Reading Aloud for Maximum Impact

With picture books, you can read aloud the entire book fairly fast.  Not so with the type of books I write--long nonfiction books.  As I write these I will occasionally read aloud sections that I’m working on to get the feel of how it flows.  But they are way too long to read it aloud in one sitting.

Most often my experiences with reading aloud takes place at school visits.  Sometimes my host school asks me to talk about the topic of one particular book.  Sometimes they ask me to talk about research or close reading.   At least once during a school visit, I read aloud to the audience-regardless of their age.  To do this I set up the context of the scene so it will make sense. 

Take for example my book 

Something Out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium.   

In this book, I want the reader to see Curie as a woman first, and scientist second.  I explain who Marie Curie is and what she has done.  Then I read aloud the section of the book when Marie comes home to find out that Pierre has been suddenly killed in an accident.  I want listeners and readers to feel her loss as she grieves the loss of her beloved husband and co-worker.  In cases like this one, hearing the scene read aloud is more moving that reading it silently would be.  Next I cover the fact that she continued her work regardless of her grief and was awarded her second Nobel Prize for it.  Again, I want them to get that Curie was a woman first and scientist second. 

  
Carla Killough McClafferty

Reading Aloud: Magic for Readers and Listeners

Mem Fox’s Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever explains the importance of reading aloud to children to help them develop their own reading skills. She describes some of the benefits:

“Children who realize in their first few weeks and months of life that listening to stories is the purest heaven; who understand that books are filled with delights, facts, fun, and food for thought; who fall in love with their parents, and their parents with them, while stories are being shared; and who are read aloud to for ten minutes a day in their first five years, usually learn to read quickly, happily, and easily. And a whole lot of goodness follows for the entire community.”

Fox details the simple techniques she recommends for reading aloud to children, the benefits they reap in speaking skills, and the three secrets that help readers “get the message.”

I have such fond memories of reading with our kids that some of their favorite books are still on my bookshelves today. After all these years, I could probably recite long passages by heart from gems like these:

Jamberry 

 Can’t You Sleep, Little Bear

Grandfather Twilight 

 The Salamander Room 

Oh, the Places You’ll Go  

 John Henry

Reading with our two sons was a magical experience for me, too. Thinking of them, I’m posting a favorite poem from a collection I remember enjoying together, The Llama Who Had No Pajama: 100 Favorite Poems by Mary Ann Hoberman.

  

Brother

I had a little brother
And I brought him to my mother
And I said I want another
Little brother for a change.

But she said don’t be a bother
So I took him to my father...

Read the rest of the poem (and others) on the Poetry Foundation site.

April began this Teaching Authors series with a post about the joys of listening. Bobbi’s contribution focused on imagination. Be sure to check them out, too, if you haven’t yet. Also be sure to Like our Teaching Authors Facebook page.

Elizabeth Steinglass is hosting today’s Poetry Friday Roundup. Enjoy!

JoAnn Early Macken

To Catch the Magic

I so loved April’s discussion, using listening to learn the art of language, rhythm and pacing. April reminds us “to catch the magic.”

The process of listening gives us access not only to the word but to the substance of the word.



Listening to stories is more than just about the craft, or the illustrations that embellish the craft. It’s about learning to engage the imagination. As Nigel Sivey (How Art Made the World, 2005), “… the art of humans consists in our singular capacity to use our imaginations. “

We know stories are the oldest invitations to the human experience. Humans have told stories for over 100,000 years. Every culture in the history of the world has created and told stories. While not every culture has codified laws or a written language, all of them have told stories.

Some researchers suggest that stories predate language (Kendall Haven's Story Proof, 2007).  That is to say, language was created after the story was imagined in order to give the story a voice. The power of the imagination is uniquely human. Birds sing, and some can even dance. But naturalists know that it is not their imaginations at work.

Rather, it’s their energetic rites of spring. Some gorillas have been taught sign language. But it was human imagination that created the language.

