Dialogue Detectives: A Writing Exercise
I had a nice draft going on how we journey through homeschool with a toddler in the house.
For the past few weeks the girls have been keeping a dialogue journal, a little pocket notebook to record the spoken words of the siblings, friends, and strangers. We’ve called it “Dialogue Detectives” (an idea from Julie Bogart, see note at the end of the post). The purpose of the assignment is to recognize patterns, word choices, and inflections that make a two year old sound like a real two year old and a grandmother sound like a grandmother. We’ve talked about writing dialogue in stories that really sounds true to the age and background of the characters they create. We’ve looked at examples in the books we’re reading as family.
On friday we combined the Story Squares and the research they’ve done on dialogue and asked them to freewrite for fifteen minutes, telling most of their story through dialogue. We decided they should stick with a two year old as the main character in their dialogue since their best research has been with their own sister.
Mookie, the 11 year old, wrote a story about a princess and a castle (she didn’t actually draw the squares because as we were getting them out she said, “Oh, I have an idea” and I let her go with her inspiration instead of forcing the squares since they were only there for inspiration. Though her story ended up using several of the squares since she already had them in her head.)
Here’s an excerpt from her writing:
Sophie the maid was always up and about first in the castle each peaceful morning. These days they weren’t too peaceful.
“Now if I can only brew the tea without the Princess waking up, ” she said to herself. As she pulled over a chair so that she could stand on it to reach the tea cupboard, she heard, “Need to go pooootty!” from upstairs.“Ughhh,” Sophie said in disgust. She walked down the flight of stairs that led to the Princess Victoria’s room.
“Need to go pooootty!” Victoria shouted again, this time more urgently.
“I’m coming, ” Sophie shouted back.
She reached the princess’ room and took her to the bathroom. Once Victoria was seated, Sophie asked, “Why did you have to wake up already?”
“I don’t know,” answered the Princess, innocently. ”I’m dooo-ooone.”
Jellybean, age 9, drew the following squares. A Viking, Mystery Person, Hut, Forest, and Crown.
I think she got a little distracted by the story brewing from the squares to remember to include much dialogue, but it’s still fun to see how a prompt can get a story started.
Once upon a time there was nothing. There was absolutely nothing. But then, as we all know, God created the world and the real adventure began. Now, I know I’m going forward a little, well, a very long time, I should say. When there were forests everywhere and there was many, many peasants in the land. My story is about a viking who went to the future, to medieval times, when there were knights and castles, dragons and two year olds.
My story begins on a bright summer day at a peasant’s house when a little girl named Evie and her little sister Sylvia were playing outside. Suddenly…
“Girls! Girls! Girls! Come quickly! Go inside!”
“Why, Why, why? Why must we Papa?” cried little Sylvia.
“Because there is to be a blizzard!”
This week the girls are observing and recording the dialogue of a different person in the family. (This can be dangerous, mamas, your own dialogue might show up in a story! Mookie said the Queen in her story would be saying, “Why are you bothering me? I didn’t fall asleep until five in the morning!” when the Princess Victoria went up to see her. I can’t imagine where she gets these ideas.)
Other Activities with Dialogue:
- After your child has recorded several days worth of dialogue have her write her observations, such as “run-on sentences, words that aren’t pronounced correctly” etc, on a notebooking page so that she can refer back to it for future assignments.
- Talk about the purpose of dialogue in a story, such as: it moves the plot along, it develops character, it helps you believe the story really happened.* Ask your children to find examples of dialogue in their current chapter books and decide what purpose the dialogue fills from the list above.
- Use story squares (two squares with characters), a painting or picture and ask them to create dialogue for the people in the picture. For an extra challenge, ask them to choose one of the purposes from the above list and show it through the dialogue.
- Talk about dialogue as you read aloud together. Point out bad dialogue and ask why it’s bad. Does it move the story along, does it sound believable to the age and background of the character?
*This list is taken from Julie Bogart’s Grammar and Literature Program, called The Arrow, in the unit on Half Magic.
Story Squares: A Project with Possibilities
The day of the birthday party arrived and two anxious girls asked me, “Did you find the woooden blocks so we can make our gift?”
