Using Middle Grade Books to Teach Creative Writing Concepts and Close Reading

As a librarian, I feel my approach to teaching creative writing serves a double-purpose of also being an opportunity to engage kids in the books in our collection. I read them passages from good books and get the kids excited about reading them. And now, when our doors are closed to the public, I find it even more important than ever to use every possible tool in my toolchest to keep kids reading and give them something to get inspired by.

So my most recent writing class was kind of an interactive book talk in which we delved into each book and uncovered writing lessons from it, using each book as a mentor text. I had a list to work from using the books that we are giving kids as prizes for summer reading. In the past, kids could go through a smorgasbord of books for their summer reading prize. Now they have to select one book from a list and get it via curbside pickup. In light of this I wanted to do some kind of virtual program that would book talk their choices. Creative writing did just the trick!

Hooks

To learn about writing a first page that will "hook" the reader, we read the first page of The Last Kids on Earth and the Cosmic Beyond written by Max Brallier and illustrated by Douglas Holgate. Jack, the narrator, tells the reader that he and his friends are about to be "astro-blasted. Catapulted and launched." We discussed why that beginning is exciting and then tried to write new first-sentences for fairytales, replacing "Once upon a time" with something scary or exciting that's just about to happen.

Character and Motif

We learned about writing quirky characters and running themes or motifs with an excerpt from Gabby Garcia's Ultimate Playbook by Iva-Marie Palmer and illustrated by Marta Kissi. We discussed how sports references are a major motif in the book and wrote our own characters who have hobbies or obsessions and how that could be used as a motif.

Tone and Perspective

We learned about tone by comparing two different passages from Front Desk by Kelly Yang. One passage presented the main character Mia's poverty in an upbeat way, focusing on how she and her immigrant parents try to make the best of it by enjoying things like "free air conditioning" whenever they can. The other passage presented a more painful view of the way poverty and hard work are wearing Mia down. One had a happy tone, the other was deeply sad. Then we tried to write about things that might be seen as either happy or sad depending on the person's perspective.

Humor and Fantasy

We got a funny perspective on fantasy and mythology in an excerpt from the book The Serpent's Secret by Sayantani DasGupta and illustrated by Vivienne To. In the excerpt, the main character Kiranmala informs us that riding a winged horse isn't all its cracked up to be. We played with some other ideas of cool experiences one could have, like riding a dragon, or growing your own wings, and tried to show a funny downside to them. This was probably my favorite activity of the class, judging from how well the kids did with it. They came up with great reasons why each cool thing would be a curse in disguise!

Mystery and Suspense

We learned about one of the key ways that the reader is kept in constant suspense in the mystery novel Finding Mighty by Sheela Chari. You never know whom to trust in this book, since almost everyone you meet is introduced as someone you shouldn't trust. The mystery of the brother's disappearance and the puzzling artifacts he left behind keep you guessing and turning pages! We did an activity working with story starters that could be the first sentence of a mystery story, and added sentences 2 and 3.

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Resources

Slides:

Kids' Writing Workshop: Summer Reading Inspirations from AnnMarie Ppl

Recording:

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/_dckF5vTxEpJTpHpr0HDAIkZBIvPeaa8h3dI_PIFyx3jnf4ladr_v9ZHKmzerjWd

Rewriting Fairytales

A couple weeks ago (right before I left for my vacation) we had a fun Kids' Writing Workshop all about rewriting fairytales. I always try to keep my workshops rooted firmly in books in the library's collection, so for this workshop I had fun gathering up all of the Jack and the Beanstalk retellings I could find, and putting them on display! There were several Old West retellings, including one where the Jack character is a cowgirl and one where the Jack character is a really badass Native American gunslinging bandit, two science fiction ones taking place on other planets or in outer space, a few told from the point of view of the giant, a few longer novel-length works where Jack's character and motivations are much more developed and in which Jack interacts with other fairytale characters from other stories, and more, more, more!!

The kids and I talked about what makes a good rewritten fairytale--that it helps to have some sort of "twist" on the story, either by changing a character's gender, age, cultural background, setting, or even the genre of the fairytale (like those Western and sci-fi versions of Jack). 

Then I had the kids draw slips from three envelopes. One envelope had slips of paper with fairytale characters' names. Another had papers with problems or plot elements. And the third had suggestions for how to make the fairytale different with a "twist." Kids drew two character slips, two problem slips and two twist slips, so that nobody was "forced" to write about any specific character or concept but had options to choose from and could go where the inspiration took them! I took pictures of each child's slips:

This child wrote about Rapunzel's witch trying to make amends by helping Gretel, who was blind.

This was mine--I wrote about the son of the Big Bad Wolf being a nerd who is bullied by the sons of the Three Little Pigs!

This child wrote about Red Riding Hood's Grandma and set the story in a different time in history.

This child told a story about Rapunzel's child and had another character turned into an animal.

It was really fun to see what the kids brainstormed for their rewritten fairytales, and also how they managed to tell their stories with interesting first-person points of view! I know I'll be doing this workshop again and am sure I will once again find lots of inspirations in the books here at the library.