Today we went for the first big move, or lift as I’m calling it. My kids took their first idea out of their notebooks and onto drafting paper. I love this part of the process; where they have generated thousands of ideas and tried out a few seeds of stories in their playground (err notebook), and now they’re ready to test out their story to see if it will stick (and it will . . . because I’m teaching them to revise . . . lots).
I can’t wait to teach them revision. There is something about watching a writer struggle with their own paragraph, sentence, word, that gives me the chills. I love the decision process where a writer cuts out a whole paragraph because they’ve told you too much. Or better yet, I love hearing an author read a sentence aloud four different ways until they’ve found the perfect order for their words. Then again sometimes the removal of a word or the changing from the proper noun, Zack my boyfriend, to just the measly pronoun him when you break up — oh the power my young writers have (don’t even get me started on the drama they can cause with punctuation).
I’m giving them one more day to draft this whole thing out on paper, and then I’m diving in. I’m offering up five mentor texts to them for mining of tips and strategies while we revise together together.
Mentor Texts for Small Moment True Stories:
- Boys, Beer, Barf, and Bonding by Bruce Hale
- Crow Call by Louis Lowry
- Marshfield Dreams by Ralph Fletcher (Chapter 2—Statue)
- Dead Body by Jerry Pallotta
- Eleven by Sandra Cisneros
Of course, I’ll be modeling with my own writing and these books— hopefully, I’ll find a break in the middle of all this and share a tip or two with you.