Book Giveaway To Celebrate Our TENTH Blogiversary: The Magic Words by Cheryl Klein!

Yes, you read the title of this post correctly--we're getting ready to celebrate the TENTH blogiversary of TeachingAuthors! In honor of this momentous milestone, we'll be giving away a signed copy of The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults (W.W. Norton) written by book editor and author Cheryl B. Klein. You'll find the giveaway instructions at the end of this post.

Our Tenth Blogiversary is actually on April 22, 2019. We're starting the celebration early because we've invited our former TeachingAuthors to participate in a special series looking back at our favorite posts over our blog's history. As it turns out, that series will feature TEN posts, starting with this one. You'll hear from the six current TeachingAuthors: April Halprin Wayland, Bobbi Miller, Carla Killough McClafferty, Esther Hershenhorn, Mary Ann Rodman, and me, Carmela Martino, as well as our "retired" TAs: Jeanne Marie Grunwell Ford, Jill Esbaum, JoAnn Early Macken, and Laura Purdie Salas. TEN TeachingAuthors in all! (If you're new to our blog, you can read bios of the current and former TAs on our About Us page.)

I have to say, I was having a terrible time choosing just one from the over 200 posts I've written as my "favorite." Should I pick a post I especially enjoyed writing? Or should it be one that seemed to resonate most with readers? Finally, I "cheated" and looked at the blog statistics to find which of my posts has had the most page reads. Turns out, it was one from our very first year of blogging! On August 12, 2009 I shared a post called "Getting to Know Me--Six-Word Memoirs" that is still among the top 5 most-viewed TeachingAuthors posts of all time.

That post was not only fun to write, it also led me to incorporate a new activity into the summer writing camps I teach. The post includes a Writing Workout intended "To engage students in thinking about their lives and to show them how to write concisely." This exercise has proven to be a great hit with my young students. Even reluctant writers can manage to find six words to describe themselves, and often quite eloquently.

When I introduce the topic in my camps, I share the example of one of my own six-word memoirs:

Published author who enjoys teaching writing.

I also share examples from other students their age, like these:

I love soccer, so so much.

I am growing. I am learning.

I wish I had a panda.

The young writers catch on very quickly!

We've written about 6-word memoirs here on TeachingAuthors several times over the years. You can read more about them in posts grouped under the tag Six-Word Memoir.

I loved that one of our TeachingAuthor readers shared my August 12, 2009 post with her 7-year-old daughter who came up with this as her 6-word memoir:

"I like to draw...a lot!" 

Seeing the ripple effect of our posts has been part of the joy of writing this blog and has helped keep me at it all these years. Thank you, readers, for your continued support and response!

Image courtesy of Pixabay's qimono

And, speaking of your support, I have a special request:

We'd LOVE to know some of YOUR favorite TeachingAuthor topics. You don't have to look up the actual post, but we'd appreciate if you would share a comment about a favorite or helpful topic we've addressed. Or, if there's a topic we HAVEN'T addressed that you'd like us to, please share that.

And now, here are the Book Giveaway Instructions:

To enter our drawing for a chance to win The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults by Cheryl Klein use the Rafflecopter widget below. You may enter via 1, 2, or all 3 options.

If you choose option 2, you MUST leave a comment on TODAY'S blog post or on our TeachingAuthors Facebook page. In your comment, please mention a favorite or helpful topic we've addressed here on our blog, or a topic you'd like us to address in the future.

(If you prefer, you may submit your comment via email to: teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com.)

Note: if you submit your comments via email or Facebook, YOU MUST STILL ENTER THE DRAWING VIA THE WIDGET BELOW. The giveaway ends April 26, 2019 We've extended the deadline to
May 7, 2019! The contest is still open to U.S. residents only, though.

P.S. If you've never entered a Rafflecopter giveaway, here's info on how to enter a Rafflecopter giveaway and the difference between signing in with Facebook vs. with an email address.

Don't forget to visit today's Poetry Friday round-up hosted at Carol's Corner.

Finally, remember to always Write with Joy!

Carmela

a Rafflecopter giveaway