“No I didn’t, but I have another idea.”
Disappointed that they couldn’t duplicate the story blocks that we’d made last year for our writing prompts, they took a little while to warm to my idea.
But eventually it caught on and they headed off to the party with a unique gift.
A few days later they followed it up with a similar, but customized, gift for their Dad.
We decided to call the gift Story Squares:
Using my paper cutter, I cut 1.5 inch squares from one full sheet of watercolor paper.
With a sharpie they drew characters, props, and places.
Then they watercolored the pictures.
With the fine point sharpie, they added a one or two word description on their picture in small print. (If you have young ones helping you with the project, you can do the labeling to help clarify the picture for others.)
After decorating a recycled box with a title,
we put these these directions inside:
Story Game: The first participant takes a square (without looking to see what it is). He/she begins the story, including the character, prop, or setting from their square in the story. The story continues through the circle of players, each participant using the picture they draw to carry the story along. Used squares remain in a pile and participants take fresh squares to continue another round.
Story Prompts for Writing: Draw three or more cards and begin writing a story, don’t stop for correct grammar or to get the right word, just write!
At the birthday party, the newly turned 12 year old opened the Story Squares first. Then she opened all of her other gifts and when she was finally done she picked up the Story Squares and said, “Can we try these?”.
So we had the chance to see our idea played out with a very large circle of girls. This kept them entertained for about thirty minutes, with several rounds as they mixed the cards and began again. One aspect that makes this fun is to have elements and characters that wouldn’t normally be found in a story together. There were some very funny moments when snow men popped up in castles or trolls ended up on a viking ship.The only rule I would add for next time is to include at least four to five sentences per turn in order to challenge your players past a dry and less imaginative, “And then the knight came”.
For their Dad’s birthday we brought our squares to our favorite pancake house and dove into stories of Yoda, Vikings, and Wizards (I said it was customized for their Dad right!)
Today the girls used the story squares for their friday freewrite and I’ll share a bit of that with you next time.
My ideas are brewing with variations on the Story Squares:
- Substitute a line of dialogue instead of a picture for some of the squares.
- Play the story game “Fortunately, Unfortunately” with the squares. An example: The first person draws a princess and says, “Fortunately, the princess was the most beautiful girl in the kingdom”. The next person draws an invisibility cloak, “Unfortunately, an evil wizard was secretly following her that day.” And the story continues by alternating “Fortunately” and “Unfortunately” on each turn.
- Mark the backs of the cards with P, C, and S (plot, setting and character) or color-code them and store them in separate groups for writing prompts.
- Creating theme sets such as “historical”, “fairy tale”, “favorite book characters”, based on school projects to extend our learning and narration.
- Mod Podge the squares to give then durability and a finished look.
Whether you make these for a gift or make them for your own family, I’d love to hear about it.
When Push Comes to Shove
(The assignment discussed in this post is from A Crow Doesn’t Need a Shadow: A Guide to Writing Poetry from Nature by Lorraine Ferra.)
One of the challenges of being the teacher is facing the sigh. The low groan. The roll of the eyes, when I announce a certain subject or assignment.
Along similar lines, it’s also difficult to watch a child struggle with a lesson and be the teacher who has to keep her on the road through the hard stuff.
By 9:30 our day had ricocheted way off track from our original school plan, punted by outside circumstances with my Dad that couldn’t be avoided. After lunch I gathered the grumpy, out-of-sorts crew (myself included) together to get started with school.
The atmosphere was not ripe for a poetry lesson. My ten year olds face looked so glum her frown was sliding off her chin like unset jello.
“We’re going to do a poem today about the weather.” I pointed to window, indicating the autumn day taking place outside.
A heave of the shoulders and then through tight teeth, “Fine.”
“First you’re going to make a list of action verbs associated with people.”
“What do you even mean!”
“Not common verbs, pick interesting ones like ‘swallow’ and ‘erase’.” Picture a lot of enthusiasm in my voice, I was attempting to transfer it with the right intonation.
“Then make another list of verbs associated with animals-”
“-I thought this was a poem about the weather!!” my 9 year old cried out, exasperated.
“It is. Just wait and see. Think of verbs like ‘pounce’ and ‘perch’.”
