Monthly Archive for February, 2009

Reviews

Published on February 27, 2009 in Reviews. 0 Comments

Remember your mini-reviews for the Lower East Side Walking tour online guide book?  And your reviews of Oliver!?  Remember Pauline Frommer’s lesson on what makes a great review?  The use of so many senses? Then there is my review of The Graveyard Book It was a lengthy process, but worth it in the end. Even the author was pleased!  (See here and here.)

So there are all sorts of reviews and I now invite you to write as many as you like on your blog.  But you have to think carefully about what your audience is looking for when you read the review.  For a book, they want to know if it is something they want to read.  For a movie, is it one they would like to see. For a restaurant, is it a place they would like to eat at.  Each is a different type of experience.  I didn’t need to write about smell and taste for my book review, but you certainly did when writing about the restaurants you visited on your LES tour.  Movie reviews are different too as you want to focus on the visual aspect of the experience.

You might want to review:

  • books
  • movies
  • restaurants
  • children’s programs
  • tourist and vacation places
  • play
  • stores
  • television shows
  • hotels
  • camps
  • music
  • pet
  • museums and art galleries
  • games

What is a good work of historical fiction?

Published on February 17, 2009 in Historical Fiction. 0 Comments

We’ve been doing a lot of talking recently about historical fiction.  For example, you read my historical fiction version of Margru’s story. We’ve also read a lot of picture books about forced immigration that are historical fiction, say Veronica Chambers’ Amistad Rising.  What make these books good historical fiction?

You have all just read what I consider to be good works of historical fiction. For your next blog post you will be writing about why they are.  But in order to do so you need to first think about what elements are necessary for a work of historical fiction to be good.  So let’s make a list here. We will then look for specific quotes and/or examples from Amistad Rising to prove these points and write a blog post using this information to explain just how and why Amistad Rising is a good work of historical fiction.  You can then use the same process to write your own blog post tomorrow.

RUBRIC FOR GOOD HISTORICAL FICTION

HISTORICAL ELEMENTS:

  • Includes authentic language (from the time/place) – might include some words in foreign language
  • references real places, ex. New London, New Haven, etc.
  • references real people, ex. John Quincy Adams
  • references authentic objects, belongings, clothing, etc. – ex. sugar cane knives
  • references specific dates, ex. 1839
  • includes quotation from person of the time
  • authentic ways of daily life based on research

FICTIONAL ELEMENTS:

  • includes description using several senses
  • might include a theme
  • uses poetic devices ex. alliteration
  • uses figurative language ex. metaphors, similes
  • includes a range of emotions
  • style – format (journal, letters, story)
  • point of view -first, second or third person “Stand here with me…”
  • has interesting plot development
  • includes great characters you care about
  • might include believable dialogue

Veronica Chambers’ fictionalized telling of a true event in Amistad Rising is a fine example of historical fiction.  In this case, Chambers has mostly stuck with the facts, embellishing them with some imagined speeches and thoughts.  She begins the story very compellingly asking the reader to imagine him/herself back in 1839 when the story took place.  “Stand here with me on the shores of New London, Connecticut.  Feel the cool breezes on your face.  Feel the dirt on your feet; this land is far from ordinary.” (1) Her facts are carefully researched.  For example, she writes of John Quincy Adams defending the captives.  Her use of figurative language is excellent as in the following passage: “Savoring the word, he let it melt like sugar on his tongue.” (20)  For those interested in an introduction to the Amistad story, I would recommend this book.

So now, it is your turn.  Write a good post about the work of historical fiction you read.  It must have at least one paragraph, three reasons and examples, and a wrapping-up sentence.  Then read it over, revise as necessary, proofread (and spell check), and then when it feels ready — publish!

Paragraphs

Published on February 11, 2009 in Cinderella and Writing. 0 Comments

I think paragraphs are one of the coolest parts of writing.  It is amazing what they can do! Here are some of my favorites reasons for paragraphs:

  • Paragraphs make it so much easier to read a story.  It is very hard to know what is going on when there is a page of text with no paragraphs.  A new paragraph gives us white space, a bit of a rest before moving on.
  • Paragraphs can make a story dramatic.  Sometimes a will use a one word or one sentence paragraph to create tension and excitement.
  • Paragraphs are critical for dialogue.  There are rules you must follow (that you learned in Writing Skills) for this.
  • Paragraphs help change a scene. They move us to a different place or time.  You can move your story ahead days or weeks with a new paragraph.  (Think of the book Meanwhile.)