Albert Einstein used mathematics to develop a model for understanding the nature of physical science. But he used his imagination – using his famous thought experiments -- to make the leap to his breakthrough thinking about the space-time continuum and the nature of light.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” --Albert Einstein

Imagination is key to innovation. Not just in creating elaborate theories that explain gravitational waves. Imagination creates empathy, allowing one to connect emotionally to someone's experience. It helps find creative solutions to stubborn problems. It broadens our perspectives about our own limited reality. Imagination allows us to look beyond ourselves.

Listening, especially active listening in which one accesses and evaluates the sounds, taps directly into and engages the imagination. And like any muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it becomes.

As we celebrate World Read Aloud Day this week, choose your favorite read aloud and exercise your imagination!

Don’t forget to checkout Teaching Authors on Facebook!

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” -- W.B. Yeats

 Bobbi Miller

(ps. All photos provided by Morguefile.com!)

Just Listen

.
Howdy, Campers!  

Happy Poetry Friday!  The link to PF and my own poem are below.

Our new topic, beginning today, is Reading Aloud, because World Read Aloud Day is on February 24th and Read Across America is on March 2nd. And to round that out, check out StoryCorps' National Day of Listening.

One of my cherished memories of reading aloud was when my poetry teacher, Myra Cohn Livingston read poetry to us for long stretches of time. Nothing was expected of us. We’d simply lean back, listen, luxuriate in each word.

Myra taught me to read every poem aloud twice: first to hear it, then to feel it.

As I began thinking about reading aloud, I remembered how, many years ago, my friend Erica Silverman used listening to learn the craft of writing children's books.

Now Erica is a multi-multi-award winning author of  over twenty children's books, including Raisel's Riddle, Don't Fidget a Feather, Liberty's Voice - The Story of Emma Lazarus, When the Chickens Went on Strike, Big Pumpkin, the Cowboy Kate and Cocoa series, and the newest in her Lana's World series, Let's Have a Parade. (See this page of her website for all Erica's books.)

When I asked Erica how listening helps her write, she wrote:

Long ago, when I started writing picture books, cassette recorders were large and clunky. Tape wore out or broke. But I took my cassette recorder with me in the car. There it sat, on the passenger seat, ready to catch my barely-baked ideas as they came bumbling out. There it sat, ready to play back my rambling mass of words, the start of a long process of revision.

This was safer than putting pen to paper while driving (should writers even be issued drivers licenses?) But I realized that blathering into a tape recorder was not just for road trips. Turned out it was a useful way to tiptoe past the gauntlet of sneering critics that gather at my blank page daily, waiting to pounce.

And what a great learning device! When I discover a great picture book or early reader, I record it. And then I listen over and over - for rhythm, language, pacing. To catch the magic, to ponder what works.

My ancient cassette recorder is retired now. But the voice recorder on my iPhone is with me always, ready to catch my barely-baked ideas as they come bumbling out.

What terrific ideas.  I particularly love the idea of recording picture books and then listening to them as you drive. Thank you, Erica! (Perhaps those self-driving cars were created with writers in mind...?)

I used the word "listen" as a prompt for Poetry Friday:

DON'T LISTEN
by April Halprin Wayland 

Don't listen to them, said the anteater.

There's no use worrying about Jaguar.

There's no use working yourself into a lather

About what Jaguar will do to you.

Place your ants in neat rows.

Push the recalcitrant ones in line with a stick.

Stuff moss in both your ears.

Don't listen to their many-legged chatter about Jaguar.

It's Man

You need to worry about.

drawing and poem (c) 2016 by April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.

==============================

And thank you, Donna, at Mainely Write, for hosting today!

And one more thing, Campers: consider liking our Facebook page. We'd love you to join us!

written with frost-bitten ears by April Halprin Wayland, from New York City after the SCBWI Winter Conference

Roses are red, violets are blue…

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I ♥ choosing words.

Such magic!

Who knew?

With Cupid dominating February’s beginning weeks, we TeachingAuthors this time around are appropriately sharing what we love about writing.

