KateMessner is the first to admit: writing with her students made her a mentor – and – a far better teacher.
Her
newest Stenhouse book, 59 Reasons toWrite, offers teachers 59 Mini-lessons - plus Q & A's, prompts, daily warm-ups and assignments, to help them become mentors and
better teachers, too.
Walking
the walk is suddenly doable – for all writers, classroom teachers or not.
An
outgrowth of her online summer writing camp Teachers Write, the book’s
purposefully designed to get us writing every day, whether on our own or as
part of a group.
Chapters
move from getting started to organizing our time and stories, through narrative
elements such as characters, point of view, voice, mood, setting, plot and pacing,
nonfiction and fiction needs and poetry to writer’s block, revising, critiquing
and reflection.
Everything
we ask of our students Kate and her “faculty” of award-winning authors ask of
us.
It’s
the luminous 52+ faculty members who both teach and inspire, underscoring how,
when it comes to writing, we’re all in this together.
Again,
walking the walk is suddenly doable, thanks to this insightful, comprehensive,
hands-on text.
And
who wouldn’t want to learn from
talents such as Linda Urban, Donna Gephart, Jo Knowles, Shutta Crum, Jenny
Meyerhoff and Barb Rosenstock, just to name a few?
I
was especially taken with the honest Q + A – The Best of the Q-And-A Wednesday
sessions from the online summer camp.
Again,
notables truthfully responded to a host of questions, including those about
intimidation, making and finding writing time, connecting with our characters,
handling point of view, the passage of time and too much description.
Tools,
short-cuts, exercises. The list of
writing aids goes on and on. Think Writer’s
Notebooks, three-column brainstorming, outlining, world building, selecting and
using mentor texts.
“Write,”
Kate tells her readers, “because you have things to say – arguments to make,
stories to tell, poems to share – and no one else in the world has your unique
voice with which to say them. And do it,”
she adds, “for the young writers you hope to inspire. In making time for your own writing, you’ll
be crossing a barrier, joining them as real, vulnerable members of a community
of writers.”
"Amen!" I say, along with "Thank you, Kate!"
59 Reasons to Write is a terrific follow-up to Real Revision, offering yet another valuable writing book for those of us lucky enough to be “TeachingAuthors” and writers.
59 Reasons to Write is a terrific follow-up to Real Revision, offering yet another valuable writing book for those of us lucky enough to be “TeachingAuthors” and writers.
Enjoy, learn and write!
Esther
Hershenhorn
Posts
3 comments:
Thanks for this review, Esther. Our library has 3 copies and they're all checked out! I'm on hold waiting my turn to read this book.
Esther, you're write, er, right. It's a great book. I use it with my creative writing students. And I always, ALWAYS write alongside my students. It's more fun that way!
There's a reason why there's a wait for this book at your library, Marti.
As Donna says,"it's a great book!"
It's what I call a WIN-WIN-WIN effort - for teachers who write, for the students they teach, for the community of writers they become.
Post a Comment