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WR I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T EW R I T E

50 E n t h r a l l i n g a n d

E f f e c t i v e W r i t i n g L e s s o n s

for the E L E M E N TA RY G R A D E S

a g e s 5 t o 1 2

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TABLE of CONTENTSFOREWORD 7ABOUT 826 NATIONAL 9CONTRIBUTORS 11HOW TO USE THIS BOOK 12

L e s s o n P l a n s1. TRAGIC LOVE TALES (BY SIX-YE AR-OLDS) – Joan Kim and Roberto Carabeo

Just what it sounds like.2. WRI T ING FOR PE TS – Jennifer Tr aig

Students gain confidence in their language skills by writing a short story for a pet, then reading it to a pet audi-ence. Ideal for very young writers, kindergarten through fourth grade.

3. FORT PART Y! – Maggie Hanks

In this workshop, students build forts using tables couches, sheets, clamps, whatever you have around. They then go into the forts and do writing exercises. Best for grades two and up.

4. MAKE-BEL IE VE SCIENCE – aMie nenninger

Facts take a backseat to fiction in this incredibly inventive workshop. Students compose their own wacky faux-science journal. A great way to get more science-minded students interested in creative writing. Ideal for students fifth grade and younger.

5. OH, YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE, RE ALLY . . . (OR, HOW TO WRI TE A JON SCIESZK A PICTURE BOOK ) – Jon scieszk a

Students learn how a master children’s book author gets his ideas, and are invited to create their own. Grade for grades two through four.

6. SPACE EXPLORAT ION FOR BEGINNERS: WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU MEE T AN AL IEN – Moir a cassidy

Junior Space Explorers get the opportunity to “travel” to other worlds, record their experiences in their personal Space Exploration Logs and make a scale model of one of the alien creatures they meet on their journey. NO SPACE TRAVEL EXPERIENCE NECESSARY. Ideal for grades two through four.

7. MAGIC RE AL ISM – aiMee Bender

What if sneezes brought good luck? What if you wrote about it? Our favorite magicrealist invites students to imagine a world that’s just slightly off. Ideal for olderwriters, fifth grade and up.

8. RECYCLED ELVES: FA IRY TALE DO-OVERS – Lucas anderson and cHris MoLnar

Rewriting fairy tales. Good for grades three to six.9. CRE AT ING A GUIDE TO MODERN GIRLHOOD – MegHan adLer

Learn how to write your autobiography, using a variety of techniques and styles popular in bestselling books for girls. We will do numerous drawing and writing activities. Best for grades five and up.

10. HOW TO WRI TE A HOW TO – Jory JoHn

Author Jory John teaches students how to write incredibly useful how-to’s, like “How to Avoid a Bath or Shower for as Long as Possible, and Maybe Even Longer.” Ideal for grades four and up.

11. TALK ING TRASH! – HoLLy M. dunsworTH and JuLieT weLLer dunsworTH

Students learn the basics of artifact/trash interpretation and create their own fascinating descriptions of found objects and “trash” artifacts. Neanderthals welcome. Ideal for grades three to six.

12. WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE LESSON PL AN? WRI T ING JOKES AND RIDDLES – Marcy zipke

This introduction to joke-writing and puns encourages language play. Ideal for thevery youngest writers—third grade and younger.

pr aise for 826 naTionaL

“826 helps young people learn that language can be play, that work can be joyful, and that they themselves can be the inventors and caretakers of their world. I have seen it with my own eyes. 826 is a good thing in a world of bad things, and a good place in a world of hard ones.”

– Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

“826 gives young folks the opportunity to see their own works PUBLISHED, tangible and important. I want all young people to see the path illuminate before them as their self-worth grows. 826 is a positive AND challenging place for young minds from ALL different backgrounds. 826 also strives to raise the profile of teachers in America, and celebrate them as the superstars they are!”

– Neko Case, musician

aBouT THe Books

From the imaginative and highly acclaimed 826 National writing labs come these two new exciting books, Don’t Forget to Write for the Elementary Grades and Don’t Forget to Write for the Secondary Grades. Each book offers 50 writ-ing lesson plans. Created as a resource to reach all students (even those most resistant to creative writing), the inventive lessons range from goofy fun to practical, from sports to science, music to mysteries. These field-tested lessons are written by experts. Favorite novelists, actors, and other celebrities pitched in too. Lessons are helpfully linked to the Common Core State Standards.

DON’T FORGE T TO WRI TE FOR THE ELEMENTARY GRADES

978-1-118-02431-7

DON’T FORGE T TO WRI TE FOR THE

SECONDARY GRADES978-1-118-02432-4

Paperback • 8-1 /2 x 11 • 208pp

$22.95 US

In Stores October 2011

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13. SPY SCHOOL – k aTe pavao

This intensive spy-training program encourages descriptive writing, code wordplay and imaginative reporting. Best for slightly older writers, fourth grade through sixth.

14. L I TERARY MASH-UPS – susan voeLk er and susan Mey er

Kids write genre mash-ups (like a romantic horror story). Best for grades five and up.15. BRA IN SPELUNK ING – scoTT BeaL

Using Rorschach blots, exquisite corpses, tarot cards, and more, we will plumb the inner depths of our minds and see what comes out of it. Best for grades five and up.

16. PJ PART Y – aMy suMerTon, Jason depasquaLe, and cHLoe durkee

Students learn to craft expert bedtime stories. Trust us: wearing pajamas helps. Good for grades two through five.17. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE – Lindsay pLaiT Jones

Students learn about the basic elements of telling a story, then create their own multi-choice adventures. For grades two through six.

18. L IFE-SIZE BOARD GAME! – k aTHerine fisHer and Jessica MorTon

In this workshop, we use a life-size game board—where we are the moving pieces. We start off by creating the writing-inspired rules together. When we’ve collectively thought up the most amazing board game that will soon sweep the nation, we’ ll play it together. Best for grades three and up.

19. BRA INS! OR, WRI T ING W I TH ZOMBIES – Br ad BruBaker

Students interview a real-live zombie, then use what they learn to write their own zombie stories. BRAINS! Good for grades two through five.

20. HOW TO WRI TE A COMIC – Todd pound and Jennifer Tr aig

Students learn to tell stories in both written and visual media. Ideal for students who think they don’t like to write. This class is designed for students in fourth grade and higher.

21. THE ME ANING OF L IFE ( THE SHORT ANSWER): WRI T ING BIG, L ARGE AND SMALL! – eLizaBeTH aLex ander & k aTHLeen goLdfarB

In this workshop, we will bravely identify our own big questions and explore them in stories that are both goofy and serious. Best for grades three and up.

22. HOW TO SURV I VE ANY THING – Becca wasLey

What do you tell your teacher when you forgot your homework? How can you get out of doing your chores? How do you stop aliens from taking over the planet? It’s about time someone put together a book of how to survive absolutely anything- and that someone is you! Good for grades three and up.

23. V INDICATED V ILL A INS – nick decouLous

Telling stories from the bad guy’s point of view. Good for grades three through five.24. ONO-MATO-WHAT NOW? – k aTHerine HunT and pardis parsa

How do you describe capture the sound of a candy wrapper being torn open for the first time or your shiny new jacket rubbing against itself ? In this lesson students explore everyday sounds to write a fabulous story. Best for grades three through five.

25. ALL-STAR SPORTS STORIES – a aron dev ine and k ar en sa Ma

Students learn about Underdogs, Dramatic Moments, and other factors that make sports and storytelling great. Good for grades four and up.

26. I WROTE A GUIDEBOOK AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT: TRAVEL WRITING – susie nadLer & Laur a scHoLes

The entire class collaborates to create a guidebook for their town and learns to observe and describe in the pro-cess. Good for grades five and up.

2 7. COOK ING FOR CRYP T IDS: THE DEF INI T I VE CRYP TOZOOLOGICAL COOKBOOK – sHannon digr egorio

Students carefully consider the palates of the wild unknown and cater to the likes of Big foot and the Chupaca-bra with an original short cookbook. Ideal for grades one through four.

