Wednesday Writing Workout: 30-Day Challenge Results

My "30-Day Boost Your Writing Productivity Challenge" ended yesterday, March 1. I'm happy to report that, for me, it was a great success!

My original goal, which I shared on January 27, was a modest one--to spend at least 2 hours/week on my work-in-progress. As I reported on February 10, I got off to a shaky start. But I stuck with it, and, as you can see from the Toggl app report I've copied below, I ended up spending 24 hours and 40 minutes on the project over the 30 days. What's even better, I completed the revision and have sent the manuscript off to 3 beta readers for review! I am thrilled! This is a project I've been dragging my feet on for months. It's wonderful to finally have it finished.

Now I'd like to hear from you.

Wednesday Writing Workout:
30-Day Boost Your Productivity Challenge Results Report

If you participated in the "30-Day Boost Your Writing Productivity Challenge," give us YOUR final results report via a comment to today's blog post, on our TeachingAuthors Facebook page, or in an email to teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com.

I'm hoping many of you were successful in meeting your goals. But even if you didn't accomplish all your goals, I hope you'll give yourself credit for trying.

Happy writing! And happy reading, too, since today is NEA's Read Across America Day! What are you reading these days?

Carmela

Listen Up! It's Time to Read - ALOUD!

March 1 found my fellow Teaching Author Jeanne Marie Grunwell Ford’s daughter Kate Ford, only 4 11/12, writing across America.
March 2 found her, dressed Seusssationally, reading across America.
Today, March 3, Kate can celebrate literacy all around the world by reading aloud her Once Upon A Time story.
Happy World Read Aloud Day!

Not to worry if you know neither the day nor LitWorld, its sponsoring organization.
Both were unknown to me until I heard Pam Allyn passionately address the Anderson’s Bookshop’s 8th Annual Children’s Literature Breakfast two Saturdays ago in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, sharing her life’s work and recent teacher literacy training sessions in Africa.

Pam serves as the Executive Director of LitWorld, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing quality education to the world’s most vulnerable children, as well as of LitLife, a nationally-recognized organization that specializes in transformative school improvement through literacy education. She also recently authored What to Read When: The Books and Stories to Read with Your Child (Penguin/Avery, 2009).

Pam invited the 750 Breakfast-gathered authors, teachers, librarians and young readers to celebrate World Read Aloud Day today - to join the global literacy movement that works to ensure that every child, in every part of the world, is given the right to read stories, hear stories and write the stories of their lives.

I graciously extend that invitation to you.

Visit the LitWorld website to discover a variety of suggested activities and opportunities – for teachers, parents, family members, librarians, children.
Or simply read aloud – to your children, students, grandchildren, friends, at a school or library, in your home or Senior Citizen facility.
Choose your favorite book, your favorite poem, a book you’ve just discovered, a favorite blogger’s post.
Even read aloud, for your ears only, your latest revision of your work-in-progress!

Writers are readers.
But how many of us became readers because someone in our lives read aloud to us?
At the Anderson’s Children’s Literature Breakfast, two guest authors described their teachers’ reading of E.B. White's Charlotte’s Web as life-changing.
I still hold a visual of the blue braided oval reading rug in my beloved teacher Miss Patton’s Kindergarten room. I still recall the day she read us The Ugly Duckling.
I read aloud to every fifth grade class I taught, every day, for fifteen minutes. Several of my students, now grown and parents, to my surprise recalled each and every title.
My writing class read alouds include picture books and novels.

What read-aloud books do you recall?
And who were the readers who lovingly read them?
Who helped you read and hear stories?  Who helped you write the story of your life?
Maybe find a moment to write one of those readers a Thank You note.
(Today would be perfect.)
Then, read that note aloud.

Happy World Read Aloud Day!

Esther Hershenhorn
p.s.

Looking for a good book to read-aloud and/or tips to keep your listeners listening?

Check out Reading Is Fundamental, ReadAloud and Jim Trelease’s and Esme Codell’s Read Aloud Bibles.

Writing Across America

A co-worker called me on Friday en route to Target.  I was jealous (I unabashedly adore Target) until he told me the purpose of his trip -- to get materials for his kindergartener's "Dr. Seuss book costume."  Being a practical parent, he was going the simple route -- posterboard to make green eggs and ham. 

Of course all the teachers among us know that tomorrow marks Dr. Seuss' birthday and the NEA's annual Read Across America Day.  How many parents have been scrambling for materials to make extravagant tributes to Dr. Seuss? 

As a kid, I was never (sacrilege, I know) a huge Seuss fan.  Neither are my own children, though "Dibble dibble dop" is one of our very favorite nonsensical things to say.  However, Green Eggs and Ham was the basis of one of the most moving television scenes ever, IMO -- on St. Elsewhere -- so I am probably the only person I know who thinks of Dr. Seuss and instantly wants to cry.

My daughter, at age 4 and 11/12, just last night read a whole REAL book at bedtime for the first time.  Oh, the excitement in our household!  Of course no one was more excited than she.  (Once upon a time, she worried that learning to read would mean that she would no longer be READ TO.  I think she has finally overcome this fear.) 

Kate goes to a Montessori school, and one of the precepts of the curriculum, I recently discovered, is that kids typically learn to write before they learn to read.  Perhaps some of you early childhood educators could shed some light on this concept.  At any rate, Kate has been using a "moveable alphabet" to sound out words since she was three.  Her spelling is atrocious, but her sense of phonics is pretty impressive.  Just this week she brought home her first story:

Translation:
Then, the fire-breathing dragon put her in a cage.  Later, the princess saw a police.  Finally, the police put the princess out of the cage.

I'm so proud of my little author!

My mother had to point out the anachronism of police and fire-breathing dragons co-existing, but she didn't seem to have a problem with the amusement park. :)

I will tell you what I love about Kate's school.  I love that her teachers don't correct her spelling.  I love that they encourage creativity and allow her to think for herself.  And I really, really love this exercise.  It teaches beginning, middle, end.  First, next, last.  Story structure!  The rule of threes!  It gives encouragement and prompts, but it leaves the bulk of the imagining to the child.  Between fire-breathing dragons and princesses, what four-year-old boy or girl would not be engaged in the topic?  The next day, Kate had to create an advertising slogan for a perfume for skunks.  The result was unprintable, but again -- genius!

I don't know when it is that writing -- and often reading -- start to become a chore, something to be dreaded.  But for some kids, obviously the joy persists.  I pray that my daughter will always come home and say, "I need a pencil.  I want to write a story!"

--Jeanne Marie