“It sounds hard,” my ten year old mumbled down to the floor.
Reader, this is is when it gets hard for me. I forget that struggle isn’t a thing to be avoided and the mama in me wants to do something to ease it. Especially when I’m the source of the frustration! But I knew they could get this assignment.
“You don’t have to use all of the verbs but use some of them to write a poem about the fall weather. Here’s an example by an 8 year old-
Wind
Wind nibbles
on the walls of the buildings.
When it hunts
in the forest it rubs its chin
on the trees
and wipes its mouth
on their leaves.
There was a slight lift in the frowns. I grabbed at the moment.
“Grab a sweatshirt and your notebooks and go outside.”
Reality set in, they were really going to have to do this assignment.
The cheer in my voice rose hoping to cajole their spirits up and out of the dumps.
“Here put on Daddy’s warm sweatshirt. You put on your big sister’s,” and then I added lightly, ”Guess we better have some hot chocolate in a little while since it’s cold out today.”
I admit it, that last bit was pure bribery coated in chocolate.
Turning to math with my six year old, I occassionally glanced at the girls sitting on the driveway with their notebooks.
Twenty minutes later we heard someone burst through the side door and then my ten year old appeared. Cheeks the color of gala apples, her dad’s sweatshirt hanging to her knees, and excitement buzzing around her entire body she said, “I’m finished!”
She waited. She wanted me to ask to hear the poem.
“Can I hear it?”
“Okay.”
Dramatic Pause. A rush of breath-
Sometimes the wind
is a message bearer, whispering
to the trees news of what
I do know know.
But some days the wind
is a wild cat, pouncing
on leaves and dragging
them to its lair.
Some mornings when I wake up,
the wind flies through the window
and burrows under my covers, driving
me out of bed and into my clothes.
The wind is its own person,
changing each day.
To me
the wind is alive.
She’d had that moment. That moment, determined to fail and yet looking at the wind, and giving it living breath on her page, she found out that with her own words the wind really was alive.
I tumbled into adulthood afraid of things that were hard. I didn’t want to try anything new, worried that it might take effort or might end in failure. It’s a fine line to walk as mom and teacher but when I get it just right between the “yes go do it” and the “let’s celebrate with hot chocolate” the results are worth the earlier struggle. I can see in the child a little more confidence and little less fear of the next challenge.
Resources for Teaching Poetry
Last year we really enjoyed our exploration of poetry. We tried out several poetic forms, read and copied favorite poems, and our 9 year old even won the local NPT story and illustrators contest for her collection of original poems. You can see a video of her art and poems here (she’s number 2 on the video list, “Jael”).
Although we often keep a tradition of “poetry tea time” that is popular amongst homeschoolers, we’re looking forward to once again delving deeper for the next six weeks.
One outward motivation is the River of Words Poetry and Art Contest which all of the kids would like to enter this year.
Here are some of the resources that already have me feeling inspired and we haven’t even started yet:
At the River of Words website you can download a poetry lesson guide for free. The guide suggests using a compilation of art and poetry they’ve published called River of Words: Young Poets and Artists on the Nature of Things. It’s twenty-one dollars on the website but I found it used on Amazon for only a few dollars.
Poetry Tag Time is a compilation of great poetry for children. The collection begins with a poem by Jack Prelutsky and then he “tagged” the next poet and she submitted a poem that was related/inspired by Prelutsky’s poem and so on as each poet tagged the next. Thirty poems in all are included and there are short explanations between poems as to how they’re related. If this doesn’t make sense (it didn’t to me right away), just go ahead and take a look.
The book is only published for use on Kindle and such, but I was able to download a free app to view it on my computer instead. I purchased this resource for a grand total of 2.99 on Amazon (no shipping of course since it’s digital). If you go to the Poetry Tag Time Blog, you will find suggested activities for each of the poems. This resource is going to help our poetry time stay accessible to our six year old. The same women that compiled Poetry Tagtime, also compiled a similar resource for teens called Poetry P*Tag.