April loves the Writerly Peeps who keep her writing.

Bobbi loves the fully-dimensional villains who wreak havoc with their heroes. 

JoAnn loves the Magic the act of writing creates.

For Carmela, slipping into the "skin of story" fills her with joy.

For Carla, research wins her heart.

Were I writing a List Poem entitled “All I Love About Writing,” each of my fellow TA’s above loves would claim a line.

I’d also include:

·       that delicious flow that envelopes me once all parts of me are engaged in the writing process, allowing me to get lost, and even better, somehow found;

·       the characters who tell me their stories, many of whom have yet to live in others’ hearts but certainly hold a place in mine - Lissy, Yitsy, Leo, Moses, that troop of orphans from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition;

·       the young writers and readers I’ve come to know;

·       and my “storied treasures” whom I teach and coach.

Writing – the learning, the honing, the process, the craft, and writing within the Children’s Book World, continue to gift me on a daily basis.

What I love the most, though, is the choosing of words.

Words that “lingered in my fingers,” as JoAnn so poetically put it, or “that poured from my pen.”

Words, that when ordered, help me speak my heart.

I did not know when I first began writing for children in earnest how writing would help me uncover my voice, that first person singular pronoun “I.”

How writing would help me recover that voice.

How writing would then help me discover my story.

There are all those words tumbling out, to be turned and twisted, held this way and that, pushed here, pushed there, ’til in time they find their rightful place.

Miraculously, what was once inside me – in my head, in my gut, in my heart, beneath my skin, slowly, bravely, makes its way out and onto the paper.

And if I’m lucky, into the World.

Think the prefix “ex” in what we do when we write – i.e. “express,” i.e. “press out.”

As I remind Young Writers in S IS FOR STORY, 

“You choose the words.  You wave the wand.  You make the magic.”

Here’s to writing and all it brings us!

Esther Hershenhorn

p.s.

Remember to check out the ongoing 30-Day Boost Your Productivity Challenge to make sure you’re maximizing your writing time.

The Joy of Writing

In honor of Valentine's Day, the TeachingAuthors team has been blogging about love--not romantic love, but the love that fuels our writing. Since today is Poetry Friday, I considered composing a personal "Ode to Writing." But I'm short on time, so I'll be sharing an excerpt from Wisława Szymborska's "The Joy of Writing" instead. You'll find a link to this week's Poetry Friday round-up at the end of this post, along with some information about updates to our website. If you have a child or student who likes to write poetry, you'll be especially interested in a new link I've added.

I often hear my students complain, "Writing is hard!" No doubt, parts of it can be. And, being human, we tend to focus on the negative. However, research shows that being happy in our work can help us to be more productive.

If you've been following this blog, you know I'm in the midst of a "30-Day Boost Your Writing Productivity Challenge," so this topic fits right into my efforts to increase my personal productivity. (For my 10-day progress report, see this blog post.)

So what part of writing do I love most? It's immersing myself in a fictional world. As Jane Yolen says in "Take Joy: A Writer's Guide to Loving the Craft" (Writer's Digest Books) :

"Writing takes us into another, brighter, deeper, more engaging world than the world we actually live in."

Reading often does the same thing, but when I write, the world is my creation. For me, that act of creation is often a spiritual process. As Yolen says a little later in Take Joy:

"The writer in the midst of writing, like the penitent in the midst of prayer--finds the self falling away. Or getting out of the way. Only when we slip out of our writer bodies do we truly don the skin of story."

I love slipping into the "skin of story." I can easily spend hours there. In fact, I get so immersed in the process that I have to set a timer to remind myself to stop for lunch, appointments, etc. The fictional world becomes that real to me. And while I'm living in it, my heart is filled with joy.

