Gail Carson Levine's Writing Tips

Teachers love to beg, borrow, and steal ideas. Creative Writing is a lot of fun to teach, and Gail Carson Levine, a wonderful children's writer known for her novels Ella Enchanted, Fairest, The Two Princesses of Bamarre, and others.

Levine started sharing her writing tips on her blog. You can find it here. Eventually it led her to writing these two books, Writing Magic and Writer to Writer (From Think to Ink). 

I enjoyed reading Levine's books as a young girl. If I had a bad day, I would grab Ella Enchanted (one of the two copies I owned) off my book shelf and read it in one sitting. For this reason, and the trust publishers have for her, I respect the advice she gives in these two books.

Levine first wrote Writing Magic before Writer to Writer. However, I read them in the opposite order.

Photo from Amazon.com

This book is easy to read; it is fun and creative. It is easy to sit and read through, but you most enjoy it when you can take your time. As you read (she does this in both books), she ends each chapter with writing prompts.

It was a lot of fun reading about the writing process of an author that I've read several books of. For example, "[. . .] I don't think I did a better job with one heroine or the other [Ella and Addie]" (71).

Other than that, I enjoy stealing prompts from this book to ask students to write. Here are a few of my favorites. 

• "Superman gives up saving people. Write the turning point that pushes him in this direction" (73).
• "Visit your villain's childhood and write a flashback that shows how he became bad" (82).

The best way to read this book is when you can keep the copy of the book for awhile. Read a chapter, maybe two a day, and actually take the time to complete the prompts given to you.

A chapter that was particularly helpful for my own writing was Chapter 19. It explains how to make a nail-biting scene. You'll have to read it yourself for the specific details, but a helpful list: 

1. Time Pressure
2. Milestone
3. Thoughts
4. Nonstop Action
5. Separation from the Problem
6. Flaws in Characters
7. Isolation
8. Expectation
9. Injustice

This book gives a lot of fantasy examples. If you have the time, I recommend reading this book rather than Writing Magic. However, the advice and prompts given in each book is different.

Photo from gailcarsonlevine.com

As I began reading Writing Magic, I realized that I had read it before, when I was younger. As she advises, "Save what you write." I have a notebook somewhere (I'm not quite sure where) with some of these prompts and my own creative thoughts.

This book focuses on writing fantasy.

There were a couple of sections within the book who explains why people should write:
            Write to nurture yourself.
            Write to tell us about being you.
            Write to tell us about being human.
            There can never be too many stories. Add to the reservoir. (161)

My other favorite advice is what to do when we're stuck. When we've reached writer's block, write 12 options, both stupid and excellent, to find out where the story needs to go.

If you teach creative writing and want to share easy reads or ideas with your students, I recommend using these two books.

Opening Chapter: Intro to Responsive Classroom

My third year of teaching has begun, and I've started a new adventure teaching a self-contained 6th grade. With that, I've learned many new skills and strategies.

We've, my 6th graders and I, have had a great start to our school year, and part of that is due to my introduction to Responsive Classroom. 

The goal of this classroom approach is to create a positive learning environment that encourages not only academic growth, but also social and emotional.

You can learn about this resource yourself on their website: https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/ 

The first expectation is to hold a morning meeting. There are four components to morning meeting:

1. A Morning Message displayed when the students enter the classroom to welcome them and possibly present them with a warm-up/review activity for the day.
2. In a circle, have students Greet each other. These can vary each day, sometimes serious and teaching them how to greet others formally or ask them to greet each other in accents.
3. Next, students have the opportunity to Share. This is very similar to what I knew as "Show and Tell" during my elementary days. My students sign up to share each morning. Most of them share important events that are happening in their lives. Other students are encouraged to ask questions or relate to the student sharing. The goal is to create an environment where students are comfortable and confident. They also hope that students learn to be empathetic. 
4. Then we do an Activity together. These can vary. Some may be educational and relate to current lessons, or they can simply be fun. My 6th graders love playing Simon Says; Do What I Said, Not What I Say; In the Club; or sing goofy songs together.
5. As a class, we return to the Morning Message. 

This is a fantastic start to our day, and I love that we always have a positive start to our day.  Here is a greeting activity that we sometimes do on Fridays. The students all put one shoe into the middle, and one student starts by grabbing a shoe, and they must guess until they find the owner. This is the person they greet, and that person then grabs a shoe. The last person greets whoever started.

