes that the plague brought to modern medicine and the fear that it could reappear.

Classroom activity: Compare the historical yellow fever epidemic to the current Covid-19 pandemic. How would you document today’s pandemic for future generations? Have students create their own modern-day pandemic documentation – using first-hand witness accounts, newspaper articles, photographs, and other primary sources. What do they hope future generations will learn from their work?

Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary, by Gail Jarrow

When typhoid fever breaks out in New York, medical detective George Soper traces the outbreak to Mary Mallon. His job: to prevent her from infecting others. But Mary refuses to comply with quarantine and other medical directives. After all, she isn’t sick. So she continues cooking and passing on the disease. Personal freedom versus public health questions are once again relevant as we deliberate quarantines, lockdowns, and contact tracing.

Classroom activity: When an infectious disease is spreading through a community, should public health take priority over personal rights and freedoms? What are the pros and cons of each point of view? Divide students into two groups – one that prioritizes public health and one that prioritizes individual rights. Have each group prepare arguments that support their assigned point of view and debate the issue.

Fever Year- The Killer Flu of 1918: A Tragedy in Three Acts by Don Brown

Presented in a graphic novel format, this book tracks the course of the 1918 flu from Camp Funston, Kansas around the world. Many images look eerily familiar – empty streets and masks. A very accessible examination of the politics and science involved in battling the spread and ultimate containment of this flu. Additionally, it comments on current scientist’s desire to discover why this flu was so deadly by recreating it.

Classroom activity: The lessons we can learn from history are invaluable. After reading about the 1918 flu pandemic, ask students what they have learned about the spread of the flu virus and the effectiveness of different prevention methods taken in 1918. How have people applied these lessons learned from history to today’s Covid-19 pandemic? In what ways could we do better? What have you learned that you can use to help stop the spread of infectious disease?

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Carla Mooney loves to explore the world around us and discover the details about how it works. An award-winning author of numerous nonfiction science books for kids and teens, she hopes to spark a healthy curiosity and love of science in today’s young people. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, three kids, and her dog. When not writing, she can often be spotted at a hockey rink for one of her kids’ games. Find her at http://www.carlamooney.com, on Facebook @carlamooneyauthor, or on Twitter @carlawrites.

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