While working on this blog post, I suddenly remembered the wonderful poem "The Joy of Writing" by Nobel Laureate and Polish poet Wisława Szymborska. I was tempted to reproduce the entire poem here--it's not that long. However, I worry that might be copyright infringement. So I've copied only the opening stanza below. You can find the rest of the poem, and an interesting commentary on it, at Storyacious magazine.

          excerpt from The Joy of Writing

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
For a drink of written water from a spring
whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.
Silence – this word also rustles across the page
and parts the boughs
that have sprouted from the word “woods.” . . .

by Wislawa Szymborska, Translated by S Barańczak  & C. Cavanagh
© Wislawa Szymborska, S. Barańczak & C. Cavanagh

As promised, here's the link to today's Poetry Friday round-up at Kimberley Moran's blog, Written Reflections.

If you're reading this post on our website, you may have noticed that I've revised the sidebar to include the cover of a brand new TeachingAuthors picture book to be released soon, as well as a link for readers to "like" our page on Facebook.

I've also added links to some new opportunities on our Young Writers page. If you know any writers under the age of sixteen who write poetry, you may want to consider submitting their work for inclusion in the Rattle Young Poets Anthology. Poems must be submitted by a parent/legal guardian or teacher. Submission deadline: June 15, 2016.

Remember to "Take Joy" in your writing!
Carmela

Wednesday Writing Workout: Day 10 Challenge Upate

Back on January 27, I posted a Wednesday Writing Workout inviting you to join me in a "30-Day Boost Your Productivity Challenge" I was starting on February 1. Today, on the tenth day of the challenge, I'll share a quick progress report.

I have to confess: my "30-Day Boost Your Productivity Challenge" got off to a shaky start. My goal was to spend at least 2 hours/week on my current WIP. To make time for that goal, I'd planned to get up 15 minutes earlier, six days a week.

image courtesy of DeviantArt

But when the alarm went off early on Monday, Feb. 1, I just couldn't seem to drag myself out of bed. I went back to sleep and didn't work on my WIP at all that day. L

However, the good news is that Tuesday went much better. I got into a morning routine that lasted the rest of the week and I ultimately exceeded my goal by working 2 hours and 35 minutes on my WIP. Yeah!

Also, I'd originally said I'd track my work time in an app called Timesheet that I'd blogged about in this post. However, I found another (FREE!) app called Toggl I like even better that allows me to track my time on my computer or phone. Toggl also produces wonderful reports that make it extremely easy to see how much time I've spent on a specific project on a particular day, week, month, etc. You can find Toggl here.  

Now, it's your turn.

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

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

You're welcome to join in even if you didn't start on Feb. 1--pick whatever 30-day time period works for you.

Happy writing!

Carmela      

Something I Love About Writing

In the month of February, TeachingAuthors are giving a nod to Valentines Day with posts about something we love about writing.  April Halprin Wayland wrote about how her “writerly peeps” keep her going with their support. Bobbi Miller wrote about the humanity of villains and the critical role they play in fiction.  JoAnn Early Macken wrote about creative thoughts that circle around in an authors mind and find their way onto the page. 

I exclusively write nonfiction books, so what I love about writing is the research.   I love finding details about my topic in countless places.  Recently I explained it like this:  

I’m looking for a single needle in each haystack, 

and there are thousands of haystacks to look through.  

I love the challenge of figuring out how to weave random facts into a book form and knowing that it is original and unique. 

One example of a research moment that will live on in my memory happened about a week ago.  I just returned from a long research trip to Mount Vernon, George Washington’s historic home.  I’m working on an upcoming book titled BURIED LIVES (Holiday House) about Washington’s slaves.   At the amazing Fred W. Smith Library for the Study of George Washington, at Mount Vernon, I was allowed to see rare collections that are not digitized.  I needed to see material relating to what happened to the slaves after the deaths of George and Martha Washington.

In the document room at the Fred W. Smith National Library
for the Study of George Washington, at Mount Vernon.
To see a virtual tour of the library:
To see a virtual tour of the library, click here.