The other great start to our year, recommended by Responsive Classroom, was to write our class rules together. We did this in steps throughout the first week of school.

          Day 1: We determined what our Hopes and Dreams, our goals, were for the school year.

          Day 2: We brainstormed what Rules and Expectations would be necessary for us to achieve our Hopes and Dreams.

          Day 3: We organized our rules into Three Categories, but I didn't tell the students what each of the categories were about. Then, as a class we had to summarize the group of words into a Rule/Expectation.

          Day 4: In small groups, my students create Displays of their rules to remind them of their expectations for the school year.

Here are the rules that my students wrote: 

Walking into our classroom, you might not know what these rules mean, so let me explain.

1. The Golden Rule: Respect Yourself and Others

2. The Silver Rule: Respect Property

3. The Bronze Rule: Respect Our Work

This is how my 6th graders summarized our rules.

The addition that I also practiced with this was the reading of RJ Palacio's Wonder. Here we were able to relate our rules to the characters in the story and how they might benefit from using our rules.

My students are in love with this novel! Some even ordered a copy from our Scholastic Book Order. 

What have you done to have a positive start to your school year?

Writing Lessons for Students and Teachers: Kelly Gallagher's "Write Like This"

Seventh grade students throughout the room are working on either handwritten or typed drafts of their research essays in Writers Workshop. Each student chose their own topic from a reliable news resource. On the white board is a list of students patiently waiting for Ms. Hansen to answer their queries.

Ms. Hansen: (restraining herself from pulling on her hair) Why is teaching writing so hard?

Franklin*: (laughs) I don't know, Ms. Hansen. Why do you teach it if it's hard?

Patricia*: But we're getting it! We will.

Ms. Hansen: (sign) The only way this will get easier is by practicing.

Franklin: Maybe it isn't teaching writing that's hard; maybe it's who you're teaching!

Ms. Hansen: Franklin.

Franklin: (with wide eyes) That's not what I meant! I meant this would be easier if we were, like, seniors.

Patricia: But it would be hard then if we didn't learn it now.

*Student names have been changed.

Teaching writing is hard. It is time consuming. It is energy draining. However, it is also an important life skill of communication that students will need in all their post-secondary endeavors, whether they choose to attend college, accept a job, take over the family business, or wherever their dreams take them.

Because teaching students to write is such an important skill, it requires us to teach authentic types of writing. I do know that there is a place for writing literary essays and book reviews, but what about the big R in the room? Relevance. Students need to see why writing is relevant, and this makes it authentic. 

Essential question: How is writing relevant to our students and their post-secondary lives?

As a language arts teacher, the list seems quite extensive. I have a favorite mini-lesson related to this that I used with seventh graders where they must discover how they would use writing and other forms of communication in their dream jobs, but I'll save that for another post.

How I started to see writing as relevant was through Kelly Gallagher's book Write Like This.

Published in 2011, I first purchased this book the summer of 2014 before my first year teaching, so some of you may already be well-aware of this treasure of a book. If not, I encourage you to invest. I love the library, but this is one to keep on your shelf.

I will be honest, I have been using this book for two full years, but I did not finish reading it entirely until June of this year. 

Teachers are busy, and reading an entire book just may not fit into our schedules. The introduction to this book provided excellent background that helped guide my use of it. Gallagher explains six purposes for writing, which teachers can quickly align with Common Core writing standards. 

He then explains each purpose individually with separate chapters. This is where you find the real gold: example writing assignments. For two years, I pulled mini and full lessons along with unit assignments from within this book without reading it entirely. This was an invaluable resource as a new writing teacher.

The different purposes for writing are worded in an authentic manner, not just the standard "creative," "informative," and "argumentative" that we often see in our standards. The variety of language and also the different organization and format of the assignments presented throughout seem more realistic not only to students, but also to me as a teacher.

Here is an example of my annotations from when I first purchased the book: 

Unfortunately, these notes are not descriptive, so I found myself still rifling through extra pages before finding what I needed for the week. When I decided to read the book in it's entirety, I created a digital Table of Contents/T-Chart for my notes:

I cannot wait to see how helpful these notes are in the upcoming years!

Need help organizing your notes? Here's a blank digital copy for you! It's a Google Doc, so make a copy and annotate away!

What invaluable resources do you have for teaching writing?