Teachers Write 8/2 Thursday Quick-Write

Good morning, everyone!? I?m traveling this week into next week ? first to the annual Society of Children?s Book Writers & Illustrators Conference in Los Angeles, where I?ll give a workshop on ?The Magical Unexpected? in picture books and speak at the Golden Kite Awards Luncheon celebrating OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW and the other winners.? I?ll fly from there to the Millersville Writing Institute in Pennsylvania, where I?m presenting on writing and revision (and looking forward to spending time with amazing teacher-writers!) And then it?s on to St. Louis, where I?m speaking at a Scholastic Book Fairs event because CAPTURE THE FLAG and EYE OF THE STORM will both be featured in the fall book fairs, which delights me to no end.

Don?t worry ? all your assignments and quick-writes and everything else are scheduled and will appear as if by magic on the right days, even while I?m gone. But I will be checking in more sporadically than usual and wanted to let you know that I haven?t dropped off the face of the earth.? I?m probably just stuck in some airport with a dead laptop battery.

Anyway?you will have some great guest authors in my absence, starting with Kristy Dempsey today!? Kristy is a teacher, picture book author, and poet whose books include MINI-RACER (Bloomsbury), ME WITH YOU (Philomel), and SURFER CHICK (Abrams). Her website is http://www.kristydempsey.com/

At the end of this school year the first graders were studying the elements of story through fairy tales. We talked about imagination, we talked about the cultural aspects of fairy tales from around the world, we talked about what gave these characters believable qualities even though the stories themselves might have magical elements.

Toward the end of our unit we watched the film, ?A Little Princess?. I was rather amazed as the first graders identified that Sara?s locket and the importance it held for her made the story feel believable to them. One student even said, ?It?s like her locket held everything her daddy had ever given her and when Miss Minchin took it away from her, Sara knew she still had all that in her heart.? These first graders understood the importance of emotional truth!

Think of the physical item that is most important to your main character. What does it represent? Now, imagine it being lost or taken away from your main character. How would he/she respond? Sara Crewe?s response, of course, was fairly noble. But what if your character pitched a fit? Or what if he/she embarked on a series of misadventures to try to recoup what was lost? (In fact, one of the funniest scenes in the movie is when Sara?s friends enter Miss Minchin?s office to try to get the locket back.)

Write a scene that shows the emotional importance of this physical item to your main character and then show us how he/she responds when it is lost or taken. I can?t wait to read the serious or funny or fantastical emotionally true scenes you come up with!

Source: http://www.katemessner.com/teachers-write-82-thursday-quick-write/

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