Writing Fiction: Big Dreams, Tall Ambitions, Session 7
TAILORING YOUR TEACHING
If your students are rushing along in their stories and you want to give input to help their
endings . . . you could say to them, “Writers, I think Patricia Reilly Giff would be proud of the
heap of trouble you have all gotten your characters into! I’m out of breath just thinking of
climbing your story mountains! But now we’ve all created some gigantic problem mountains,
and we’re stuck on top! How will we get our poor characters out of the situations they are in?”
Then you could tell children that realistic fiction writers work very hard on what they call
the resolution. We work hard to make sure the resolution of the problems makes sense and
doesn’t seem to come out of the clear blue sky. It’s not like a comic book, where Superman can
just fly in to save the day. A good resolution feels like it fits with the rest of the story, and
makes our character learn something or change in ways that feel tailored to the character.
If your students are writing dialogue-heavy scenes that don’t push their stories forward…
you could tell them that writers are selective when choosing what characters say and how they
say it. Remind children that dialogue, like any other aspect of fiction, is a tool for pushing the
story forward. One way children can check that their dialogue is both true to life and meaningful
is to read aloud the dialogue they write. They could do this with a partner, each taking a
character. Reading their dialogue aloud should help them determine which lines are
unnecessary.
Children might also benefit from reading aloud particularly effective passages of dialogue
mentor authors have written. They could note what the author has done with dialogue to push
the story forward, what sorts of things the author has characters say and what’s left unsaid. Point
out, too, that writers often summarize parts of stories that wouldn’t be so interesting if written as
dialogue. You can show them the following dialogue exchange and the summary to illustrate the
difference.
Dialogue
“Hey, what’s up?” Maya said.
“Not much. You?” answered Lucretia. She
“Same ol’ same ol’” said Maya.
“I can’t come over today after school,” said
Lucretia.
“Why not?” Maya asked.
“I got stuff to do.” Lucretia said.
“What stuff?” Maya asked.
“You know, cleaning and stuff,” Lucretia said
without looking at Maya.
Summary
When Lucretia got to the lunchroom she
decided that she’d tell Maya she couldn’t hang
out after school. She didn’t’ want to tell Maya
the real reason, that she was going to try to call
her real mom. Lucretia was nervous because
she never lied to Maya before, but she knew
that if Maya knew the truth, she’d give
Lucretia a hard time.
For Active Engagement, you could ask students to practice replacing dialogue with a
summary. “Writers, right now, I want you to practice this strategy. Find a bit of dialogue in your
story and on the sticky note I give you, I want you to write the summary of the dialogue instead.
Then today during writing workshop, you can decide which works better.”
If your students are working through this unit for the second or third year . . . you could
spend some time teaching them the difference between first person, second person, and third
person perspectives in writing. Second person, the “you” voice, often feels forced or too
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familiar. The third-person voice allows students to distance themselves from the characters and
reinforces the idea that this is fiction, not personal narrative. The first person often sounds more
natural, and using it can make it easier for students to integrate an internal narrative. You can
teach children that writers often experiment with different perspectives before settling on one.
To do this, writers would write the same scene in first, second, and then third person. Then, we
choose which perspectives have the effect on the reader we prefer, and hold to that point of
view. Writers could try this in partnerships.
If your students are resistant to revision… first of all, don’t be alarmed! Your students have
just spent several days planning for their drafts, and now that they are writing them, it’s as if
they are riding a wave, unable to stop. They may be trying to get the items from their story
mountain down on the page, as is, because they’ve invested so much time in the story mountain.
Some students may have a feeling that their story is etched in stone, and you’ll want to spend a
session teaching (or reminding) them that experienced writers can’t help but revise as they draft
their stories.
You might say, “Writers, one of the things I’ve noticed is that you’re treating your story
mountains as if they’re a script you must stick to as you write your draft. But you know what?
Getting your story down on the page often involves a little improvisation. It’s like making a
movie, in a way. When actors get the script, they study it, and know it well, but when they are in
the moment of shooting a scene, they might improvise some of the dialogue or body gestures
because they can feel there’s a better way to act out the scene. This is called deviating from the
script, and you can do that, too, as writers. Watch me as I show you what I mean.”
“Here’s our story mountain, which you and I know very well. Yet, last night, when I began
to write this part of the story, I just got a feeling that there was a better way to go, and I went
with my instincts. I deviated from the script, from the story mountain.” At this point, you’d want
to read the part you revised. “Writers, did you see how I adjusted the action in this part just a
bit? I thought it seemed more like what Luz would do, based on what I know about her. Now I
want you to try it. Let’s look at the next part of our story on our story mountain. Right now, turn
to your partner and imagine a realistic way that you’d deviate from this.” As your students talk
to each other, you’ll want to listen in and report back some of the revisions you heard them
make.
If you notice that some students are having a hard time “re-seeing” their pieces… you
might want to teach them this bit of advice—one many writers have suggested—for how to
revise writing: Put it in a drawer for several days and don’t look at it. When you come back to it
after some time has passed, you are able to see it more clearly and make better decisions about
what works and what doesn’t. Obviously, in our hustle-bustle school year, we don’t have the
luxury of letting our students put their stories away for several days. We can, however, teach
them how to step away from the writing for a period, maybe even for just a few minutes. We
can teach students ways to take productive breaks from their writing by doing such things as
rereading mentor texts, adding entries to notebooks for future projects, or helping a fellow writer
reread her work. After getting their eyes and minds off of their draft for a bit of time, your
students will most likely be able to return to it with fresh eyes and new insight.
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