28. SCIENCE CLUB: ICE CRE AM! – eLaine paLucki

In this workshop, students explore a scientific issue—here, the science of ice cream—then write about it. Ideal for grades one through four.

29. ST ICK Y WORDS – Maya sHugarT and ryan sMiTH

Why should the ears have all the fun when it comes to poetry? Students write original poems and collage them into art for readers’ eyes and ears to enjoy in harmony. Good for grades three through five.

30. MADDENING MAD L IBS – dan gersHMan

Students write their own Mad Libs and learn some grammar in the process.31. IF I WERE A K ING OR QUEEN: CRE AT ING YOUR OWN COUNTRY – J. ryan sTr adaL and BoB Jury

Imagination gets a thorough workout as students are invited to imagine their own country, from geography to government. Anything goes. Ideal for writers from second grade through sixth.

32. HOW TO BE A DE TECT I VE – aMie nenninger

This dynamic lesson invites students to solve a real-live mystery, then write about it. Students really get into it. Best for fourth grade and older.

33. HARRY POT TER SPIDER-MAN VS. THE E V IL ZOMBIE NINJAS – eric canosa

Students learn the basics of conflict in a supernatural showdown between good guys and bad guys.34. OUT THERE: DRAW ING AND WRI T ING NEW WORLDS – MegHan Mccook

Create your own 2D piece of artwork using lots of texture, shape, and color. Then write a description or “sketch” of the universe only YOU could imagine! Best for grades five and up.

35. WHINING EFFECT I VELY; OR, HOW TO PERSUADE YOUR PARENTS – aBigaiL JacoBs and Tay Lor JacoBson

Students learn the basics of persuasive writing by writing about things they’re really invested in—like later bed-times. Best for slightly older writers, fifth and sixth grade.

36. FOR THE BIRDS! – scarLeTT sToppa

Students work together to create never-before-discovered birds and create short adventures for their character through these feathered flights of fancy. Ideal for grades two through four.

37. THERE’S POE TRY IN AN ATOM: WRI T ING CRE AT I VELY ABOUT SCIENCE – nicoLe Moor e and ryan Moor e

This class seeks to make the sciences less esoteric for those who like to write, and to make writing more manage-able for those who love science. Best for grades four and up.

38. GUERRILL A POE TRY – Beck y eideLMan

This lesson helps students find poems that speak to them and discover ways of inserting them, unexpectedly, into other peoples’ lives. Ideal for grades four and up.

39. FRANKENF ILMS – Lindsey roBinson and Jon zack In this lesson, students take some well-loved recent movies, write in new characters, and completely redo the end-ings. Best for grades four and up.

40. THE RULES OF MAGIC – JuLius dia z panoriñgan

This inventive lesson plan uses the conventions of fantasy and magic to guide some very creative storytelling. Best for fifth grade and up.

41. AND NOW I W ILL PERFORM AN INTERPRE T I VE DANCE: K INE T IC LE ARNING – angeLa Hernandez

This lesson translates physical storytelling to the page. Great for students who need to get up and move. Ideal for grades second through sixth.

42. NOTE TO SELF: WRI T ING AUTOBIOGRAPHY – Tania keTenJian

This workshop invites you to take a close look at yourself and share it with the world. Good for grades three and up.43. SMELL THIS STORY, TASTE THIS POEM – gaBrieLa per eir a

A story/poetry writing workshop that focused on using the five senses for inspiration. Best for grades four and up.4 4. GRAMMARAMA: HOMONYM STAND-OFF – Margar eT Mason

Can grammar be fun? Yes. It’s an extreme grammar challenge. One will win! All will learn! For grades five and up.

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45. HOW TO BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! OR, HOW TO WRITE A REALLY, REALLY, REALLY GOOD LETTER – Jenn y Howard

In this lesson plan inspired by the 826 book Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country, students learn how to compose meaning ful letters for the president and other people they admire. Good for grades three and up.

46. CHARACTER ASSASSINAT ION! - Eric canosa

In this lesson, students learn to flesh out their characters with all the details that make them feel real. We start by killing them off (sort of), using a brief obituary to really figure out what’s important in the character’s life.

47. SONNE TS W I TH SUPERPOWERS – sar aH gr een

Do you want to write poems that can: see in the dark, travel invisibly, breathe underwater, or fly faster than light? In this workshop, we look at the basics of the sonnet form, and learn how to craft creative new sonnets the likes of which you’ve never seen. Best for grades four and up.

48. BEST IMAGINARY VACAT ION E VER! – MicaH piLkingTon

Where would you go if you could go anywhere? What would you do? This lesson plan invites students to imag-ine their dream vacation and turn their fantasy into a compelling story. Good for any age, but especially for fifth grade and younger.

49. WHAT’S THE SCOOP? HOW TO GE T THE RE AL STORY – Mark de La viña

In this lesson students learn the basics of journalism and try out their newly-acquired interview skills. Best for grades five and up.

50. THE ILLUSTRATED BOOK REPORT – reBecca sTern and Br ad woLfe

In this inventive lesson plan, students respond to books through comic panels.

a p p e n d i x

E VALUAT ION RUBRICSSELF -ASSESSMENT CHECKL ISTSCORE CURRICULUM STANDARDS

FOREWORDThe first indication that this isn’t your normal writing center is the storefront you have to pass through to get to the classroom. It might be a pirate shop, featuring a large selection of peg legs and eye patches, or it could be a robot repair lab, presided over by a burping automaton. It might be a time travel mart, offering dodo chow and 50-year calendars; or a superhero supply store with a phone-booth changing room. Past the shelves of student-authored books, ‘zines, and newspapers, students slip through the secret door to the classroom. This doesn’t look normal, either. There are plush couches inviting you to curl up and read, big mahogany tables begging you to hunker down and write, and some fixtures that make no sense at all, like portholes, or a fully functional grocer’s scale. The teacher appears to be wearing a wig and a viking helmet. Just what is going on here?

This is how we do things at the 826 National centers. From the time we opened our doors in San Francisco in 2002, our emphasis has been on fun, and there’s been plenty of that. But something else happened: we helped students produce some great writing. Then we did it again. Students returned over and over and told their friends. Before long our workshops had long waiting lists.

We’ d come up with a formula that worked. Soon we started hearing from people who wanted to bring our methods to their own hometowns. We expanded to eight centers across the country, each offering free afterschool tutoring, in-class support for teachers and students, and workshops on topics ranging from spycraft to space exploration to screenwriting.

Word continued to spread. Teachers wrote, called, and came in, asking for ideas for their own classrooms. By 2005 we’ d had so many requests we decided it was time to put all our best ideas in one place, so we published Don’t Forget to Write, a collection of lesson plans from our best workshops and favorite authors. Six years and several hundred workshops later, it seemed high time to publish a new edition.

We ended up with so many lesson plans, in fact, that we had to publish two volumes, one for elementary grades, and one for middle and high school. In this volume, you’ ll find lessons on topics that appeal to elementary writers, both to those who like writing and reading (fairy tale do-overs, literary mash-ups, guerilla poetry) and those who don’t (mad science, secret codes, Sasquatches, ice cream). There’s a particular emphasis on fun, yes, but also on building blocks: the fundamentals of narrative, character development, self-expression. How do you communicate clearly? What makes a good story? What can words do? You’ ll learn how to interview a zombie; how to cook for Bigfoot; how to break through writer’s block; and what onomatopoeia means. And, of course, you’ ll learn how to bring 826’s methods to your own classroom.

What makes 826 workshops different? Well, first of all, they are often completely nuts. We think play is paramount, so we use lots of props, costumes and drama. Our tutors are invited to teach courses on anything related to writing. Sometimes it’s very practical, like a workshop on writing the perfect college application essay. Sometimes it’s just silly, like Writing for Pets (though this, too, has a pedagogical rationale: reading to a non-judgmental listener like a dog is great way to boost students’ skills and confidence).

