The impact of words
I talk like a River is a powerful story written from the perspective of this little boy who talks with a stutter. "I wake up each morning with the sounds of words all around me. And I cant say them all." One day when the little boy was having a bad speaking day his dad takes him to the river. There he talks with him about how his voice is unique like the river. Most of the time the water flows smooth without any problems but "even the river stutters like I do." This conversation and experience at the river gives the boy a new perspective of his stutter and helps to give him more confidence in his voice. Jordan Scott, the author, is an own voice author as this story is one of his own experiences growing up. In the authors note at the end Scott talks about how his stutter was mocked because it was unnatural. This book is written in such a clear way that students can understand. Having the story being told from the perspective of the little boy with a stutter helps students understand what it is like for those who stutter. It is also great to have stories featuring characters who are not typical in order to have more variety of stories featured in the classroom. It is never easy to be different and stories like this help to open the conversation about differences and help to create an understanding that we should accept each others differences.
Drawn Together
Drawn together tells the story of a grandfather and grandson who come from two very different backgrounds. The grandfather only speaks Vietnamese whereas the little boy only speaks English and doesn't understand Vietnamese. The two end up sending the day together but struggle to communicate throughout the day. The little boy decides to take out supplies to draw and the grandfather gets very excited. The grandfather gets his own drawing supplies and suddenly the two have something in common. The two start drawing and creating a story together and its as if words were never an issue. "All the things we could never say came pouring out." The two are able to communicate through their drawings and not the words or languages they speak. "My grandfather surprised me by revealing a world beyond words." This story is not only beautiful with the way it is written and the story it tells but the culture represented is not one that is commonly shared. Sharing this story in the classroom helps to send the message to students that their stories matter.
Meet the Authors and Illustrators
Minh Lê is the author of Drawn Together
Dan Santat is the award winning illustrator of
Drawn Together
Jordan Scott is the author of I talk like a River
Writing
This week I read chapters four and five in Mentor Texts by Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli. These chapters talked a lot about different ways to help students take their writing to the next level. The biggest focus was on helping students to understand the flow of a piece of writing as well as how to add more details. Chapter four talks about using wordless picture books as a tool to help students do just that. Draw Together is not technically a wordless picture book but there is a bigger focus on having the pictures tell the stories. This book is also great to be able to have a conversation with students about how the author ended the book. There are many ways an author can end a story so why did they choose to end it with a scene with no words. How did the author show us the characters finally feelings and thoughts instead of telling us. Looking at the impact the ending of Draw Together as a class can help students to see the impact an ending can have on a story. Having students come up with their own ending to this story can help students when it comes to writing endings to their own stories.
Show not tell is a big topic of conversation in chapter four as a way for students to make their writing for detailed. This book is the perfect mentor text to use in your turn lesson 5 from chapter 5. In this lesson the teacher picks a book where there is a focus on showing emotions not telling the readers what the characters are feeling. The teacher then takes this focus to writing by modeling, with a different text, how to write an ending to a story where the author doesn't write one but rather shows us characters final thoughts and feelings. The students help to brainstorm ideas on what to write as the ending to the story. Once an ending is written to the model text students are sent off to try the strategy on their own on a piece of their own writing. If students used illustrations on a piece they simply just need to add details to show the characters feelings and final thoughts. If a student doesn't have a picture or pictures drawn they are encouraged to draw some. They then use the photos to create a satisfying ending to their story that shows the readers a characters final moments without telling the readers about these moments.
I have been working on a narrative piece of writing that I was struggling with finding the ending to. The ending I had written told readers about my final feeling and thoughts rather than showing them. I had not drawn anything to go with this writing so I broke out my pencil and started to draw my story. I wanted to be able to visualize the ending of my writing to be able to find an ending that really wraps up my writing in a satisfying way.
A piece of writing is never perfect on the first try. The most important thing is to be able to analyze your writing to find places where you can make it better for next time or things you want to change in the next draft. I wasn't sure what ending I wanted to use for my writing so I wrote multiple options to be able to choose from. The pictures I drew helped to show that I wanted to put emphasis on how I was feeling on the inside and not just telling my readers how I was feeling. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words and I may choose in more of my editing stages to use a picture as the ending to my narrative like the author did in draw together. Using this strategy was a great way for me to explore opportunities on how I wanted the ending of my writing to go which I might not have done. I am the type of writer that writes it once and then I'm done. I do not go back and edit my writing to see how I could change and strengthen it. Using this strategy almost forced me to go back and look at my writing and think about ways I can make it even better. If I start to get a better routine with my writing and editing then I will be able to pass these strategies onto my students. I can show my students how I used different strategies to go back and edit or rewrite parts of my story to make it even better.
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