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One of my favorite children’s authors is Cynthia Rylant. I read her books over and over and never tire of them. The enduring quality of her books comes from her distinctive writing style—Cynthia Rylant is a master craftsman. I love to read her books aloud to students, teachers…anyone who will listen, because her writing is like talking and when you listen to one of Cynthia Rylant’s books read aloud, it’s like being part of a conversation. And, just like any conversation you have with a special person, it sticks with you.
Last summer I decided to immerse my son Derek, who had just completed fourth grade, in the works of Cynthia Rylant. He was familiar with many of her series books from the primary grades: Henry and Mudge, Mr. Putter and Tabby, Poppleton, and The High-Rise Private Eyes. But, he was not familiar with many of her other books. Over the course of several weeks, we read many of Cynthia Rylant’s picture books: The Whales, The Old Woman Who Named Things, The Relatives Came, Dog Heaven, An Angel for Solomon Singer, Scarecrow, When I Was Young in the Mountains, and a few chapter books: The Van Gough Café and Missing May. During and after each story, we talked about our thoughts and feelings evoked by Cynthia Rylant’s stories. Over time, Derek began to notice that it wasn’t just what she said, it was how she said it that created such strong feeling and emotion in her stories. We kept a list of the techniques he noticed:
Later, Derek said he wanted to write a poem for his dad for Father’s Day. He had jotted down lots of things he wanted to say, but the words seemed small compared to what he felt inside. I asked him if Cynthia Rylant could help. His eyes lit up and off he went to write his poem. This is what he wrote:
The Definition of Dad
There once was a boy that looked at a dictionary. He told the teacher that the definition of “Dad” was wrong. The teacher said, “What is it then?”
Dad means fishing for hours and for some reason it never gets boring, going to see Star Wars when mom says it’s stupid and violent, feeling your dad’s muscle and saying, Wow!, seeing how far he can throw the football, getting on top of his shoulders when you can’t reach the giraffe in the zoo, making you feel tough when you get a cut in the park. And, when you’re 35 and have kids and a wife, those are the things you remember. That’s the definition of dad.
Do you see some of Cynthia Rylant’s craft at work in Derek’s poem? She was there to assist him with expressing his feelings in a way that was important to him. The purpose of this Web Watch is to explore the idea of authors as writing mentors for children and to provide online resources to facilitate further exploration.
Learning to Write From Writers
Authors have much to offer teachers in their quest to assist students on the journey to becoming good writers. But, how is this done? How do teachers assist children to learn to write from authors? According to author Katie Wood Ray, children must first see themselves as writers. “Once students see themselves this way, they are able to lay their work down alongside that of other writers and see habits and crafts mirrored there, and also extend their own understandings of what it means to write” (p. 14). Once a child sees himself as a writer, he is able to read like a writer. “[I]n order to gather a repertoire of craft possibilities that will help a writer write well, that writer first has to learn how to read differently, how to read with a sense of possibility, a sense of “What do I see here that might work for me in my writing?” ” (Ray, 1999, p. 14).
Lucy Calkins (1994) points out that in order for good books to play a strong role in improving the quality of writing, the reading-writing connection must be nurtured in classrooms. This can be accomplished by the following:
The role of the teacher in each of the actions above serve as an important scaffold in the process of children learning to apprentice themselves to writers. They are not necessarily steps to be taken and are interactive and recurring. The first-grade class example below is a look at what this scaffolding looks like in action.
A First-Grade Class Example
Vicki Altland, a first-grade teacher in Arkansas, incorporates author studies into her classroom as a way of introducing her students to authors and author’s craft. Her classroom is filled with hundreds of books of all genres and levels and starting at the beginning of the year, she provides her students with numerous opportunities to become acquainted with these books and authors. Every day she reads aloud books by her favorite authors and those suggested by the students. When she begins to see “sparks fly between a text and a reader,” she knows connections are being formed. These books serve as “touchtone texts,” texts that the children respond to deeply and “stand a chance of sponsoring connections between that text and our children’s writing (Calkins, 1994, p. 276).