Whatever the topic, it’s taught by a specialist in the field, from journalists to sportwriters to musicians. At 826LA, the first workshop was taught by filmmaker Spike Jonze. In San Francisco, when workshop teacher Michael Chabon told his colleague Stephen King that he was using his work in our Horror and Dark Fantasy class, Stephen decided to come to teach the lesson himself.

We would love to be able to dispatch pros like these to your classroom too. Instead, we’ve done the next best thing: we asked them to write lesson plans for you. A real scientist wrote the Science Club lesson. A professional cartoonist wrote the comic book lesson. An actual anthropologist wrote our lesson on the Anthropology of Garbage. Other contributors include classroom teachers (the most expert experts of all), college professors, working screenwriters, and even one former 826 student, who’s gone on to become a writer himself. Our favorite authors pitched in, too. We think the end result is like having Jon Scieszka stop by to teach a class on fractured fairy tales, or Aimee Bender lead a workshop on magic realism.

The whole enterprise is the classroom equivalent of hiding the good-for-you vegetables under the potato chips in the secretly nutritious casserole. We’ve based our activities on proven pedagogy. The students think they’re having fun, and of course they are, but they’re also engaged in very academic endeavors. They are organizing their ideas, crafting arguments, revising their work, stating their point of view, peer-editing a friend’s work, and generally learning an awful lot about the hard work and craft of writing. They’re playing, but they’re also getting real experience. For two hours they’re a food critic, a reporter, a mad scientist, getting an idea of what it’s really like to do this for a living.

And they leave with concrete proof. All of our workshops are project-based. Everyone likes to have something to show for their time, so we strive to produce something in every class, be it a chapbook, a play, a newspaper, a short film or radio segment. We know that the process of making that product is the important part, but having something to hold on to at the end is the perfect punctuation to work well done. Also, making them is incredibly satisfying and enjoyable.

We hope you’ ll enjoy the process, too. Supporting teachers is our first priority, and we’ve tried to create a book that will make your job just a little bit easier and fun. We know that teachers are pressed for time trying to ensure content and skill requirements are met. To this end, we’ve made sure the lessons in this book meet the Core Curriculum standards. We created a chart to show you.

If you’re nearby, come pay us a visit (see the listing of all our centers). Workshops are only a part of what we do at 826. We also offer free afterschool tutoring, free writing field trips, and free in-school support. You can learn more about our programs at www.826national.org. We’ d love for you to come see all the excitement for yourself.

We hope you have as much fun as we have.

Jennifer Traig, Gerald Richards, and Dave Eggers

826 Valencia opened its doors in 2002, growing out of a desire to partner the professional literary and arts com-munity of San Francisco with local students in need of engaging learning opportunities. The tutoring and writ-ing center was designed to be a vibrant setting for rigor-ous educational activities. Connecting students with local authors, artists, and college students while providing a space that is whimsical and fun proved to be an excellent model for achieving results, and the idea was replicated in seven additional cities.

Since 2004, 826 chapters have opened in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Ann Arbor, Boston, and most recently, Washington, D.C., each with a unique storefront as the gateway to the writing center. While the theme of each center is varied (in Los Angeles students are encour-aged to dabble in time travel, while in Chicago they may begin their careers as future spies), the 826 model always holds true: if you offer students rigorous and fun learning opportunities and one-on-one attention, they will make great strides in their writing skills and confidence.

As the 826 model spread, the f lagship center was home to the nationwide support of the individual chapters, determining and encouraging the use of shared best practices, setting standards for program evaluations to ensure the quality of 826 programming, and framing the national dialogue about the work of teachers and the value of teaching writing. In 2004, the legal name of 826

Valencia was changed to 826 National, to ref lect this bigger-picture work. Meanwhile, in San Francisco the programs continued to grow bigger and stronger. In 2008, we made the decision to formally separate into two legal entities to ref lect the different initiatives of the local San Francisco chapter and the national one. As of July 2008, 826 National exists as its own legal entity, apart from 826 Valencia, and supports the individual 826 chapters across the nation.

Pirette McKamey, the teacher with whom 826 Valencia worked at Mission High School last year, said this about our collaboration: “When students work with people one-on-one on their writing, the benefit is so great. It helps students begin to recognize the relationship between their writing and communication to other people—that writ-ing actually has the power to do that. It’s great to have outside people. I think the students feel less comfortable working with outside people, so they have to do some self-struggle and overcome barriers to figure out how to communicate their ideas to someone they don’t assume is sympathetic. And it’s good for them—very powerful, and good for them.”

Each year, 826 is able to provide 22,000 students from low-income families and low-performing school districts with one-on-one tutoring, writing instruction, classroom

ABOUT 826 NATIONAL826’S MISSION

826 National is a network of nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping students, ages six through eighteen, with expository and creative writing, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

826 chapters are located in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Our mission is based on the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success. We offer innovative and dynamic project-based learning opportunities that build on students’ classroom experience, and strengthen their ability to express ideas effectively, creatively, confidently, and in their own voices.

Each 826 chapter offers after-school tutoring, field trips, workshops, and in-school programs—all free of charge— for students, classes, and schools. We target students in public schools, particularly those with limited financial, educational, and community resources.

826’S HISTORY

OUR STUDENT PROGRAMMING

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CONTRIBUTORS(note : this is a short excerpt of the full contributor list)

aiMee Bender is the author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, An Invisible Sign of My Own, Willful Creatures, The Third Elevator, and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Her short fiction has been published in GQ, The Paris Review, Tin House, McSweeney’s, and more, and she has been teaching various forms of creative writing for the past eighteen years to students from ages four to seventy-five.

Chloe Durkee is a second grader who loves horses, kittens, bedtime stories (if not actually going to bed) and wearing multiple dresses simultaneously.

dav e eggers is the co-founder of 826 Valencia and the founder of McSweeney’s Publishing, LLC. He is also an author whose writings include A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, You Shall Know Our Velocity, How We Are Hungry, What Is the What, Zeitoun, The Wild Things, and Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers.

dan gersHMan is a PhD student in Space and Planetary Physics at the University of Michigan and has been vol-unteering at 826Michigan for about a year.

Lucas gonzaLez is a New York City native, an English MA student, and a former 826NYC young author. His first novel, Maple Machine, appeared in the 2006 anthology “Nine Novels by Younger Americans.” Lucas lives in New York where he continues to create works of poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fiction, as well as drawing, painting, cartoon, and mixed-media work.

Sarah Green is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at Ohio University. Her poetry has won a Pushcart Prize.

Angela Hernandez is a classroom teacher and resource specialist at a secondary school in Emeryville, California.

Jory John served as programs director at 826 Valencia for five years. He’s the editor of Thanks and Have Fun Run-ning the Country: Kids’ Letters to President Obama, and co-author of the children’s book Pirate’s Log, and the humor books All My Friends Are Dead and I Feel Relatively Neutral About New York. He works as a journalist and cartoonist in San Francisco.

Robert Jury is a screenwriter and director who lives in Iowa City with his wife and two kids. Jury has written feature film screenplays for Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, and HBO Films.

Tania Ketenjian is Editor in Chief of The [Un]Observed: A Radio Magazine. She also is a journalist who has produced for NPR, PRI, the BBC, the BBC World Service, RTE in Ireland and ABC in Australia.

Margaret Mason is the author of No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog, and publisher of Mighty Mighty Media. She was named one of Silicon Valley’s Top 50 Influencers by Now Public.

Todd Pound is a San Francisco-based writer, illustrator, and designer who has had the good fortune of collaborat-ing with some supremely talented people like Garry Trudeau and Mark Ryden.

Gerald Richards is the CEO of 826 National, with more than 16 years of management and development expe-rience in the nonprofit sector. Prior to joining 826, Gerald was the Executive Director for the Bay Area office of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). Gerald is currently a member of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and Ed Steps Curiosity and Creativity workgroup in Washington, DC.