Beginnings

Published on February 11, 2009 in Cinderella and Writing. 0 Comments

Give your story a strong beginning to draw your readers in. Here are some you may recognize:

There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

The knife had a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor.  If it sliced you, you might not even know you had been cut, not immediately.

The knife and done almost everything it was brought to that house to do, and both the blade and the handle were wet.

Neil Gamain’s The Graveyard Book

There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road.  A small calico cat.  Her family, the one she lived with, has left her in this old and forgotten forest, this forest where the rain is soaking into her fur.

Kathi Appelt’s The Underneath

Many, many, many, many, many years ago, there lived a boy.  His name was Ugh.  A good boy, Ugh lived with his two brothers and two sisters in a small cave by the sea.

Al Yorinks’ Ugh

Stand her with me on the shores of New London, Connecticut.  Feel the cool breeze of the Atlantic Ocean on your face.  Feel the dirt beneath your feet; this land is far from ordinary.  It was here, upon this very spot, that Joseph Cinque set foot in America, bringing with him a group of renegade slaves and leaving his mark on history.

Veronica Chambers’ Amistad Rising

Amistad Poetry

Published on February 9, 2009 in Amistad and Forced Immigration. 0 Comments

On Friday we were honored to hear the distinguished poet Elizabeth Alexander share her Amistad epic with us. (You can read it all in this article.) I thought she was wonderful and hope you did too!  As I told you already, I first got to know this remarkable poem when Natasha Trethewey was at Dalton a couple of years ago. After sharing some of it with us, she helped us create a persona poem using the following description of Margru (from one of the original profiles of the Amisated captives in John Barber’s book).

Margru

What I remember of home is this:

green – green mangoes, green snakes, green bananas:
brown – my mother, my father, myself, the tree
trunks, the brown earth, the color of my language,
Mende,
the only language I had
to describe these things.

Often I think of
how I came to be here:

my father pawning me, waving goodbye,
his face crumpled, tightened, looking
away from me.

I felt my captor’s white, cold hand
tighten around my wrist as if
he were a solid ghost taking me away.

Now I wish to see again
the green rice fields,
my father’s brown face,
clouds in the sky —
the only white things,

to hear someone speaking my language,
someone saying

Margru.

*******

Now I hope you will be inspired to create your own poems. Take a look at the Amistad captive profiles here. Perhaps you want to do a persona poem about one of them?  Or a found poem (taking words from another place as she did with  “Other Cargo”) ? Or something else?

Write your poem as you wish. Revise. Proofread. Show a teacher.

Then create a collage with your poem in it. Here are some from an earlier to give you an idea where to go. (Of course, I hope yours are completely unique and different!)

Finally, you will scan in your poem, post it on your blog, and I will put all the collages on the bulletin board outside the classroom!

Your Margru Post

Published on February 6, 2009 in Amistad, Blog Posts, Forced Immigration and Margru. 0 Comments

Now that you’ve read Margu you are ready to write a post about the story. Hopefully you will spend some time thinking about this and writing about it. We hope when your blogs are public to write something about this on Ms. Edinger’s blog as she’s done before so that people from all over the world come to see what you have to say. (Keep in mind that your readers will not have read Ms. Edinger’s story as it is not yet published and only on a blog for you.)

1. To start, come up with a direction for your post. Here are some ideas, but you may have another one:

  • Respond to a particular part in the story.
  • Respond to the literary devices (similes, metaphors, etc.).
  • Respond to the various images used.
  • What in Margru’s story surprised you? What did you learn?
  • Comparison to your oral history? To Amistad Rising?
  • Some consider this a Cinderella story — if you think this and want to write about it, why?
  • Is there something more you want to know?

2. Once you have a direction begin with a good topic sentence, some examples, and end with a conclusion.  I expect a truly excellent paragraph with AT LEAST five sentences (a topic sentence, three in the middle at least, and a concluding one).  WE DO NOT WANT A SUMMARY.  The only place where you describe the story should be in your topic sentence. The rest will be a response/reflection/review of it.