One such touchtone text was a book by Eric Carle. Vicki read many of Carle’s books to her students and used anchor charts to document the students’ thoughts about each of his books (Figure 1). As the students read the books again and again, they made connections between Carle’s books and their own reading and writing, which Vicki also documented on a chart (Figure 3). The use of anchor charts was an effective way to document and subsequently refer to the children’s connections during reading that could be easily referred to during their writing. Throughout the year, many more authors sparked deep connections with the children: Mem Fox, Lois Ehlert, Leo Leonni, Eve Bunting (Figure 2), and yes, Cynthia Rylant. At the end of the year, Vicki asked the students to write about their favorite author. Allie wrote about Eric Carle, with whom she clearly made a strong connection.
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Getting Started
For some, the realization that we really do learn to write from writers might be new. For others, the idea of introducing children to mentor authors might be new. In either case, a whole new realm of possibility has opened up that is as exciting as it is daunting. As Katie Wood Ray (1999) so aptly stated, “Now that I know what I know,” I have asked, “how do I plan, present lessons, confer, assess, and respond differently? How do I teach in ways that cause my students to directly apprentice themselves to other writers?” (p. 208).
A place to start might be to think about your own favorite authors, those that have influenced your writing. Bring these books into your classroom and share your love of these authors and the impact they have had on your own writing. Provide students with access to lots of books along with time to read and share their thoughts with each other. Then, sit back and watch. Wait for the sparks to fly between books and readers! Capitalize on those books as a way to connect students with the author’s craft. Above all, provide students with time to write.
The Internet resources below provide articles by teachers, author/illustrator websites, and websites with examples of how authors can impact children’s writing. These resources can provide valuable information as you begin to think about mentor authors. In the words of Jane Yolen (2003), “Do not be afraid to grab hold of the experience with both hands and take joy” (p. 20).
Internet Resources
Developed by Scholastic, the Writing with Writers series allows students to work with authors, illustrators and editors in a workshop designed to guide them in developing their skills.
Writing Workshop Curricular Calendar: Essential Question – “How do I choose a mentor author?”
Adapted by Whittier School in Long Beach, CA, USA, from Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, this Writing Curricular Calendar assists teachers in planning a three to four week unit that address the essential question, “How do I choose a mentor author?”
Writing Mentors for Elementary School Students
This article on Kidbibs.com, written by Elizabeth Rimkunas, a reading specialist at Riverfield Elementary School, Fairfield, CT, USA, offers advice and tips to teachers, parents, and homeschoolers on implementing writing mentors for students.
Juli Kendall's Weekly Writing Workshop Journal
Hosted by MiddleWeb.com, Judi Kendall, a reading and writing workshop coach/teacher at Whittier School in Long Beach, CA, USA, shares her efforts to implement authors as mentors.
Learning About the Author and Illustrator Pages
Created by Kay Vandergrift of Rutgers University, NJ, USA, this site houses extensive information on hundreds of children’s and young adult authors, videos, and biographies/autobiographies of authors.
Authors and Illustrators on the Web
An extensive list of author and illustrator websites developed by Children’s Literature Web Guide.
Two articles from Education World:
Get to Know Your Favorite Authors -- On the Internet!
Creating A Classroom of Writers Using the "Meet the Author" Collection
References
Calkins, L.M. (1994). The art of teaching writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann
Ray, K.W. (1999). Wondrous words. Urbana, IL: NCTE.
Yolen, J. (2003). Take joy. Waukesha, WI: Kalmbach Publishing.
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Denise Johnson is an assistant professor of reading education at the College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virigina, USA. She received her Ed.D. in reading from the University of Memphis, Tennessee. She has worked as an elementary classroom teacher, a middle school reading specialist, and a Reading Recovery teacher. She now teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in literacy education and conducts research on the integration of technology into preservice and inservice education courses and within elementary classrooms. Her articles on literacy and technology have been published in a variety of journals and she is active in several professional organizations. She enjoys traveling with her family and reading to her son, Derek. Contact her by e-mail at cdjohn@wm.edu. |
For an index of Electronic Classroom Web Watches, click here.
Citation: Johnson, D. (2004, July/August). Web watch -- Authors as writing mentors. Reading Online, 8(1). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=webwatch/authors/index.html
Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted July 2004
© 2004 International Reading Association, Inc. ISSN 1096-1232