Jon Scieszka is the author of numerous children’s books including The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, The Stinky Cheese Man, Math Curse, Baloney, and Sam Samurai. He lives in Brooklyn and serves on the Board of Direc-tors for 826NYC.

Rebecca Stern taught in a “hard-to-staff” public school in Brooklyn before becoming a middle school Language Arts teacher in Palo Alto. Along with Brad Wolfe, she is the coeditor of a book of essays by notable authors aimed at the middle grades to be published by Roaring Brook Press/Macmillan in 2013.

support, and a wide variety of publishing opportunities. We provide students with high-quality, engaging, and hands-on literary programming. The result: better writing, improved grades, stronger community ties between young people and professional adults, and brighter futures.

ALL EIGHT 826 CHAP TERS OFFER THE FOLLOW ING:

After-school tutoring – Neighborhood students receive free one-on-one tutoring five days a week in all sub-ject areas at each center. 826 National’s tutoring program is designed to inspire learning, foster creativity, and help students understand and complete their homework each day. We accomplish this by providing youth—particularly low-income youth, including those who live near our loca-tions—free access to invaluable academic assistance.

Workshops – Our free workshops foster creativity and strengthen writing skills in a variety of areas. All offer-ings directly support classroom curriculum while engag-ing students with imaginative and often playful themes. Workshops are project-based and taught by experienced, accomplished literary professionals. Examples or topics include: “Writing for Pets” (just what it sounds like!); “Mad Science,” in which students, wearing lab coats, isolate strings of their own DNA and then write stories about their DNA mutating in strange ways; “How to Persuade Your Parents, Or: Whining Effectively”; “Spy Training”; and “How to Write a Comic Book,” taught by a professional cartoonist.

Publishing – 826 publishes an array of student-authored literary quarterlies, newspapers, books, chapbooks, and anthologies, which are displayed and sold in the retail shops that front our writing centers and are distributed and sold nationwide. We use professional editors and designers to allow the students’ work to shine. Our most significant student collaboration each year, the Young Authors’ Book Project, partners a local high school class-room with professional writers and editors. The students spend three to four months crafting essays around a par-ticular theme, continually collaborating with adult tutors through the editing and publishing process. When the project is complete, we celebrate the release with a festive party. The final book is a stunning ref lection of months of hard work, engagement, and dedication on the part of the students and tutors.

Field trips – Up to four times a week, 826 chapters welcome an entire public school classroom for a morning of high-energy learning. In one field trip, “Storytelling &

Bookmaking,” students write, illustrate, and bind their own books within a two-hour period.

In-schools program – We dispatch teams of volunteers into local, high-need public schools to support teachers and provide one-on-one assistance to students as they tackle various writing projects, such as school newspapers, research papers, oral histories, and college entrance essays. We serve five thousand students annually through this deeply mean-ingful partnership with local schools and teachers.

Our five thousand volunteers make our work possible and our programs free of charge. They are local community residents, many of whom are professional writers, artists, college students, parents, bankers, lawyers, and retirees from a wide range of professions. These passionate in-dividuals are found at our centers throughout the day, sitting side by side with our students after school, support-ing morning field trips, and helping entire classrooms of students learn the art of writing. Our volunteers actively connect with youth every day.

If you would like to get involved in programs as a tutor or as a donor, please go to the 826 National website, www.826national.org, to find out more information or visit one of our chapter websites.

Jennifer Tr aig is THe auTHor of THe MeMoirs Dev il in the Details a nd Well enough alone, a nd ediTor of the autobiogr apher’s hanDbook. a LongTiMe 826 voLunTeer, sHe Has a pHd in LiTer aTur e a nd Liv es in ann arBor, w Her e sHe serv es on THe Board of dir ecTors for 826 MicHiga n.

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L e s s o n 7

MAGIC REALISMby Aimee Bender

1 session , 2 hours

What’s magic realism? In One Hundred Years of Solitude, one of the major books of magical realism, one of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s characters walks around surrounded by yellow butterf lies. Nothing else is particularly magical about him—he’s a living, breathing regular person but just happens to have this extra magnetic butterf ly ability. In magic realism, the world looks a whole lot like our daily world, it’s proportionally our world, but some elements in it are magical and they are woven right into the realistic storyline. People might f ly. Something unexpected might rustle up from the ground. What’s that unusual rabbit? What’s the deal with John’s right arm? In this class, students learn to create magic realist writing of their own. Writing with magical elements is fun, amazingly fun, because you can explore the consequences of one small but significant shift in the universe and the ripple effects can change the whole storyline.

Begin with a short story: “The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel García Marquéz, or “Hirschel” by Judy Budnitz, or “Jon” by George Saunders (which is long).

Talk about what happens, when this shift happens. When a man shows up with wings, or when a baker makes people, or when there’s teen demographic camp.

Talk about the connection between the two words “magic” and “logic” which happen to share three letters but usually aren’t thought of together. But they’re so related! Magic relies on logic; we need to feel like the world makes sense, even if it’s a different world. What are the consequences of one meaningful change in these stories?

Most of the exercises I have around this subject are building from the ground up, meaning the students can dive into a wild topic, and see what happens. Sometimes, this ends up as absolute realism, which is fine, too.

EXERCISE 1: TELL ING A LEGEND. Pass around two index cards. On one, write an element of nature. Brainstorm some elements of nature: waterfalls, carbon, palm trees, frogs.On the second index card, write a verb. Not a fancy verb, a fairly basic verb. Depending on the group, go over verbs for two seconds, too. Then, pass nature card to the right, verb to the left. Each student ends up with an element of nature and a verb, from two different other students.

(Aside: I’m big on these index card passings because they really pop us out of our own mindsets, which tend to get fixed. Getting “dirt” and “jump” suddenly forces the brain to rethink the rules.) Once each student has their two cards, tell them about Rudyard Kipling, and “Just So Stories”—how each chapter told a legend. “How the ___ got its ____”. Here, they are writing a legend too: How the Cloud got its Balance. Some of them won’t make sense—How Fire got its Laugh, but in a way, that can be even better. Go around the circle, hear everyone’s title. Then, let them write it out, see what they discover. Share a few after about fifteen-twenty minutes of writing time, depending on the group and age.

EXERCISE 2: CRE AT ING A WORLD. This one is more calculated, more about creating a world of magical realism

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK1. Come on in. Have a look around. Check out the Table of Contents to see if

anything catches your eye. Bear in mind that most of the lesson plans can be adapted for other grade levels, so don’t feel obligated to stick strictly to yours.

2. All of our workshops are different, so all of our lesson plans are too. Generally, they consist of an outline of the lesson for you, a handout for the students, and sometimes an example of our own students’ work. We’ve tried to make them as user-friendly as possible.

3. To help you plan your class, we’ve headed each lesson plan with a time estimate. This is how long the class generally runs. In your classroom it might go slower or faster, but we’ve tried to ballpark it for you.

4. As much as we’ve tried to make things fun, we’ve also tried to keep things simple. A three-ring writing circus with actual trained animals and cotton candy machines would be great fun for your students, but a great big headache for you, so we’ve tried to keep the supplies and prep to a minimum. We’ve headed each lesson plan with the list of materials it requires. Most of the time this will consist of things you already have on hand. Fancier fixings are optional.

5. We encourage you to adapt these lessons to suit you and your students. These lessons were taught in an afterschool environment, with students who were there by choice, so we expect they’ ll need some tweaking to work for you. Make them yours.

6. Sometimes you might have extra time and want to do something really, really special. When you do, look for the Superteacher bonus activity icon. Superteacher bonus activities are optional additions to the lesson plan that require a little more effort, but are guaranteed to dazzle your students.

7. In the Appendix you’ ll find some other tools we hope will make your life easier. Evaluation rubrics to guide grading. Student self-assessment checklists. The chart on page XX will show you which Core Curriculum guidelines each lesson plan meets.

