Line Lifts - A Great Strategy Still

Hey, Mr. Allen, listen to this… 

I love this line, listen…

Close your eyes for a minute.  Ready?  Listen to these words… 

Wow, Mr. Allen, listen…

     My students and I have been paying close attention to some of the fantastic lines we are noticing as readers.  We’re knee-deep in a study of how wise readers ask questions to better understand, remember, extend meaning, and make readers experiences memorable (Conferring: The Keystone of Reader’s Workshop, p. 28).  As writers, we’re honing in on exquisite lines to nudge our writing work—a parallel notebook study of  “What does a wise writer do to nudge his/her writing?"  (One of the strategies we're playing around with is "lifting a line" to coax our own writing.  A strategy I first learned from Linda Reif and have loved since.)

 Questions abound!

     In Write from the Start, Donald Graves reminds us, "Whenever there's a connection made between old knowledge and new knowledge, that's where the new growth is.  Those are the green shoots out of the old stock, the shoots that will bear fruit.  But it takes a fair amount of pruning to get new growth.  The dead wood comes when children pay attention to what they think the teacher wants instead of what, in fact, they see."

     So as writers were working toward the "shoots that will bear fruit."  Helping see that we have a lot to learn from mentors.  A lot of young writers these days seem "prompt-bound" or "Is this good? bound" or "I don't know what to write-bound."  They've been stifled by outside forces of programs and perfection... of skill and drill types of writing.

     But if I can encourage my students to develop a sense of agency as writers... to open their notebooks and start writing from a great line that they've discovered, they'll have one more authentic tool to help them develop independence during those times when writing ideas aren't coming easy.  Giving them a chance to break chains that are, sadly, already cramping their young writing lives.  To encourage purpose.  To encourage play.  To encourage risk.  To encourage thought.  To encourage putting pencil to paper.

     I've shown them my own notebook with the lines I've borrowed... lines that are waiting for me when I'm stuck or need a jumping off point.  

  Helen Frost - Salt

"Fireflies light up the edge of the dark forest."

"Our fire will keep us warm inside while we tell winter stories."

Kate Banks - Max's Words

"I'm going to collect words."

"When Max put his words together, he had thoughts."

Ruth Ayres - Celebrating Writers:  From Possibilities Through Publication

"Sometimes leaving things unsaid is more difficult than knowing what to say."

"Sometimes rejoicing is quiet.  It's a nod of encouragement."

Barbara O'Connor - How to Steal a Dog

"I closed the notebook and watched the moths flutter around the streetlight outside the window.' 

"I pushed my face against the screen and peered inside.  My stomach did a flip-flop."

Gary Paulsen - Brian's Hunt

"A perfect day among many perfect days and the last thought he had before slipping into sleep was that he was in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time in his life."

Gari Meacham - Watershed Moments

"A true watershed isn't to be hoarded; rather, it is to be shared, to spread it's gift of insight from our life to the lives of those around us."

     So what?  Now I have a notebook nudge.  Parts that can lead to wholes.  If I'm sitting with my notebook, facing a blank page, I have some great lines from some of my favorite writers that might just lead me into a piece of my own.  Not stolen.  Just borrowed.  Lines that spark a memory.  Lines that encourage me to write.  Just a little "tidbit" borrowed from a mentor that invites me to move words across a blank page.  A tool for a specific time for a specific purpose that fits into the "big picture" of being a writer.  Practice.

     It's a simple strategy that can serve as a guide to more complex pieces, more personal pieces.  Teach.  Model.  Empower.  

Hey, Mr. Allen, listen to this… 

I love this line, listen…

Close your eyes for a minute.  Ready?  Listen to these words… 

Wow, Mr. Allen, listen…

Let the pruning begin...

Ice Bear - Nicola Davies

I've been rereading a bit of Nicola Davies lately.  There's something reenergizing to thumb through my stakes.  Among her books, I ran across a favorite of mine... Ice Bear: In the Steps of the Polar Bear.  
     I love her narrative... but what attracts me most to her writing is the way she interweaves bits of nonfiction, lines that float through the text.  I've been sitting down to contemplate a writing project lately and I'm using her as one of my mentors (along with Don Brown and Louise Borden).  
     One of the things we know as teachers of writers is how important it is to surround them with the types of writing we want them to explore... the types of writers who can become their mentors.  Of course, the more I work with young writers, the more I realize that often times they are the ones who have to match themselves to a mentor; they are the ultimate decision maker.  They find their own mentors.  Someone they respect.  Someone whose writing inspires them.  Someone who intrigues them.  Someone whose writing nudges them.
      And I've realized that I have an important job:  to expose them to writers, to help them discover great writers, to encourage them to "have a go" with interesting examples of text, and to demonstrate my own passion for writers and great writing.  Expose.  Discover.  Encourage.  Demonstrate.  That's just good teaching, right?  
     So Nicola Davies is one of my "go to" mentors and by sharing what I learn from her with my students, perhaps they will, in turn, find a "go to" writer that inspires them.  Consider this line...