3. Proofread as always.

4. Post!

As you can imagine, we are all eager to read these!

Open House

Published on February 3, 2009 in Blog Posts. 0 Comments

Okay,  we think you are ready to open your blogs to the world!  But before this you need to do one more thing — clean house!  Go through all of your posts and comments and make sure that you have made all the corrections suggested in the comments.  Pay special attention to spelling, punctuation, and capitalization!  Since readers may come to your blog who don’t know you, these sorts of mistakes may give them an impression of you that you don’t want.  Ms. Nickles will let you know on Friday if she thinks your blog is spic and span and ready for viewing!

Creating, Imagining, Writing, and Revising YOUR Cindy Story

Published on February 3, 2009 in Cinderella. 0 Comments

After studying the tale, reading a bunch of Cindy stories, watching movies, and talking a lot about what makes a Cinderella story you are now well underway with your own original tales.

Preparation

Here’s a recap of the Tale Tales we discussed:

  • Type A is the classical Cinderella, the one you know from Perrault (and Disney based his movie on this type).  There is a mistreated main character and a shoe test.
  • Type B is the one often called Catskin. Versions that I read to you include “Donkeyskin” and “Allerleirauh or the Many-furred Creature.” And we also watched the movie “Sapsorrow.”  In this type the main character has to run away from her father.
  • Type C is one we called the King Lear type.  Some of the versions of this that we read (in addition to the graphic novel version of Shakespeare’s play that I showed you) were Moss Gown and The Way Meat Loves Salt.

Gearing Up to Write

When you began to do your own stories I read to you from Gail Carson Levine’s book Writing Magic. She made some excellent suggestions and included The Writer’s Oath that you all took. It was:

I promise solemnly:

  1. to write as often and as much as I can,
  2. to respect my writing self, and
  3. to nurture the writing of others.

I accept these responsibilities and shall honor them always.

Revising

Once you have a first draft done (or even before that) you should think about revision. For authors (remember E. B. White?) revise, revise, and revise. And revising is NOT about checking for spelling, capitals and stuff like that.  It is about looking hard at your writing and thinking about what you can do to make it read the best it can for your audience.  I’ve now read what you have written so far and here are some things I recommend you consider.

  • Are you doing too much telling instead of showing?
  • Murder your darlings!
  • Are you telling us MUCH more than we need to know?
  • Where are you starting the story?  Does it have to start where you start it now? Maybe you want it to begin later?  Or sooner?
  • What about the beginning?  You have to really grab your readers with the first few lines. So be sure they are interesting!
  • Are you giving us enough description of your characters?  Can you do more by showing us rather than telling?
  • Is your story confusing perhaps? If so, why?  What can you do to make it less confusing?
  • Is your point of view consistent? (First person, third person, etc?)
  • Do you need a narrator or another character to give some of the description?
  • Think about your setting — keep language and description in line with where and when your story takes place.

Critiques

Tomorrow we will do critiques.  I will read aloud three (if there is time) of your works-in-progress (this is what writers call their stories as they work on them).  This will be done anonymously.  That is, the author is not known. (If you think you know who wrote it, you must act as if you didn’t.  It is important to consider only the story, not the author.)  We will read and then talk about what is working and what is not working in each critiqued story.  Even if your story isn’t critiqued, you will get something out of it, I promise. I learned how to do this in a writing class for adults and it was the best way I learned about writing. In fact, many well known writers were in the class and we knew, of course, when their work was read (for example Gail Carson Levine was in the class), but we pretended that we didn’t.

Honoring Ashley Bryan

Published on February 2, 2009 in Books and Literary Salons. 0 Comments

On Tuesday after school the Dalton School will be celebrating Ashley Bryan.  A former teacher at Dalton, Ashley is a remarkable artist, writer, performer, and person.  Our party tomorrow is to celebrate the publication of Ashley’s autobiography,  Words to My Life Song.  And to honor him, at today’s Literary Salon, Edinger House did a reading of one of his most beautiful books, Beautiful Blackbird.

So give a listen!

 
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