A Kick in the Head, edited by Paul B. Janeczko, is an introduction to the main poetic forms, from haiku to cinquain and sonnet, to many other forms I’d never heard of before! Each page contains a poem along with more information about the form in small print on the page and an illustration by Chris Raschka. Janeczko has many poetry books worth looking at, but I highly recommend his other two books in this series, A Poke in the I and Foot in the Mouth.
Wishes, lies, and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry by Kenneth Koch has some interesting and simple ideas. At the end of last year, we wrote “I wish” poems and they revealed the unique hearts of each of us.
Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School by Georgia Heard is the best book I own on teaching poetry. It takes us beyond “just copy the form” to teaching the kids about expressing their heart, experiences, and reactions to the world through verse. Filled with exercises, poetry stations, editing suggestions, it was worth the full price that I paid on Amazon (I think there are used copies available now).
The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan is a story based on the childhood of poet Pablo Neruda. It’s a magical novel about words, dreaming, and following your passion.
Websites:
Poetry for Children, a blog by one of the creators of Poetry Tag Time, regularly posts new poetry books and novels written in verse. Many of her posts on poetry books include suggested activities to go along with the book.
Poetry at Play includes a Weekly Poet highlight, interviews, and articles on the world of poetry.
Notebooking Fairy, Jimmie’s other blog, has several free poetry notebooking pages. As a note, Jimmie’s collage is hosting 10 days of Language Arts, go check it out. In two more days, poetry will be the focus of her blog post.
Practical Pages inspires me in many ways, but one area is how her family “plays” with Poetry. Check her out-you’ll be hooked.
Find a source for nature poetry on this post.
Do you have any favorite poets you’ve studied in your home or other resources that have helped your poetry exploration?
Writing Beyond the Rules-Thornton Burgess
I hope you’ve already read some of this author’s work. If not, let me introduce you to a new friend who will bring nature into your home through stories. Thornton Burgess is known in a lot of homeschool circles, most often for his books The Burgess Book of Birds, The Burgess Book of Animals, and the Burgess Book of the Seashore. Though my eight year old most enjoys his thin chapter books such The Adventures of Reddy Fox.
For my own enjoyment I’ve been reading his autobiography, Now I Remember. I plan on marking some passages to read aloud to the kids this year, a bit of an author study as we read the Burgess Book of Animals to compliment our animal study this year.
The passage I want to share with you is less about nature, and more about his writing process.
“Do I make an outline? As I’ve already stated, I do not…
In school I was taught that in writing a story I should first make an outline, a plan or a plot, developing this as I went along. A good story must have a good plot preceding the writing of it. I agree with this all but the “preceding”. When I write a story it has a plot, afterward, not before. Of course I am wrong, but I am right-for me…
I gather that to the average writer a good preliminary plot is what a blueprint is to a builder or engineer. To me it is but a stumbling block. It gets in my way….
One of my greatest disappointments in life was to forego a college education. With my mother depending on me I had to go to work instead of college. Now, looking back, I can see that had a gone to college I might have fallen under the influence of professors who would have changed my whole train of thought, leading me to conform to their accepted and unquestionably correct rules governing self-expresssion and good writing. Thus might have been destroyed, or been sidetracked, such originality as I possess. As it was I was forced to work out my own salvation in a way. In doing so I developed a style peculiarly my own.”
(chapter 24, Now I Remember)
His thoughts spur on my efforts to release the voice of my children through the written word. I don’t have the way fully realized, but I don’t think I’m going to find it in a packaged Language Arts or Writing Curriculum-even though those clear steps seem so satisfying. If I hold off on workbooks and mechanics, and instead I remain in this place of discovery, a little bit of uncertainty (Burgess didn’t know how his story would end), I’m hoping they’ll end up as writers who write to communicate, rules optional.
So my plan? We’ll write. Often. It’s the same idea if you want to learn to draw-sketch everyday. Most people can learn to follow five steps to draw a proper bird, but not everyone will discover his or her own style:
Book Review: Bud, Not Buddy
A Book Review by Mookie, age 10
Bud Not Buddy, by Christopher P. Curtis, takes place in Flint, Michigan. Bud, the main character, is an African American boy who is only ten years old but still has lots of adventures. I thought the author did a wonderful job of writing this book.