8. We’ d love to hear how it goes. Any suggestions? Comments? Send us your own favorite lesson plan, or samples of your students’ fabulous work, at info@826national.org. We’ d love to see it.

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from scratch. It works well for more logically-minded students, but can cramp the style of those who don’t want to think things through much in advance. Still, worth a try.

Have the students write down five small changes in the physical world: i.e., Rain is made of metal! Or, people grow two heads!

For older kids, and adults, have them also write down five customs, altered slightly: We shake hands when we are hungry, or when someone sneezes, you feel blessed.

Have the group go around, and each student reads one of their altered rules in the physical world, and one custom. These are fun to hear, and usually spark the imaginations of students who feel stuck.

Then: consequences. Back to magic and logic. Have them pick one to write about. The writers have a chance here to build their own new universe, one that exists with this one rule changed. What’s the impact? On people, on religion, on money, on Los Angeles, on roses, on love, on everything and anything they can think of. They can make a list here, or just start describing the world and seeing if a story begins to develop. Maybe they find a character who doesn’t fit in this world, for whatever reason, and see what happens. This is another good point to refer to the stories at the beginning again, as a way to see how other authors have done this.

Write and share!

aiMee Bender is the author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, An Invisible Sign of My Own, Willful Creatures, The Third Elevator, and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Her short fiction has been published in GQ, The Paris Review, Tin House, McSweeney’s, and more, and she has been teaching various forms of creative writing for the past eighteen years to students from ages four to seventy-five.

L e s s o n 8

RECYCLED ELVES: FAIRY TALE DO-OVERSBy Lucas gonzaLez and cHris MoLnar

Two sessions , 2 hours each

We’ve heard the same old fairy tales for too long! What about the original version of the story, before it was changed, when Little Red Riding Hood gets eaten by the Wolf? And what if the Wolf ’s belly actually turned out to be a portal into an alternate universe, where you are a talking recycling bin who drives a Mister Softee truck?

As we f lipped through the pages of a past edition of 826 National’s writing workshop manual, we came across one lesson plan that we thought would be perfect for the young learners we had been working with: writing your own fairytales. This format (that of the fantastical precautionary tale with a moral bent), would be a perfect vehicle for the imagination of our young writers. Reimagining fairy tales, recycling their format and learner about how such stories have evolved over a many centuries—our hope was that this workshop would open the door to let some fun, wild, strange, and inventive stories through.

We started out by asking our students about some fairytales they knew. We knew setting out on our journey to write fairytales would be best served by reminding ourselves of some familiar quirks and tropes: the vital elements to fairy tales. We talked heroes, we talked villains, we talked pigs, fairies, wolves, and we talked elves. We knew we needed to have a mission, and we knew that mission needed to be interrupted by some sort of dilemma: monsters, aliens, or what would eventually turn out to be a trio of evil space dictators in one student’s story. We knew that, whoever he or she or it would be, our hero would need to find his way out of this situation and teach us all a lesson. But, as we learned in our workshop, fairytales haven’t always had happy endings!

Staying mindful of kids’ attachment and long relationship to the versions of modern fairytales, we began to discuss famous fairytales as they once existed in a primitive form, stories that are not without their sense of shock value to the wholesome and Disney-fied tales we are used to.

Leave it up to the students to decide what kind of tale they want to tell. The only goal is to tell a story that serves as a spellbinding tale of caution! The characters are yours to shape. The elements of the plot, the twists and turns, are yours to shuff le and re-invent. Let’s recycle some old stories and begin creating the next generation of fairytales and whimsical warnings.

One way we decided to start writing was by doing a fairytale together, Mad-Lib style:

A ________________ is invited to the ________’s ____________ with its evil _______________. (really cool being) (kind of party) (type of friend or relation)

A fairy _______ turns ________’s lame ______ into ______________. The fairy ___________ has made it so (noun #1) (noun #2) (#1) (article of clothing) (better article of clothing)

that __________ will lose their __________ at midnight. The _________ falls in love (#2) (#1) (better article of clothing) (really cool being)

with ___________, but ________ forgets about time and rushes out at midnight before (#1) (#1)

telling ________ who they are. However, ____________ goes over the guest list to the (RCB) (RCB)

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__________ and goes to see who fits the _________. Definitely not the evil (kind of party) (better article of clothing)

__________! Eventually, _________ finds _________ and they live _________ ever after. (friend or relation) (RCB) (#1) (adverb)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A family of _______ live in a _______ in the _________. Each one has their own (plural noun) (dwelling) (location)

_________ of ________. One day, they go for a walk while their ________ cools. A (container) (food) (food)

young __________ is walking through the woods and spies the ________. The papa (noun) (dwelling)

________’s _________ is too hot, the mama __________’s _________ is too cold, but (first noun) (food) (first noun) (food)

the baby ____________’s __________ is just right, and the ___________ eats it right up. (first noun) (food) (second noun)

When the family of __________s come back, they find __________ asleep and chase (first noun) (second noun)

____________ away! (second noun)

Working through these Mad-Libs will give students an idea of the format they can take on. It will give students a chance to get warmed up, talk about some characters, some elements of the stories, and open up the possibilities of their own tales.

In the first session, we did the intro just described and got started with our stories. In our second workshop, we finished the stories and took some time to illustrate them with collage and drawings. The workshop concluded with an amazing story-telling, with our writers reading their new fairytales to an audience of parents and staff !

Lucas Gonzalez is a New York City native, an English MA student, and a former 826NYC young author. His first novel, Maple Machine, appeared in the 2006 anthology “Nine Novels by Younger Americans.” Lucas lives in New York where he continues to create works of poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fiction, as well as drawing, painting, cartoon, and mixed-media work.

cHris MoLnar is a writer from New York, NY. During the day he manages 826NYC’s Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store, where he tends to the kryptonite and cybernetic henchfish.

L e s s o n 1 3

SPY SCHOOLBy k aTe pavao and Jennifer Tr aig

1 session , 90 minutes

Most people have no idea how much writing spies actually do. Everyone thinks spying is all martinis and high-speed boat chases. The fact is spies have to write all the time. There are cases to file, forms to fill out, memoirs to pen, and more paperwork than you can imagine. This class prepares students for future careers as highly literate covert operatives. It also gives them lots of practice observing and describing. And boy, do they have fun.

This lesson does require a fair amount of prep. You’ll need to make a copy of the training manual (pages TK-TK) for each student. You’ll definitely need a whole bunch of fruit and some index cards. Yes, we said fruit. And if you happen to have some items for disguises to bring in—like hats, scarves, or sunglasses—that would be great. Bonus points for lemon juice and toothpicks (for invisible ink). And if you can find a volunteer to dress up strangely and pay your class a visit, you’ll have a lesson your students will never forget.

Here’s how class works: We distribute the handouts and welcome our recruits to Spy School. All students are encouraged to take an alias, so we spend a few minutes going around the room and asking everyone what their new code name is. Then we get down to work.

The first thing we learn about are the tools of the trade. We spend about 10 minutes going over “The Spy’s Toolbox” in the handbook. This is a lot more interesting if there are actual items on hand for the students to check out, so we usually show things like funny hats and goofy glasses. We ask a few brave students to model them, showing how easy it is to completely transform your look with just a few small accessories.

Next we move onto cryptology. We turn to the “Codes” section of the handbook, and learn all the different codes: the Mason Cipher, the Numbers Code, the Caesar Cipher, the Magic Five Code, and the Da Vinci Code. This takes 10 minutes or so. When time permits we mix up a batch of lemon juice for invisible ink as well. Then we give the students an assignment. Using the prompt on page TK, they have 10 minutes to write a coded message for our agent in Brazil. The students trade papers with their neighbors and try to crack each other’s code.

