Today fourth graders got some advice from real, professional writers! We read quotes taken from real author interviews and discussed them together.
We learned a lot of pretty cool and helpful things. First of all, two of our favorite authors said they typically rewrite their books (the books we happen to love!) five or six times before even submitting them to their editors! Initially, this seemed sort of crazy to students, but we discussed how it probably enriches and improves the original writing immensely.
We also learned how much authors can pull from their own (seemingly ordinary) lives – even when writing fiction! For example, an author might make her main character’s favorite movie the author’s favorite movie!
The advice that students seemed to find most inspiring was from E.L. Konigsburg, author of The View From Saturday (which we will be reading next month). Konigsburg suggests aspiring writers to take an ordinary event and ask themselves, “What if it happened a different way?” She says, “Suppose you get up in the morning to see the sunrise, and what if the trees in the light of day are all blue instead of green and the sky is red instead of blue? Suppose you are sitting in school and you are suddenly not right-handed but left-handed?”
The suggestion got students so inspired that they asked if they could try it out in class. (Of course!). So here’s the plan: currently, fourth graders are finishing up writing personal narrative stories about a special moment or experience. Our new spin on it, thanks to E.L. Konigsburg, will be asking ourselves, what if these special moments unfolded differently? Students are so excited and have all sorts of ideas they can’t wait to get on paper! For example, one student talked about turning what she called “a pretty typical swim in the ocean with my family” into a shark attack!
Stay tuned for these… We will post some of them on the blog after publication!