Showing posts with label
Quick Nonfiction Writing Activities That Really Work.
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Showing posts with label
Quick Nonfiction Writing Activities That Really Work.
Show all posts
The Felix Activity Book (1996): To Darby, in the spirit of all the games I used to make for you when you were little [sister]
Felix Explores Our World (1999): To Leslie Moseley and Dan Tucker [two of my three first bosses, who became friends; Leslie was also co-author of The Felix Activity Book]
Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman (2008): To Daniela and Lara, my Girls of Steel [wife and daughter]
Quick Nonfiction Writing Activities That Really Work! (2009): To Andrew, whose word is always true [friend from college]
Vanished: True Stories of the Missing (2010): To Christian, who knows too much about missing someone and who has not vanished after all these years [friend since 4th grade]
Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman (2012): To Charles, Lyn, and Athena, who respectively revealed the soul, heart, and hope of Bill Finger [Charles Sinclair, longtime friend/writing partner of Bill’s; Lyn Simmons, Bill’s second wife; Athena Finger, Bill’s only grandchild]
Brave Like My Brother (2016): To my brothers by choice: Mike, Seth, Darren, Christian, Kevin, Matt, and Matt [best friends since childhood]; added here 11/1/15
The Chupacabra Ate the Candelabra (2017): To Rafael, my favorite funny little fuzzball [son]; added here 3/2/17
Fairy Spell: How Two Girls Convinced the World That Fairies Are Real (2018): To Lara—don’t stop believing.; added here 7/28/18
Thirty Minutes Over Oregon: A Japanese Pilot's World War II Story (2018): To Daniela. I wouldn’t know Nobuo if not for you.; added here 7/28/18
On 4/10/10, I was one of the authors speaking at the inaugural Unicorn Writers' Conference in Connecticut. For a first-time event, attendance was impressive, so much so that the parking lot and lunch lines were bottlenecked. The conference filmed all presenters, burned DVDs of each talk immediately afterward, and offered those DVDs for sale to attendees. (Authors, of course, negotiated in advance the terms of this with the conference.) My DVD also features the video of my cover of Chumbawumba's 1997 hit "Tubthumping":
I debuted a new presentation at Unicorn: "Nonfiction is Non-Boring." The topic, however, is not new for me. The presentation is based on the relatively new release Quick Nonfiction Writing Activities That Really Work.
That book, in turn, was based on another, more specialized presentation I've been doing for several years called "Draw a Story, Write a Cartoon."
It's all so meta.
Today a Borders in Connecticut kindly hosted me as part of Educator Appreciation Week. I had written it down on my calendar as Educator Awareness Week.
"Hey, you're a teacher! I've heard about you people!" And I was planning to lead my short talk with that joke-like statement, but I ended up cutting it. And the rest of the talk. Because there was no audience.
As many authors will tell you, these things happen. And in retrospect, they make for great entries in books.
I did an Educator Appreciation Week event at Borders in 2005, and attendance then was fairly brisk. But it was also opening day. Plus I think there were cookies. Today, the rain boded well, but apparently this was one of the last days of the event. Also, no cookies. While teachers did show up, not enough at any one time to do my presentation.Still, I did manage to sell a few copies of the two books I was there to introduce (Vocabulary Cartoon of the Day and Quick Nonfiction Writing Activities that Really Work). Plus I also brought over the store's copies of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman and sold a few of those, too. That wasn't my plan, but the books just so happened to be face out on a shelf in the line of sight behind the table they'd set up for me. You can't expect an author to disregard that.
The highlight, however, did not have to do with my own books. I was talking to 4th grade teacher whose young son rushed up holding Goodnight Goon by Michael Rex. The boy was so excited that I blurted out that I am friends with the author-illustrator and could ask if he'd send a signed bookplate. I assured Mike, and consider this notice for other author friends, that I won't make a habit of that. Probably.
Interesting Nonfiction for Kids (I.N.K.) kindly posted a piece on my book Quick Nonfiction Writing Activities That Really Work!
(I am compelled to reiterate from an earlier post that the exclamation point is not my punctuation but part of the title—a part I didn't choose.)Fellow author Karen Romano Young, who wrote the piece, asked challenging questions. In one way or another, those tend to lead to the most engaging answers, at least in my mind!
(That time, I did choose the exclamation point.)
That was the title under which I proposed a book on writing vivid nonfiction.
The book, published by Scholastic with the longer, less cheeky, more literal title Quick Nonfiction Writing Activities That Really Work!, is newly available.
Though it will be marketed to teachers of grades 4-6 for classroom use, I wrote it for all writers. And though it specifies nonfiction, most of the activities also pertain to fiction.
The book consolidates every tip I've thrown in my mental backpack over the last decade and features often funny writing exercises on each page. Some have answers, most don't.
It also includes spot art—some quite surreal—drawn by yours truly. (Note: I am not saying that is a selling point.) Its back cover calls me a "nonfiction expert and humorist." (Note: I admit I like that but swear I did not write that.) And, as always, it is loaded with name-dropping of my friends.
Here is a close approximation of the introduction to the book:
In a batch of thank you letters I received after one of my school visits, a comment from a girl named Shannon stood out: “My teacher told us you wrote nonfiction and I thought ‘Oh, great!’ But I was wrong!”
I’ve written books or articles about the creators of Superman, the invention of the telephone, foxes, ghosts, the planets, the Liberty Bell, Kwanzaa, Greece, the history of junk food, the origins of everyday pets, the reasons we laugh, myths about pirates, Rosa Parks, Juan Ponce de León, the Great Chicago Fire, and more. As a whole, those topics don’t have much in common, but most of the material I wrote about them does.
In each case, I strove to make my nonfiction come alive. All writers owe it to their readers to do this. If writers are bored when writing, how will readers feel when reading their work?
Shannon wasn’t the only young person I’ve met who felt that only made-up stories can hold her interest. Therefore, I was thrilled I helped her realize that nonfiction means non-boring. And I did it without saying “Truth is stranger than fiction.” For starters, that’s a cliché, and clichés, of course, spoil good writing like mold on cream cheese. But more to the point, truth can also be more exciting, scarier, funnier, or sadder than fiction.
This book is designed to demonstrate that by giving students tools to create strong nonfiction. Loaded with reproducibles both fun and functional, it breaks down nonfiction to its many components, letting students strengthen their skills one sentence at a time. While the approach includes some grammar, it is largely concerned with content, style, and structure. Sprinkled throughout are “Quick Tips” for adding a little extra life or lyricism to writing.
Just because a true story is compelling does not mean it is easy to put into print or memorable once it’s in print. One of my professors used to say it’s not enough to have a good story. You need a good story, well told. Sometimes, a good writer can take even a story that at first seems unremarkable and type gold from it.
Whether your students are writing descriptive, expository, narrative, or persuasive nonfiction, they are usually assuming several roles at once without even realizing it: storyteller, detective, reporter, historian, teacher, maybe even rebel. Tell them that and they may feel empowered. They may see that with a mix like that at work inside them, it is hard to imagine not writing something intriguing. The difference between non-exciting nonfiction and exciting nonfiction is a well-equipped writer.