Next we bring out the fruit. We turn to the “Gathering Intelligence” section of the handbook and give each student a piece of fruit (usually an apple or an orange). Their assignment: for the next 10 minutes, they have to observe every little thing they can about their fruit, taking notes and making a sketch. What makes this apple from all other apples? Is there a bruise? A black spot? A hole? Does it have a stem? A sticker? What’s the color like? Is it uniform or mottled? When the 10 minutes are up, the students all hand over their fruit, and the teacher places each piece of fruit on a card with the student’s name on the other side. Then, one by one, the students come up to see if they can pick out their piece of fruit.

Next, we eat the evidence.

Finally, it’s time to put all our new spy skills to the test. We turn to Spy School Case File #1 in the training manual. All of a sudden, a mysterious person (usually a cooperative colleague, friend, or parent) comes into class dressed strangely and behaving even more strangely. She may mutter or drop things. All of these things are clues. For the next 15 minutes, the students fill out Case File #1, observing as much as they can about this mysterious visitor. Who is this crazy person? And what is she doing here? Is she a double agent? A fellow spy trying to send you a message? Or is she just plain crazy?

Spy School is almost done. Only one thing remains: the debriefing. We go around the room, asking each student

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to share their theories on the identity of the mysterious visitor. Then we turn to the “Debriefing” section in the training manual and invite the students to make up a cover story. They certainly can’t tell their parents they were spying all morning. They’ve been practicing their non-fiction writing; now they’ll get a chance to practice writing fiction, making up a convincing tale about the nice, safe, non-spy-like things they did instead.

CODES

MASON CIPHER

This code was used in the Civil War. It was very popular with the Masons, who gave it its name. It’s also known as the Pig Pen Cipher, because the symbols look like little pig pens.

Use the key to decipher this sentence:

NUMBER CODE

Assign every letter a number. You can use a simple formula, like A=1, B=2, or something more complicated, like A=1, B=4, C=9, D=16, etc. Then write your message in numbers instead of letters. What does this say? Hint: 20=T and 15=O.

20 15 1 19 20 9 19 20 1 19 20 25.

CAESAR CIPHER

This code was used by Julius Caesar. Simply substitute the letter three places down the alphabet for the letter you actually mean. So, A=D; B=E; C=F; and so on. What does this say?

EULWQHB VSHDUV

MAGIC FIVE

To decipher this code, circle every fifth letter and ignore the rest. What does this say?STSR MHTGHYDRJUFIOKMEPUJHESDLKTDRPOSNJDR MKOBGELPVCLSRBVL

THE DA VINCI CODE

This code is simple: just write backwards. Write from right to left and flip all the letters. Use a mirror to read it. This is how Leonardo da Vinci wrote everything! What does this say?

INVISIBLE INK

Write your message using a toothpick dipped in lemon juice. It will dry invisibly. To read it, have an adult help you iron the letter on a low setting (be careful not to singe the paper). The heat will make the letters appear.

Don’ t Forge

toWrite

b y 8 2 6 n a t i o n a le d i t e d b y j e n n i f e r t r a i g

f o r e w o r d b y

D a v e E g g e r s

50 E n t h r a l l i n g a n d E f f e c t i v e

W r i t i n g L e s s o n s ag e s 11 a n d u p

Don Forge

Write

t Forget Forget

for the S EC O N D A RY G R A D E S

CAN YOU READ THIS?

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pr aise for 826 naTionaL

“826 helps young people learn that language can be play, that work can be joyful, and that they themselves can be the inventors and caretakers of their world. I have seen it with my own eyes. 826 is a good thing in a world of bad things, and a good place in a world of hard ones.”

– Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

“826 gives young folks the opportunity to see their own works PUBLISHED, tangible and important. I want all young people to see the path illuminate before them as their self-worth grows. 826 is a positive AND challenging place for young minds from ALL different backgrounds. 826 also strives to raise the profile of teachers in America, and celebrate them as the superstars they are!”

– Neko Case, musician

aBouT THe Books

From the imaginative and highly acclaimed 826 National writing labs come these two new exciting books, Don’t Forget to Write for the Elementary Grades and Don’t Forget to Write for the Secondary Grades. Each book offers 50 writ-ing lesson plans. Created as a resource to reach all students (even those most resistant to creative writing), the inventive lessons range from goofy fun to practical, from sports to science, music to mysteries. These field-tested lessons are written by experts. Favorite novelists, actors, and other celebrities pitched in too. Lessons are helpfully linked to the Common Core State Standards.

DON’T FORGE T TO WRI TE FOR THE ELEMENTARY GRADES

978-1-118-02431-7

DON’T FORGE T TO WRI TE FOR THE

SECONDARY GRADES978-1-118-02432-4

Paperback • 8-1 /2 x 11 • 208pp

$22.95 US

In Stores October 2011

TABLE of CONTENTSFOREWORD 23ABOUT 826 NATIONAL 25CONTRIBUTORS 27HOW TO USE THIS BOOK 28

L e s s o n P l a n s1. DE TA ILS (GOLDEN), CHARACTER (IMMORTAL ), AND SE T T ING (RURAL INDI A ) – dav e eggers

In this three-part lesson, students learn to draw details from real life to create unforgettable characters and compelling stories.

2. L I TERARY FACEBOOKS – k aTHry n riddLe

Curious what Elizabeth Bennet’s, Harry Potter’s, Bella Swan’s, or Percy Jackson’s Facebookprofile would look like? In this workshop, students create a mock Facebook profile based ontheir favorite literary character.

3. SUBURBAN EPICS – ToM perroTTa

The author of Little Children and Election shares his tips for finding inspiration in your own neighborhood.4. BUSTED – wiLLia M BerT

Writing about the time you didn’t get away with it.5. HOW TO WRI TE SCIENCE F ICT ION – cory docTorow

The Nebula Award-nominated author shares his tips for crafting compelling science fiction.6. WRI T ING FROM EXPERIENCE – sTepHen eLLioTT

Students learn to transform their own life events into compelling fiction from an author who’s mastered the art.7. TOO MUCH MONE Y! AN E THICAL WRI T ING EXERCISE IN TEN E ASY STEPS – Louanne JoHnson

This lesson introduces students to the benefits of journaling, using an ethical conundrum to keep them invested and involved.8. THE TALK SHOW CIRCUI T – eLLie keMper

The Office actor shows how to use the talk show format to learn the elements of good storytelling.9. THE F IRST DRAF T IS MY ENEMY: RE V ISIONS – sar aH vow eLL

You spend hours grading papers. You give great feedback. You offer tons of suggestions to improve the piece—and then you never see it again. This lesson plan puts all that work to good use. The assignment: revise a paper that’s already been turned in. An author offers her tips to make the process go more smoothly.

10. SEE YOU AGA IN YESTERDAY: PL AY ING W I TH T IME – audr ey niffenegger

The author of The Time Traveler’s Wife shares her tips for working with tricky timelines.11. LOOK SMART FAST: COLLEGE APPL ICAT ION ESSAY BOOT CAMP – risa ny e

A college admissions reader outlines the do’s and don’ts of great application essays.12. WRI T ING ABOUT PA INFUL THINGS – pHoeBe gLoeckner

The author of Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures walks students through the difficult but redemptive process of writing about pain.13. MUTANT SHAKESPE ARE – ky Le BooTen

Reading Shakespeare is hard. Lucky for us, we won’t be reading Shakespeare. We will, however, mutate Shakespeare. We will take him apart and put him back together the wrong way. We will lose some of his pieces. This class assumes that one good way to understand something is to see how it could be different.

14. HOW TO WRI TE A ONE-PERSON SHOW ABOUT A HISTORICAL F IGURE – krisTen scHa aL

The Daily Show correspondent and actor shows us how to research and write a great play about a real person.

pr aise for 826 naTionaL

aBouT THe Books

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15. WRI T ING FOR GAMERS – ToM BisseLL

The author of Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter leads a lesson on narrativity and video games.16. HUMOR WRI T ING: AN EXERCISE IN ALCHEMY – dan kennedy

This is the lesson plan to engage the bored, disinterested students rolling their eyes in the back row. A humor author shares writing prompts that are pretty much guaranteed to provoke great material.