"Its ears sit close to its head, 

neatly out of cutting winds, 

and its feet are furred for warmth and grip."

     What can a young writer learn?  What can I learn?  In 21 words I notice the power of three, the strength of noun modifiers, the effective use of "and" as a coordinating conjunction, the musicality of rhythmic words.  If I read Nicola Davies to my students (and myself)... once for the heart and once for the head, how can her words not engage them in the wonderful thing we call writing.  

     It's time to pull together a Nicola Davies basket... my students will love her.  IF I don't beat them to the basket first.

God Got a Dog - A Gem

Cynthia Rylant and Marla Frazee.  Another perfect combination.  Using sixteen poems from God Went to Beauty School, they've created a beautiful collection in God Got a Dog.  Who doesn't love these two talented women?
     What I imagine most is Marla chatting with Cynthia about this book, these poems, during their collaboration.  And, me only wishing I could have been a fly on the wall... okay, actually a fellow reader/writer sitting with the both of them at the table as they chatted.  Can you imagine?  Cynthia Rylant, a writer's writer/illustrator.  Marla Frazee, a writer's writer/illustrator.  Two talents that God has put together to create this book... two talents that we all admire.  Imagine.
     Now there might be a few biblical scholars who would disagree with Rylant's interpretation of God.  But, they can't argue with the fact that she's a brilliant writer who writes from her heart, a wordsmith beyond compare.  And her words, coupled with Frazee's illustrations make a reader's heart happy.  And who doesn't need a heart that's happy?  God himself said so in Proverbs 15:13 and Proverbs 4:23.  A happy heart is good medicine! 
     My favorite poem in the entire collection is "God Went to India."  Perhaps it's because it reminded me of my mom and her love for elephants (I have two from her collection).  Perhaps it reminded me of my daughter and her recent life-changing trip to visit the orphanages in India.  But, perhaps it's because of this beautiful section:

 God understands mourning

better than any other emotion,

better even than love.

Because He has lost

everything He has

ever made.

You make life.

You make death.

The things God makes

always turn into

something else and

He does find this good. 

But He can't help missing all the originals.

      
     So, Rylant fans.  So, Frazee fans.  We have a new gem for our collections.  Two of our friends have come together to create this special book.  God does do good work.  And, we can only hope that these new-found friends collaborate and come together on the pages of another book... sooner than later. 

     In the meantime, I'll be sitting at my table with the two of them, reading God Got a Dog. Imagining that they, too, were wishing that were HERE!  Imagine.  

... and our hearts are happy!

Snowflakes Fall

When you combine the talents of Patricia MacLachlan and Steven Kellogg, there's not much more to say...
     Snowflakes Fall arrived today.  My heart is full.  With the simplicity of MacLachlan's words, I was once again moved and inspired.  With the honesty of Kellogg's illustrations, I was once again reminded and touched.  
     As a tribute to Sandy Hook, this book is meant to be joyful and spirit-filled.  It is.  If you haven't purchased this book.  You should.  Read it once for your head.  Read it once for your heart.  And then read it to your students... tomorrow.

     "Snowflakes fall
     To Sit on garden
     And evergreen trees
                                On the fur of dogs
                                And the tongues of laughing children--
                                                                                No two the same--
                                                                                All beautiful."

And we remember the children.  I just want to say thank you to both the author and the illustrator for creating such a fine tribute to life.  Thank you.

Forest Has a Song

If you've followed The Poem Farm, you'll love Amy Ludwig Vanderwater's new book - Forest Has a Song.  It's always a treasure to find a book of poetry like this one (especially when combined with Robbin Grouley's illustrations).  

"Forest News" starts out like this:

I stop to read

the Forest News

in mind or fallen snow. 

Articles are printed

 by critters on the go.

And I must say that "stopping to read Forest Has a Song" is well worth the stop!  Ms. Vanderwater captures the treasures of the forest in poems, short and long, breathtakingly.

When we talk to young writers about "naming" and "noticing" and "marking their day" it's having wonderful poets like Amy that make our jobs so much richer.  Our own writing so much richer.  The patience in "Waiting for Deer," the tapping in "Woodpecker," the honking of geese in "Song"... each poem leaves you a little closer to the sights, the sounds, and the songs of the forest.  It's the exact kind of close observation that we want to encourage in our young poets and young writers. 

