Posts Tagged writing

STEM Tuesday — STEM Activity Books– In the Classroom

By STEM Tuesday on August 11, 2020 / Activity Books, STEM Tuesday

It’s August and the countdown to school has started. For many students and teachers, going to school may look a little different this year. Some students may be learning in the classroom, while others learn at home. And some students may be doing a little bit of both. No matter where you’re learning, you can use these great books to spark a lasting interest in science and STEM.

The books we’re highlighting this month are all STEM activity books. They are a great starting point for different science activities and discussions in the classroom and at home.

Calling All Inventors!

Do your students know about scientist and inventor Temple Grandin? In this book, kids can learn from a master inventor by reading her personal stories and trying a few of the book’s 25 hands-on projects. Throughout the book, Grandin shows readers what it’s like to see the world through an inventor’s eyes, questioning and testing how the world works. You could have kids do a few of these projects and then present their results, either in person or in a virtual classroom. You can even have students think like Grandin and come up with their own project or invention!

Want to learn a little be more about Temple Grandin? Take a look at this Colorado State University article about Temple Grandin’s life.

Let’s Build!

If you want your students or kids to learn about engineering – try this fantastic book:

This book has activities to explore important principles of engineering, such as forces and motion; liquids and reactions; shapes and structures; and light and sound. You can explore gravity by building a working model of a tower crane. You can study the range of colors in light by building a spectroscope. Maybe assign a different project to small groups of students. Have them demonstrate their project to the class. How does it work? What engineering principle(s) does it show? How is this principle used by scientists in the real world?

Take a Walk Through the Jungle

For younger kids, Rainforests is a great activity book that teaches kids about tropical and temperate forests and how we can help preserve them.

The book also has lots of information about the creatures of the rainforest. The book begins with several chapters about the layers of the rainforest – the forest floor, the understory, the canopy, and the top layer. Perhaps have each kid choose an animal or plant that lives in the rainforest and write a few sentences about it and how it survives in the rainforest.

Kids will learn about the rainforest in different parts of the world. Try some of the book’s activities such as creating a jungle journal in Africa or communicating with message sticks in the South Asian and Malaysian rainforest. Ask the kids: How are the rainforests in different parts of the world similar? How are they different? How can we work together to conserve and protect them?

Have fun with all of the hands-on STEM and science activities in these books! It’s a great way to bring science into your classroom – no matter where it is this year!

*************************************

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 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.

STEM Tuesday — Pollinators — Writing Tips & Resources

By STEM Tuesday on July 21, 2020 / Pollinators, STEM Tuesday

Title Talk

Creating the perfect title for a nonfiction piece is tough. In a few short words you’re supposed to convey the subject, approach, and audience — and be appealing. That’s a tall order. Honestly, I used to hate drafting a title but I’ve come to see it as an effective exercise.

Working and reworking a title at different stages of a project helps me nail down more than words for the cover. When I finally smile at a title I’ve crafted — and when that smile returns every time I dive in to revise — I know I’ve also got a handle on what my book is actually about.

Often though, even that title isn’t the final title. The editor, marketing team, others at the publishing house all have a say and sometimes one of them develops the final title.

[Note: This discussion is relevant for trade books. For books in the education market, the title is typically assigned ahead of time.]

So, how do you develop the perfect title? Lots and lots of work — and play! Here are some exercises to help.

Structure

Read these titles from this month’s list, paying particular attention to their structure:

Birds, Bees, and Butterflies: Bringing Nature Into Your Yard and Garden

The Pollinator Victory Garden: Win the War on Pollinator Decline with Ecological Gardening

Pollinator Friendly Gardening: Gardening for Bees, Butterflies, and Other Pollinators

Summer’s Flight, Pollen’s Delight: Meet the Bees, Butterflies, Birds and other Creatures Who Keep Our World Green and Alive!

Pollinators: Animals Helping Plants Thrive

These titles use a traditional structure: a shorter title (indicating the subject matter), a colon, and a subtitle (fleshes out the topic or scope of the book). Check your shelves for titles that use this structure. Nonfiction writers are fortunate; we can use subtitles! Subtitles give us options. Providing additional clues through the title/subtitle combination can be a critical element in helping a book find the right readers.