17. ON PINING: WRI TE A VERSE TO MAKE THEM STAY – THao ngu y en

An indie musician leads a workshop on writing the words that make those you miss come back.18. ADDING INSULT TO POE TRY – nicHoLas decouLous

Anyone can say, “Same to you, buddy!” In this class students learn why it’s not wise to cross a poet.19. BAD WRI T ING – neaL poLLack

This inventive lesson by a noted writer and satirist shows you how to do it right by trying to do it wrong.20. WHERE STORIES COME FROM – JuLie orringer

The thought of writing a short story from scratch can be so daunting. An author shares her secret: don’t start from scratch. Find inspiration in art, news, real-life events.

21. WORD K ARAOKE – MaTTHue roTH

In this highly engaging lesson, a slam poet and author invites students to do “cover” versions of other writers’ work—like hip hop sampling—to create fresh new poems.

22. TALL TALES AND SHORT STORIES – sTev e aLMond

The assignment to write fiction can feel like an overwhelming mandate. This exercise turns that mandate into play. Students are asked to tell the best lie they can. Suddenly, it’s a short story.

23. WELCOME TO THE FUNHOUSE: WRI T ING FUNNY SCENES – Mark o’donneLL

The Tony-winning author of Hairspray shares twelve weeks of funny scene-writing ideas.24. VOICEMA IL FROM MY FUTURE SELF – Mark Sipowicz

In this workshop we will creatively expand and explore your sense of who you are by thinking about the future you. The workshop culminates with an audio-recorded “voicemail” from your future self.

25. HOW SHORT IS SHORT ? – vendeLa vida

This is storytelling distilled down to its purest essence. An author shows students how to write a story in twenty minutes or less.

26. COMIC COMPOSI T ION CHALLENGE! – sTev en weissMan and Jordan cr ane

Two professional cartoonists challenge students in a fast-paced, highly entertaining comic-strip-writing game.2 7. MY BORING L IFE – MicaH piLkingTon

Everyone thinks their life is boring. This class proves that it’s actually full of great stories.28. COLONEL MUSTARD IN THE L IBRARY W I TH A CANDLEST ICK: HOW TO WRI TE A MYSTERY – JuLianne BaLMain

Mystery-writing solved! A mystery author shares her secrets.29. CRE AT ING CHARACTERS – JonaTHan aMes

A novelist shares his techniques for creating memorable, well-rounded characters and offers exercises to help students hone their skills.

30. HIGH SCHOOL CONF IDENT I AL: HOW TO WRI TE A YOUNG-ADULT NOVEL – MaTTHue roTH

A young-adult author helps students write modern comedies of manners.31. GE T YOUR HA IKU ON – dapHne goTTLieB

This very modern take on the ancient classic invites students to borrow from hip hop and pop culture to create one-of-a-kind haikus.

32. THE ESSAY – MegHan dauM

Essays don’t have to be boring. They can be as exciting as fiction, as moving as poetry. Here, an acclaimed essay-ist shares her essay-writing tips.

33. THE STORY OF ME: WRI T ING ABOUT YOUR L IFE AND YOUR FAMILY – Jason RobertsYou don’t have to be old or famous to write your life story. This class invites you to trace how your family and experiences have shaped who you are today.

34. MEE T YOUR PROTAGONIST! – ryan HarT y

An author teaches students to create rounded characters that readers really care about.35. ALL W I TNESSES DIE E VENTUALLY: EMBARRASSING STORIES – Erika Lopez

In comic panel form, an author and graphic novelist shares her tips for turning your mortifying experiences into good reading.

36. W ICKED ST YLE AND HOW TO GE T I T – MicaH piLkingTon

Students always tell us they want to develop a unique voice, a literary style all their own. This class helps them find it.37. PRESIDENT TAKES MART I AN BRIDE: WRI T ING TABLOID F ICT ION – aLv in orLoff

Tabloids might not be high literature, but they’re awfully fun to read—and even more fun to write. In this offbeat les-son, an author encourages wild storytelling and out-there stories that, we promise, will be really really fun to grade.

38. LY ING FOR FUN AND PROF I T – eMiLy k aTz

Good lies are a lot like good literature. This class helps students turn falsehoods into fiction.39. THIS CL ASS SUCKS – k a zz regeLMan and andr ew sTrick Man

Students learn the basics of criticism by reviewing everything from CDs to cookies.40. SCREENWRI T ING – noaH Haw Ley

A professional screenwriter shares his secrets, and invites the class to go Hollywood by practicing their story pitching skills.41. HOW TO WRI TE A GHOST STORY – Lisa Brow n and adeLe griffin

Two professional ghost story writers share their scariest tips.42. 826 UNPLUGGED: SONGWRI T ING – cHris perdue

The whole class collaborates to pen a guaranteed hit. No musical experience necessary.43. SPORTSWRI T ING: THE L IFE – sa M siLv ersTein and Jason TurBow

Two professional sportswriters share their tips.4 4. HOW TO WRI TE A FAN LE T TER W I THOUT GE T T ING A RESTRA INING ORDER – Lisa LuTz

A young-adult author and self-confessed superfan shares her letter-writing tips.45. EXQUISI TE STORY L INES – Jer eMy wiLson and k aiT sTeeLe

This lesson adapts the Exquisite Corpse poetry technique for short fiction.46. SOUL PROWLERS: THE ART OF THE PROF ILE – rona Mar ecH

Ordinary-seeming people can have extraordinary, heroic stories—it just takes curiosity and will to excavate them. In this class, we’ ll learn how to identify good subjects, conduct interviews, find inspiration in the details of a life, and write compelling stories about both regular and famous people.

47. HOMEST YLE: WRI T ING ABOUT THE PL ACE WHERE YOU L I VE – ToM MoLanpHy

This lesson teaches students to see home in a fresh way, to walk through doors and open windows they never noticed, and find the stories that home holds.

48. AGI TATE! PROPAGANDIZE! – JuLius dia z panoriñgan

Sometimes, clear, convincing argument isn’t enough. You need to stir things up just a bit so that people pay attention and you can get across your message, whatever that is. In this workshop, students craft propaganda—speeches, pamphlets, and posters—all of it hard-hitting.

49. TAST Y MEDICINE FOR WRI TER’S BLOCK: MINDFUL WRI T ING EXERCISES – reBecca sTern and Br ad woLfe

From the editors of Essays for a New Generation, an anthology of essays for young readers, come these techniques for writing mindfully.

50. TEEN INK: GE T T ING PUBL ISHED – Lar a zieLin

An author of young adult fiction shares her tips on getting your work out there.

a p p e n d i x

E VALUAT ION RUBRICSSELF -ASSESSMENT CHECKL ISTSCORE CURRICULUM STANDARDS

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CONTRIBUTORS(PLEASE note : this is aN excerpt of the full contributor list)

JonaTHan aMes is the author of eight books, including Wake Up, Sir! and The Extra Man, and he is the creator of the HBO show, Bored to Death.

MegHan dauM has been a weekly columnist at The Los Angeles Times since 2005. She’s the author of the memoir, Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House, the novel The Quality of Life Report, and the essay collection My Misspent Youth. She lives in Los Angeles.

cory docTorow is the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the author of books including For the Win, Makers, and the bestselling Little Brother. His work has been nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, Sunburst and Locus awards. He is the former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group.

dav e eggers is the co-founder of 826 Valencia and the founder of McSweeney’s Publishing, LLC. He is also an author whose writings include A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, You Shall Know Our Velocity, How We Are Hungry, What Is the What, Zeitoun, The Wild Things, and Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers.

dapHne goTTLieB is the author and editor of nine books, most recently the poetry book 15 Ways to Stay Alive as well as co-editor (with Lisa Kester) of Dear Dawn: Aileen Wuornos in her Own Words. Her poetry books include Kissing Dead Girls, Final Girl, Why Things Burn and Pelt, and as the graphic novel Jokes and the Unconscious with artist Diane DiMassa.

adeLe griffin has written a number of books for young adults, including Where I Want to Be, Amandine, The Other Shepards, the Witch Twins and Vampire Island series, Picture the Dead with bestselling illustrator Lisa Brown, and the “Generation Facebook” novel The Julian Game. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York

noaH Haw Ley is the author of four novels, including A Conspiracy of Tall Men and The Punch. He is the creator of the ABC series My Generation and The Unusuals and has written and produced for the series Bones.

