This interview inspires two projects: write a story based on a photograph and illustrate a story with photographs. This is a great interview by Ransom Riggs. He starts out talking about the pressure of writing a second book after having published a first book that was exceptionally successful. He then talks about how, in Hollow City, he writes a book that is different from his first one. He talks about his writing day. His goal is 1500 words per day. This takes him about ten hours to achieve. For those of you who have read the Miss Perigrine’s Peculiar Children books, you know they are illustrated with photos. He talks about a little about using photos as illustrations. Ransom Riggs talks about the books that inspired him, his desire to be a writer as a child, his growing interest in film in middle school, and his final coming back to writing as a young adult. Best advice: just write. Don’t judge yourself. Write freely! • Writing pressure to repeat the success of his first book. • Describes the discipline of being a writer — his writing day. Daily word count goal of 1500 words. • Talks about the use of photos to illustrate the Miss Perigrine’s Peculiar Children books • Strong discussion of interest in writing starting in elementary school with change in interest in middle school and a return as a young adult. Project idea: Illustrate a story with photographs. Found photos: Ransom Riggs illustrates his books with found photos — photos he finds, for example, at garage sales. This makes a an excellent writing project! You can either send your students out to find photos in garage sales or to bring photos from home, but then trade them around in the classroom. Illustrate story with staged or posed photos: Another use of photographs are as illustrations to an existing story, or to a story written with the idea of illustrating with photographs in mind. This project can be as simple or involved as your students would like to make it. At its most involved, scenes can be set up with characters from the story photographed acting out one or more scenes. In a work of historic fiction, this could include dressing in costume. Web links for Ransom Riggs Website Wikipedia Facebook Twitter Books by Ransom Riggs Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children Boxed Set The Sherlock Holmes Handbook
A Video and Internet Links for Madeleine L’Engle
This is a video of an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the the publication of “A Wrinkle in Time.” Children, as well as adults, are interviewed. A good introductory video to show before assigning the book. Madeleine L’Engle (1918–2007) is an American author who wrote A Wrinkle in Time, a Newberry-Award-winning book that has so far sold eight million copies. At the time her death, A Wrinkle in Time was in its 67th printing! You’d think that such a wonderful and loved book would have been snapped up by the first publisher who received the manuscript. But it was not. A Wrinkle in Time is a famous book that almost didn’t find a publisher—much like Harry Potter! Madeleine’s manuscript was rejected by 26 publishers before being accepted by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1963. As a writer, Madeleine worked hard, and didn’t give up. As Madeleine L’Engle is no longer living, her social media accounts are managed by others. That said, the official website, Facebook, and Twitter accounts are worth consulting. Madeleine L’Engle at Wikipedia The official Website The official Facebook account. The official Twitter account. This account is mostly quotes from Madeleine L’Egnle. It is worth consulting. This the transcript of an interview with Madeleine L’Engle conducted by children and published by Scholastic Book. Books by Madeleine L’Engle [columns_row margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px”] [column size=”one_half” last=”no”] [/column] [column size=”one_half” last=”yes”] The Wrinkle in Time graphic novel adapted by Hope Larson. [/column] [/columns_row]
Sarah Kay, Poet and Storyteller: TEDxEast Talk on Writing
Sarah Kay (born 1988) is an American poet who began performing poetry at age 14. Sarah Kay specializes in spoken-word poetry. The performance aspect of her work is clear in all of her videos. To start getting to know Sarah Kay’s work and philosophy, watch her TEDxEast talk above, titled “How Many Lives Can You Live?”. If you find the depth that I do in this talk, visit Sara Kay’s website for access to a substantial number of her performances. Poetry was long performed more than it was written down. Performance is still a central tradition for poets in a way that reading prose is not for prose writers. Spoken-word poetry is, as Sarah explains, a combination of theater and poetry that cannot really be pinned to a page. As she is young and started performing poetry at age 14, she is a poet many of your students will be able to relate to. If you already have, or are thinking of having, a poetry stage in your classroom or school, Sarah’s work ought to help you. This is a rich, deep, well performed talk about writing. It is about writing and life and how you can use writing to experience lives that you, yourself, will never live. At the core of the greatest stories in Western literature — for example, Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert; Moby Dick, by Herman Melville; Othello, by William Shakespeare; Hard Times, by Charles Dickens, The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner; The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison — is the author’s skill in bringing characters who are completely different from each other (and from the author) into being. Whether you are a young writer or a teacher of young writers, listen to Sarah Kay’s TEDxEast talk. I know teachers will find many ideas that will fit into and enrich your current writing program. This is a piece you will want to visit many times. By way of introduction to Sarah Kay’s childhood and development as a poet, in particular the importance of her elementary education, watch this second talk below. She effortlessly glides from a standard kind of presentation to a gossamer glittering shockingly vivid and effortless gorgeous storytelling. She also links her 14-year-old self, when she first started performing poetry, to her 24-year-old self. Many students will find the link between her 8th-grade self and her young-adult self exciting and inspiring.