What about titles that break from that traditional structure?

They may use questions:

Where Have all the Bees Gone? Pollinators in Crisis

Consider what the use of a question does for the title. Prompt the reader to think? Provide an air of uncertainty? This particular title also introduces a level

of anxiety and capitalizes on the tension inherent in the topic.

Or imperatives:

Know Your Pollinators: 40 Common Pollinating Insects including Bees, Wasps, Flower Flies, Butterflies, Moths, & Beetles, with Appearance, Behavior, & How to Attract Them to Your Garden

What does that do?

Or need no subtitle at all:

Turn this Book into a Beehive

Standing Out

Now, look for literary devices which help a title stand out.

Alliteration, assonance, consonance like Astronaut Aquanaut: How Space Science and See Science Interact by Jennifer Swanson and Woodpecker Wham! by April Pulley Sayre
A play on words like The Whole Story of the Doughnut by Pat Miller and I See Sea Food by Jenna Grodzicki
Rhythm or rhyme like Joan Proctor, Dragon Doctor: The Woman Who Loved Reptiles by Patricia Valdez

What other devices can you find in titles you love?

Try adding a literary device to one of the titles listed above.

The Power of Play!

Amazing titles can come from play. Play with the language, play with the concepts, play with what your reader might be thinking. Here are a few examples: You’re Invited to a Moth Ball by Loree Burns, Something Rotten: A Fresh look at Roadkill by Heather L Montgomery, Save the Crash-test Dummies by Jennifer Swanson

- - - - Draft the most conservative title possible. Draft the most outrageous title possible. Which do you like best?
        
        Reverse the words in one of your draft titles.
        
        Combine opposites (over/under, fresh/rotten, etc)
        
        Swap out a common word with something that challenges readers just a bit.

Tricks and Tips

Like any other skill, developing a finely honed title requires practice. Here are a few more exercises to round out your workout:

Listen to the words of friends, critique partners, strangers as they talk about your project or subject. Stockpile their words as fodder for your title.
Revise one of your titles using each of the literary devices listed above.
Jot down a title and develop a list of at least 10 synonyms for each word. Mix-and-match, paying attention to the rhythm of the words.
At random, select five non-fiction books and use their titles as models for yours.

Many thanks to the members of the NF for NF Nonfiction Children’s Writers Facebook group who suggested titles for this post.

—

Heather L. Montgomery writes STEM books for kids. She’s had fun with her recent titles:

Who Gives a Poop? Surprising Science from One End to the Other (Bloomsbury 2020)

Little Monsters of the Ocean: Metamorphosis under the Waves (Lerner, 2019)

Bugs Don’t Hug: Six – Legged Parents and their Kids (Charlesbridge 2018)

STEM Tuesday– SHARKS! — Writing Tips & Resources

By STEM Tuesday on June 23, 2020 / Sharks, STEM Tuesday

Write Like a Shark

It’s Summer 2020. Sorry, just a plain and simple statement that it is indeed the summer of 2020. None of the traditional exclamation points to celebrate this time of the year. The COVID-19 pandemic, the problem of ingrained and institutional racism, and lives that have been completely turned on edge are just a few of the problems we deal with every day. Besides community involvement, raising our voices, and giving of our time, talent, and treasure, another good way to navigate good or bad times is through writing.

Writing provides an outlet. Whether you are a middle-grade student on summer break trying to make sense of the world or a seasoned adult trying to make sense of the world, writing can help navigate life. Writing can be personal and kept under lock and key or it can be shared. Writing is yours. Every word is yours. As the words are placed on paper or screen one after the other, your thoughts and ideas become more real and tangible.

The two things at the core of the From the Mixed-Files…of Middle-Grade Authors blog are reading and writing. For the STEM Tuesday group, those two core activities also hold true except we adjust the focus to STEM nonfiction. Today, I suggest a STEM nonfiction slant to assist you as you embark on your 2020 writing adventures?