I saw many incredible documents during my research, but the one that meant the most to me was the actual handwritten document that listed where the enslaved people who belonged to Martha’s estate went after her death.   I’ve already done a lot of research into the lives of individuals.  So when I saw this document, it brought tears to my eyes.  Among many other names, I saw the names of Caroline (Martha’s housemaid) and her children, as well as Christopher Sheels (George’s valet).  Both Caroline and Christopher were in the room as George Washington lay dying.  After Martha’s death, they were given as inherited property to Martha’s grandson George Washington Parke Custis-who built Arlington House (now part of Arlington National Cemetery).   Beside their names on that list was their monetary value.   

For every nonfiction book I write, I must emotionally bond with the people I write about.  And I have surely bonded with Caroline and Christopher and Billy Lee and Frank Lee, and Lucy, and Oney and Hercules and many, many others.  No longer are their names just an interesting fact to me.  Now I know their families, and what sort of work they did, and who was eventually freed and who was never free.   

Now that they are real to me, I want them to come to life through the pages of my book. 

To make that happen, 

I’ve got to search through a lot of haystacks. 

I was snuggled in at Mount Vernon through BLIZZARD 2016!  

Carla Killough McClafferty

One Thing I LOVE About Writing

Sometimes when I put my purple Pentel pen to a page in a spiral notebook, something happens that’s greater than the sum of its parts. A chemical reaction. Fusion. Synergy. Okay, call it Magic. Thoughts pour out that I’m not even aware of thinking.

That’s my favorite thing about writing.

Long ago, in a lecture at Vermont College of Fine Arts, Ron Koertge told us about someone who called himself an amanuensis to the air. An amanuensis is someone who takes dictation. I love that concept! I don’t remember who that inspired writer was, but I thought about him when I wrote this poem.

Staring Out the Window 

I’m staring out the window,
but I don’t see a thing.
I’m searching for that fresh perspective
staring seems to bring. 

I hear a quiet whisper
right into my ear.
I feel that welcome tingle.
A new idea’s here! 

It circles round inside me,
from mind to heart and then
it lingers in my fingers, and
it pours out from my pen.

I’m the third Teaching Author to address this February Valentine-themed topic of One Thing I Love About Writing. April started us off with a tribute to those writerly peeps who support us and tell us the truth. I am all in on that subject—in fact, I think I might have chosen it if I had gone first.

Bobbi sang the praises of villains in a post that made me look at bad guys in a different way. I love when that happens!

Don’t forget about our 30-Day Boost Your Productivity Challenge. More details are here. Procrastinators like me can start any time. Please join us!

Today’s Poetry Friday Roundup is at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Enjoy!

JoAnn Early Macken

Villains are People, too!

Alan Rickman as Severus Snape
 (Fair Use; Copyright owned
by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film) )

April began this discussion on what we love about our writing. One of my favorite writing things is – believe it or not – the villain! As we know, fiction is primarily an emotional exchange. The reader stays connected to the hero because she feels her story. Madeleine L’Engle (“The Heroic Personality,” Origins of Story, 1999) offers that the heroic personality is human, not perfect.


Not infallible or impeccable or faultless. Human. This sense of authenticity is important in keeping the reader connected to your story.


But a hero is only as good as the villain of the story. You could say that you cannot have a good story without a good villain. Who would Beowulf be without Grendel? Frodo with Sauron? Oliver Twist without Bill Sykes? Peter Pan without Captain Hook? Jim Hawkins without Long John Silver?


The hero needs opposition to make her story worthwhile. While the antagonist may simply be one who disagrees with the hero’s tactics, the villain is dedicated to the destruction of the hero. Christopher Vogler (Writer’s Journey, 1992) describes the difference: “Antagonists and heroes in conflict are like horses in a team pulling in different directions, while villains and heroes in conflict are like trains on a head-on collision course.” 

Like the hero, villains need motivation. If the plot is what happens to a character, then motivation is the force that sets it into motion and keeps it going. It’s why the villain goes after her goal in the first place. Villains have a history. And this history influences her motivation. Unless the villain was born evil, and few people are, villains are born human. Dean Koontz once offered that the best villains evoke pity, even sympathy, as well as terror. Sympathy for a villain, according to James Scott Bell (Revision and Self-Editing, 2008), deepens a story. A bully doesn’t pick on someone just to be mean. Why did he become a bully?

