Creating Lifelong Writers from Expository to Narrative, Grades 4-8
Publication Type:
Web ArticleYear of Publication:
2004Abstract:
Julie Dermody, a North Carolina teacher, says that the focus on characters, not just plot, was helpful in the 77 activities in this book.
Citation: Haven, K. (2004). Get it write: Create lifelong writers from expository to narrative, grades 4-8. Portsmouth, NH: Teacher Ideas Press.
Full Text:
By Kendall Haven
2004 (233 pp., paperback, includes student activities CD)
Teacher Ideas Press
ISBN: 1-59469-001-4
$39.00 ($35.10 online)
Reviewed by Julie Dermody
Mary Scroggs Elementary School
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
A good professional book makes you think about your practice. A great professional book gives you reason to change your practice. Before reading this book, I had never heard of Kendall Haven. Now, I find myself quoting him. What makes him so unique? Perhaps his book was so powerful to me because of where I am on my journey to become the best writing teacher I can be for my fourth grade students. Maybe it is because he helped me realize that I was treating the teaching of writing like a formula instead of using story "ingredients" to build effective writing.
Kendall Haven lists eight essential elements that define the structure of successful narratives (expository and creative). He states that these elements will "redefine the way students approach the process of creating what they write." I agree with him. The eight essential elements listed are: characters, character traits, goal of the character, motive, obstacles, risk and danger, struggles, and details. These aren't new ideas per se, but I had been neglecting them. My focus on the WOW moment (climax) of the story was on the action. "What happens?" I would constantly ask my students. My first "Aha!" moment from this book came when I read, "Successful narratives are not about what happens. They are about the characters to whom it happens." That realization alone made a big change in my approach to narrative writing.
Kendall Haven lists common mistakes made by student writers, such as failing to create enough details to allow readers to form vivid images of the story in their minds. It seemed that he had been reading my students' papers! I realized my students needed to spend more time planning their writing, but just telling them to take at least ten minutes to plan wasn't doing the job! This book shows students (and their teachers) a "better, more successful way to approach and create what they write each time they write."
Get It Write! provides a detailed direction for 77 writing activities and an accompanying CD-ROM contains a master copy of the student worksheets for each activity. The student worksheets are only found on the CD-ROM. When my CD-ROM was at home, and my book was at school, I regretted that fact. Also, as a teacher who loves to model writing using books, especially picture books, I would have liked a list of books that I could use with my students to further demonstrate each of the eight essential elements.
An entire chapter of the book is devoted to Writing Assessment Preparations (personal narrative, persuasive, and writing to inform.) When I read his thoughts on narrative writing assessments — that our students are given plot questions that "actually encourage students to bypass character and character development to the detriment of their writing" — I could better understand the problems we faced with our writing test. . To acknowledge the pressures of writing tests, he also states that the material presented in the book has "consistently increased students' standardized test scores one grade level or more." Although our writing tests results won't be in for three months, I know my students' writing and my instruction has improved thanks to Get It Write.