Want to write but don’t exactly know how to take the first steps? First and foremost, just write. Begin the physical process with one word and keep adding another word until you give the thoughts in your head a life. Next, take a few pointers from the star of STEM Tuesday, June 2020, the magnificent shark!!! (Now there’s a sentence deserving of exclamation points.)

Writing advice from a shark?

Absolutely!

I know a shark can’t actually write. A shark can’t hold a pencil. A shark’s journal would merely become a soggy mess in the ocean. A shark may have plenty of bite, but none of that bite leans toward the literary. Allow me to explain how the fabulous members of the Selachii superorder can get you circling the waters to write like a shark.

Blacktip reef shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus) by I, Luc Viatour / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

1. Design

The basic biological design of a shark has been relatively unchanged since it originally appeared 350-400 million years ago during the Devonian Period. When something works in nature, it usually sticks around and is passed on to the next generation. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In simpler terms, the structure and basic plan of a shark work well. In writer terms, we could learn a lot from the shark’s basic evolutionary outline.

The shark has a plan. A built-in plan that has withstood the test of time and shifting conditions. As a writer, follow the shark’s example and develop a design plan that works for you. Find structures and experiment with them. A few basics to think about are:

Time dedicated to writing.
Materials (journals, notebooks, pens, pencils, or electronics.)
Space (both physical space and headspace.) to work in.
Ideas and capturing them.

Design your physical writing life and hone it until you are as effective as our favorite ocean predator has been for millennia. Piece together a plan in your head and use either a simple or a complex—or something in-between—outline to give your writing good bones (maybe that should be cartilage?) to build upon.

Erik Zachte at the English language Wikipedia / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

2. The Blank Page

Unfortunately, one of the biggest mountains to climb with writing lies at the very beginning of the process. The blank page. The idea. The “AAARRGGHHHH I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO WRITE DOWN WITH THIS TWENTY DOLLAR PEN I JUST BOUGHT MY WRITER-SELF” problem. Every writer ever has felt the dread of the blank page at one time or another.

Ideas. Are. Hard.

When the blank page spreads fear down your spine, remember how a shark hunts. It’s always on the lookout for a meal and when it finds one, it attacks. Value story ideas and attack them with the same frenzy as the shark attacks its prey. Be prepared to circle the waters to sustain the enthusiasm while being willing to keep working hard after enthusiasm wanes.

There’s no such thing as a bad idea if that idea gets the writing process started. How selective is a shark come feeding time? If it’s food, it’s good enough. This is where I’m a firm believer in the power of nonfiction, especially STEM nonfiction, to help the writer juices flow. The curiosity about how the world works is always a great tool for writing. How do the things that surround us work, why they work, and how they affect us or make us feel?

No matter what life throws at you, write your way through it. Whether with difficulties, joys, failures, and/or accomplishments, use writing to help make sense of your world. Now, arm yourself with your favorite pen and notebook and then write. Remember to design a writing plan that works for you and always be on the hunt for ideas, just like a shark.

Best of luck in Summer 2020.

Stay safe.

Be healthy.

Be kind.

Write like a shark.

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 P utt ing 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

This month on the Out Of Left Field (O.O.L.F.) Files we’re talking sharks. Everyone’s favorite marine predator. The world of sharks is fascinating. Enjoy the links below, hopefully, learn a thing or two, and have a great STEM Tuesday Shark Month!

Sea World All About Sharks & Rays

Shark Cam at The Monterey Bay Aquarium

Shark Week @ The Discovery Channel

Sharkfest 2020 from The National Geographic Channel

Jaws

The single greatest movie about marine predators ever made. It even scared the bejeezus out of a kid from Kansas when he first saw it at the theatre back in the 1970s.
As we all know too well from the first half of 2020…nobody EVER listens to the scientists & the experts!

Megalodon

Giant dino-sharks! Count me in!

Sharknado! The end of an era?

No shark list is complete with a mention of this SYFY network gem. Complete ridiculousness that somehow becomes entertaining by taking an unapologetic stab at the nature-apocalyptic film genre. Where does one even begin?

Posts Tagged writing

STEM Tuesday — STEM Activity Books– In the Classroom

Like this:

STEM Tuesday — Pollinators — Writing Tips & Resources