My favorite poem in the collection is "Snowflake Voices."

Snowflake Voices

I like to walk 

outside

alone

in winter woods

behind my home.

I close my eyes

to softly hear

snowy voices

crystal clear

Each silver 

snowflake

sings my name

Guess what?

No two sound the same.

Stunning.  

One of my favorite books on the teaching of poetry is A Note Slipped Under the Door by Shirley McPhillips and Nick Flynn published by Stenhouse (2000).  On page 37, it says, "Poets live wide awake in the world.  They 'eavesdrop," watching and listening in the moment, letting things catch their attention.  They wonder and ask questions, letting what they see and hear inform their lives.  Sometimes a poet will notice the exact words that people use.  These 'found' bits of speech can be a springboard for new ideas or a backboard against which to bat ideas and test them farther.  Just by listening closely to what people say, to the very words they use in their everyday speech, the world around us can be revealed.  We can be moved by the words themselves at the moment we hear them, yet we don't know why.  But, as poets, we keep them, believing these words can hold new meaning."

In our work with young writers, I can imagine that books like Forest Has a Song can be that springboard for writers.  It can help create meaning.  It can expand writer's lives into the forest... even if they've never physically experienced the sights and sounds and songs that Ms. Vanderwater invites us to visit.  All it takes is a close read... close your eyes, ponder. Poetry like hers can't help but increase the background knowledge of young writers and invite them to notice their "world" and the poetry that hides within it (be it city, country, subway, or dirt road).  

Ms. Vanderwater is a writer's mentor.  Forest Has a Song a newly found treasure.  And in all the hustle an bustle of our teaching, we can't neglect poetry.  "Helping writers find their song..." now that's a goal, eh?  Thanks, Amy, for the reminder.  

Reading in the Wild - A Preview

For the past several weeks, I've had the pleasure of prereading the final manuscript of Donalyn Miller's new book Reading in the Wild: The Book Whisperer's Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits which will be published in November (it's kind of fun, turning over page after page of 8 1/2 x 11 paper).  

The cover... beautiful!

Having a friend like Donalyn is one of the blessings we have as teachers, isn't it?  Whether you've spent time with her at dinner, listened to her speak at a conference, or heard her whisper her beliefs to you as you read The Book Whisperer:  Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child you have, indeed, met Donalyn.  

Donalyn is a teacher's teacher.  She's passionate about her work with readers and in helping us become better at our craft.  What impresses me most about Donalyn is her sincerity.  She believes so strongly in "cultivating" and "awakening" the reading lives of young readers.  I imagine the blood that flows through her veins likely contains "read" blood cells. 

In her new book, she, along with Susan Kelley, share five important lifelong habits that they believe readers need in order to prosper.  They share ways to nudge children to be "readers in the wild."  It's sprinkled with the rituals and routines that Donalyn, and Susan, know from experience will cultivate the types of readers we want children to be and to become, both in the classroom and out of the classroom.

I'll write more about this book as it gets closer to the publication date, but I have a strong inkling you'll want to preorder it!  

I was reading the other day and ran across this marvelous quote by Terry W. Glaspey, "Books provide the most helpful of road maps for (an) inner journey.  They show us the tracks of fellow travelers, footprints left by earlier pilgrims who have trod the path that stretches before us.  Their luminosity helps to light our way.  As we read we realize we are not alone."  

And, that's how I feel about this new book by Donalyn.  She, along with her friend Susan, are luminaries for teachers, no matter our experience.  There's a reasonableness to their work.  It causes us to focus, reflect, and make meaningful decisions about the learners in our care.  Grounded in thoughtfulness, this book will nudge us as teachers... and, in turn, stretch the readers with whom we work.

What are the five habits?  I'll mention those in a future post.  But, for now, know that you're in for a treat from Donalyn (and Susan).  In the meantime, read wildly... think deeply... and discover the habits YOU have as a reader.  After all, aren't the very habits we possess the ones we want our students to emulate?  Then ask yourself, "How am I teaching my students to do the same thing?"  Donalyn has.  As fellow travelers, we should too!

The Lost Art of Mixing - A Must Read

She dragged a chair across the kitchen to the counter and clambered up, stabilizing herself with a hand on the cabinets.  She reached up for the first bulb in the string of recessed fixtures and gave it two quick, firm twists.  On the third turn, the heat from the bulb met her fingers and she jerked back, the bulb falling through her hands, cracking on the tile floor in loud, spectacular pieces.

     She looked down, shocked.  The house seem to shimmer in the aftermath of the noise.  The edges of the broken bulb winked up at her, bright and sparkling, seductive as diamonds.  Slowly, Louise smiled.