 Remember, Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies wasn’t always evil. In the beginning, he was an innocent, precocious and enslaved child, who grew to a teenager losing faith in his parental figures as he feared for the survival of his love, followed by his ultimate downfall when he was seduced by the dark force. We see the evolution of his evilness. But that’s not the end of his story, as we also witness his redemption when he meets his son, Luke Skywalker.

And remember Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein monster was a sensitive, emotional creature driven by despair and loneliness to acts of cruelty.


In the end, villains are people, too! 

One of my favorite villains is smooth-talking Long John Silver. He’s so personable, but Long John is greedy and cunning to the core. Ruthless and violent, he has the brains behind the scheme to recover Captain Flint's treasure. Had it succeeded he probably would have found a way to make off with the loot and leave his shipmates to face the gallows. Except, he developed a soft spot for Jim. He saved Jim. A villain with a heart.

Jim, Long John Silver and his Parrot by en:w:N. C. Wyeth from 1911 edition of en:Treasure Island

Another of my favorite villains is found in Gar-Face, from The Underneath written by Kathi Appelt. He is as mean as they come. Kathi didn’t back away from the hardness of such a broken character. Kathi once shared the backstory of her character Gar Face. He was actually based on someone Kathi knew as a child. Both Gar Face and the real person didn’t have an easy life growing up. The hardness of life broke the character, and the man that inspired him. As she explained, “I don’t think [the real man] sought [redemption] at all, and there’s a part of me that feels that redemption must be sought. I lost track of the real person behind Gar Face, but I don’t recall him ever seeking anything like kindness, nor did he offer much of it. Of course, my memory of him is that of a little girl, so I’m sure there were things I never knew.”

Another favorite villain is Harry Potter’s Severus Snape. Snape’s love of Lily, Harry Potter’s mother, is at the core of his motivation. Snape’s early involvement in Voldemort’s world, as a Death Eater and as Dumbledore’s spy, created the backstory for his choices, with tragic results.

“I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter’s son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter —” (JK Rowling, Severus Snape, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

This spy-role meant that he would never have the chance to move on from his love for Lily. It was this capacity for love that made him so heroic, a villain who sacrificed the most important things in life to protect the son of the person whom he loved,  a person who could never return that love. Snape remained the bitter, sour-faced man, but he is set apart from Voldemort by his courage and his ability to love. It was his love that redeemed him. As Harry told his son, Albus Severus, Snape was one of the bravest men he had ever known.The villain was the hero after all!

Peter S. Beagley once wrote, “Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.” Sometimes not only are the villains the most interesting characters, they are the most important, for the hero cannot begin her journey without the villain.

And perhaps this is why it takes so much courage to write a story. As Anne Lamott suggest (Bird by Bird, 1995), “One way to do this is to look within your own heart, at the different facets of your personality.” Be brave, she warns, because you never know what you will find: a con man or a preacher, an orphan or a king, a child or a crone. When you explore the depths and shadows of your characters, including your villains, you are touching upon your own shadows. This becomes the paradox in storytelling: when we tell stories, we are making things up. This is, by definition, a lie. But every lie is wrapped in some emotional truth.

Ralph Keyes (The Courage to Write, 1995) explains:

“Gripping writing results from intensity, and intensity is the flip side of fear … Daring is always more riveting then skill. Any juggler knows the real crowd pleaser isn’t his hardest task, such as keeping five balls in the air. The biggest oohs and ahhs are reserved for feats that look as they could maim him…Bold writers have the same relationship to readers that a juggler has to his crowd. When they seem to catch an errant machete by the blade, their readers stay glued to the page.”

Three cheers for our villains, who dare our heroes to become better than they ever imagined themselves to be!

Bobbi Miller