Bud’s mom has died and his father is gone but his mom left him one clue about his dad. The clue is a blue flyer with a famous music band on the front. When Bud is sent to a foster home he is certain that to find his Dad he must escape, but it’s hard because his foster parents are really mean to him. When he does escape he must go to the city of Grand Rapids, so he tries to jump on a train but it goes too fast and he misses it. When he finds another way to Grand Rapids, he meets Herman E. Calloway, the famous band player from his blue flyer. Bud thinks Herman is his dad so he’s really surprised when Herman turns out to be his grandfather. Finally, Bud has a family.
The way the author described the characters made them seem real. Everybody says that Bud is skinny, but Bud always answers, “I’m not skinny, I’m just wiry.” I felt like I knew Bud more because Bud had written his own book, and he quotes from it.
“Rules and Things Number 327: When you make up your mind to do something, hurry up and do it, if you wait, you might talk yourself out of what you wanted in the first place.”
I was excited about what would happen next because Bud went on so many adventures, like the time his foster parents locked him in the shed and he got attacked by hornets and had to break the window to get out. I don’t think the author did a good job describing the setting because when Bud is in the city, I had to imagine everything about it. He doesn’t give any descriptions about the places or the landscape. This book was inspiring to me because I’m as old as Bud is in the book, so I feel like I can survive all of the adventures that he did. Bud, Not, Buddy is a book I would love to read again.
Mookie wrote this book report with the help of this ebook. It was her first attempt at a book report (or non-fiction writing in general), and she worked on it independently until the last stage of revision. She loved this book and wanted to share her review!
Calender Idea For Young Writers and Artists
The new year has begun, but maybe you have a blank spot on the wall crying out for a 2011 calender. Maybe you’ve realized you need one in the learning room, or maybe you’ll just like this idea and decide to make one for(or with) your kids, anyway.
Make-Your-Own Story Calender
Inspired by the calender my daughter created(which you’ll see below), I decided to make her a calender uniquely designed for her love of writing and stories. I decided this late in the night. On Christmas Eve. And it was Christmas Day at 3:30am as I finished the last page.
First I printed the 2011 calender on 12 individual sheets. Using a 10 x 12 Spiral Bound Bare Book(we just happened to have a few of these on hand, but they worked perfectly) I penned a writing prompt, added a series of lines and spaces for illustration on the top page, and on the opposite page I placed the calender page for the month. I repeated this same step for each month of the year.
The Bare book perfectly accommodates 12 months and it creates a sturdy, long lasting calender to hang on the wall. I’m sure there are other ways to make these calenders(cardstock, cardboard for the cover and back for example).
Now, keeping in mind that it was in the wee hours of the morning, I was glad to get a prompt, some lines, and illustration boxes on each page. I could certainly have fun going back and adding a punch of color and style with some scrapbook paper and stamps.
A few of the writing prompts:
- Think about the the books you’ve read recently. Choose your favorite or most interesting character, write a letter as if he/she is your friend.
- Re-tell a scene from Narnia, but tell it from the witch’s point of view.
- Tell a story about a dragon who tries to breathe fire, but colorful bubbles float out instead.
- List ten things you love. List ten things you don’t love.
- Write a story about four children who time travel and meet a famous person.
- Write a silly poem, similar to Shel Silverstein.
- Re-tell a scene from the Fellowship of the Rings, but tell it from Treebeard’s point of view.(This one was a bit of teaser for her because she’s reading this with her Dad and they haven’t gotten to his character yet, but I knew they would by July).
- Leaping, Stomping, Falling, Diving, Spinning. Use these seven words in a poem about you.
A mix of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. And each prompt ends with the command, “Illustrate”.
Color Your Own Calender
My daughter, the source of my inspiration, made a calender for her sister. Her sister loves to draw so she wrote drawing prompts for each month.
Draw two horses galloping very fast.
A few of the prompts she included:
- Draw a new candy bar that you have invented.
- Draw eight butterflies.
- Draw 3 aliens flying through space.
- Draw a ship sailing on the ocean.
- Draw all of your frogs.
- Draw a bookshelf full of books.
- Draw a huge hotel.
- Draw your dream house.
We should have no trouble keeping track of our year with four calenders in the house. And the creativity will be brewing.