- - - - - 

Tom stood looking at the hunks of wood—a half-cord, easily, he figured, although the logs he had chopped in his teenage years had been clean, consistent lengths, redolent with the smells of alder and maple, their bright surfaces almost begging to be cut.  He remembered the joy of his growing muscles, the loft of the axe as it swung up in an endless arc and then came slamming down.  The complete and utter satisfaction of a smooth surface cleaving into air as the pieces went flying to either side of him.

     This was not going to be like that, he could tell, looking at the haphazard jumble of gnarled stumps and logs, half of it wet and rotting, the other portion hard and glistening and green.  This was wood that defied the axe, a living lesson that when it came to heat, sometimes it was better to use man’s other inventions—electricity, gas, propane.

- - - - - 

As a reader, who can't read these words from Erica Bauermeister’s novel The Lost Art of Mixing and not create an image that sucks you into the writing?

The Lost Art of Mixing is the sequel to The School of Essential Ingredients.  Both books were recommended to me by my friend, Mimi Brown.  Mimi is a literacy virtuoso who works in the Issaquah School District.  Whenever we chat on the telephone, it always includes a discussion of books (new titles, old titles, no matter).  

If you are a foodie, you will love both books (although there's less of a food focus in the sequel).  Erica Bauermeister is a character crackerjack.  When you read one of her books, you leave the last page knowing (sometimes becoming) one of the characters.  The prose-like nature of her words creates ripples of texture, emotion, and images that, as a reader, suck you into the story gracefully.  Her words mix the power of food, the power of love, the power of "being" with another person together in the most artful way. 

Not to sound cliche`, well okay, to sound cliche`... there's a deliciousness that permeates her writing.  Each chapter of this book focuses on a specific character's life... and as I read, I was drawn in to the smells, the tastes, the feelings of each character's being.  In this book, you read about the familiar characters you grew to love (or not love) from The School of Essential Ingredients and you grow to love (or not) new characters that she brings on board in her second book.

When I talk to my students about evoking, or creating, sensory images, we come to know the importance of being "drawn in" of "knowing" how those images help us understand, help us remember, help us extend meaning, or help us make our reading experiences memorable (see Conferring the Keystone of Reader's Workshop, page 25).  As Amanda noted in her reader's notebook during our study of sensory images this year, "I think that sensory images help me by comparing what I got a sense of to what really is... I can see something, taste something, hear something, feel something, or smell something.  It can connect my connections because it makes the details come alive!"

So, as a reader, I'm always on the search for text that helps me revisit and revision my own use of "thinking strategies."  If I'm helping my students come to rely on a strategy more explicitly as a tool, I too must learn how it helps me.  As an adult, the idea of "evoking sensory images" seems clearcut, something "we automatically do because we're proficient readers," but is it?  With each close read, with each nuance, with each "How the heck did she do that?" I think I become a little better at using and noticing this strategy as a reader, as a thinker.  My awareness of what's going on "inside" nudges me to better understand how to express my thoughts to those who sit "outside" my thinking processes.

It's the same with my students.  When we've experimenting enough with a strategy... as a whole group, during small groups, one-on-one, alone—we come to understand how the "behavior" of creating an image (or any other comprehension strategy) brings power and fortitude to our understanding.  We dig around a bit, figure things out, toss out ideas, play... and that can only be done in text that's meaningful to us as readers.

The Lost Art of Mixing is such a book for me.  You should give it a go as a reader.  In her Acknowledgments, the author writes:  Words need ears to hear them and eyes to read them long before they can every be considered a book.  Now that it's a book... oh such words!  Try focusing on the sensory images you're creating and how they are helping you understand Erica Bauermeister as a writer.  Ms. Bauermeister's writing style is powerful... joyous... intriguing.  Often she throws in a word, a sentence, a paragraph that makes me stop in my tracks.  I pause.  I consider.  I reflect.  Briefly.  Then, I move on as not to lose the image created for me as a reader.

Imagine you're Louise wandering in to this bookstore... The bookstore was small and elegant, its books carefully chosen to appeal to both the casual tourist and those who stayed through the long and stormy winters.  A mix of bright and subtle covers, rough-edged pages and slippery paperbacks.  A flurry of handwritten notes hung from the bottom of the shelves, offering recommendations and brief synopses, inviting hands to open the books above.

Now run to your independent bookseller (or library) and get The Lost Art of Mixing.  Then head to the beach (you'll know why I wrote this after you read it).

- - - - - 

I also wrote a blog about Joy for Beginners, another of her books.  Click on the title to the blog it!  Also recommended by Mimi!