Louanne JoHnson is a former U.S. Navy journalist, Marine Corps officer, high school teacher, and the author of The New York Times bestseller Dangerous Minds (originally My Posse Don’t Do Homework).

eLLie keMper is a contributor to McSweeney’s and The Onion. She plays Erin Hannon on NBC’s The Office.

Lisa LuTz is the author of the Spellman Files series of comedic novels, the collaborative mystery novel Heads You Lose (with David Hayward), and several unanswered fan letters. She lives in San Francisco.

audr ey niffenegger is the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry. She trained as a visual artist at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and received her MFA from Northwestern University’s Department of Art Theory and Practice. She is now on the faculty of the Columbia College Fiction Writing Department. She serves on the Advisory Board for 826CHI.

krisTen scHa aL is a contributor to The Daily Show and the voice of Louise on Bob’s Burgers. She played Mel on Flight of the Conchords and co-wrote The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex with Rich Blomquist.

Jennifer Tr aig is the author of the memoirs Devil in the Details and Well Enough Alone, and editor of The Autobiographer’s Handbook. A longtime 826 volunteer, she has a PhD in Literature and lives in Ann Arbor, where she serves on the Board of Directors for 826Michigan.

vendeLa vida is the author of four books, most recently Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name and The Lovers. A founding co-editor of the Believer magazine, Vida lives in San Francisco.

sar aH vow eLL is the author of Take the Cannoli, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Assassination Vacation, The Wordy Shipmates, and Unfamiliar Fishes. She is president of the 826NYC Board of Directors.

L e s s o n 1

DETAILS (GOLDEN), CHARACTER (IMMORTAL), AND SETTING (RURAL INDIA)

By dav e eggers

2 hours

This is the lesson I usually give on the first meeting of my evening high school writing class. My classes are two hours long, and for this first session, I’m trying to do the following things:

• Get the students thinking about specificity in their writing• Get them thinking about the value of personal observation• Get them better acquainted with each other (in my class, the students are from all over the Bay Area,

but this is just as useful in a setting where the students all think they know each other)• Get them started on a short story that challenges them to solve fairly sophisticated problems of setting

and motive.Note: Any portion of this two-hour plan could be used alone. Most steps could easily take up a 50-minute class period. The time guidelines are only included if you happen to have a two-hour, or two-class-period, block of time available.

Step One. The Power of Observation - 12 minutes -

Start with the head of a stuffed crocodile. Or something like that. 826 Valencia is next to a store that sells taxidermied animals, so I usually go over and borrow one of their crocodile heads. Whatever you chose to use, this object should be something fairly unusual, but it should also be something that the students have seen before. Now—without showing the students the object—pass out blank pieces of paper, and ask the students to draw the object. For example, if I have the stuffed crocodile head hidden in my desk, I would tell the students, “You have five minutes to draw a perfectly accurate rendering of a Peruvian caiman (a type of small crocodile).” The students will laugh, but you will be serious. They have to get down to business, and draw that crocodile.After five minutes, most students will have a pretty sorry-looking crocodile. They will have drawn the animal from memory, trying to recall if the crocodile’s eyes are on the top of their head, or the side, and if the teeth are inside its mouth or protrude out the sides. Collect the drawings and show them to the class. Guffaws will follow.Now take the actual crocodile head out, and place it where the students can easily see it. Now ask them to draw the Peruvian caiman again, using the actual animal as a model. After five minutes, you’ll see a tremendous difference. Where there was guessing and vagueness and error in the first drawings, there will be detail, specificity and accuracy, now that the students can refer to the genuine article. They’ll see that the eyes are actually on top of its head. They’ll see that the eyes are like a cat’s—eerie and many-layered. They’ll see that the snout is very long, very narrow, and very brittle-seeming.

Step Two. Apply the Lesson of the Peruvian Caiman to Any and All Writing - 5 minutes -

The lesson is pretty clear: If you draw from life, from observation, your writing will be more convincing. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing science fiction, fantasy, or contemporary realism—whatever it is, it will benefit from real-life observation. Is there a street performer in the novel you’re writing? Go watch one in action. Is there a short-hair terrier in the story you’re writing? Go observe one. Is there a meat-eating Venus f lytrap plant in your poem? See how they really do it. Nothing can substitute for the level of specificity you get when you actually observe.

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Step Three. Knowing the Difference in Details - 25 minutes -

My students and I talk about the three types of details. With different classes, we’ve given these three types different names, but here we’ll call them:

- Golden- Useful- Not-so-good

Now let’s try to define them, in reverse order so we have some drama:Not-so-good: This is a very nice way of referring to clichés or clunky descriptions or analogies. First, clichés: If there’s one service we can give to these students, it’s to wean them off the use of clichés. Clichés just destroy everything in their path, and they prevent the student’s writing from being personal or original. He was as strong as an ox. She ate like a bird. His hands were clammy. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. There’s just no point, really, in writing these words down. When students can tell a cliché when they see one, they become better critical thinkers, better readers, smarter people. When they learn to stay away from clichés in their own writing, they’re on their way to becoming far stronger writers. The other type of not-so-good detail is the clunky one. His legs looked like square-cut carrots. Her dog was like a blancmange crossed with a high-plains cowboy. This is, in a way preferable to a cliché, but it’s so strange and hard to picture that it disrupts the flow of the story.Useful: These are descriptions that are plain but needed. His hair was orange. Her face was long and oval. These pedestrian details are necessary, of course. Not every description can be golden. Speaking of which:Golden: This is a detail/description/analogy that’s singular, completely original, and makes one’s subject unforgettable. She tapped her fingernail rhythmically on her large teeth as she watched her husband count the change in his man-purse. In one sentence, we’ve learned so much about these two people. He has a man-purse. He’s fastidious. She’s tired of him. She’s exasperated by him. She has large teeth. Golden details can come about even while using plain words: Their young daughter’s eyes were grey and cold, exhausted. Those words, individually bland, are very specific and unsettling when applied to a young girl. In one key sentence, a writer can nail down a character. This is a sample from one of my students, describing a man she saw in the park near 826 Valencia: He wore a beret, though he’d never been to Paris, and he walked like a dancer, as if hoping someone would notice that he walked like a dancer.

Working this out with the class: Getting the students understanding the differences between these three kinds of description is possible with an exercise that’s always good fun. Create a chart, where you have three categories: not-so-good, useful, golden. Now give them a challenge: come up with examples of each. Tell them that they need to conjure examples for, say:The feeling of traveling at 100 miles an hour.

The students in one of my classes came up with these:Not-so-good: like flying; like being on a rollercoaster; so fast you want to puke; like being shot out of a cannon.Useful: terrifying; dizzying; nerve-racking; hurtlingGolden: like being dropped down a well; as the speed grew, I heard death’s whisper growing louder and louder.

The exploration of these types of description can last a full class period, for sure. If you want to keep going, consider this game I use sometimes. This takes the concept to a new level of fun.

Step Four. Interviewing Your Peers While Observing Them Shrewdly - 15 minutes -

Start by telling the students that they’re going to interview each other for fifteen minutes. The students will be paired up—try to pair up students who don’t usually talk to each other much—and they’ll find a quiet place to talk. One will interview the other, and after seven and a half minutes, they’ll switch. Before getting them started, talk about what sorts of details are useful in defining a character, making that character singular and intriguing. They’ll be applying what they know from the caiman exercise, and also using good interviewing techniques, to immediately get beyond the “Where do you go to school: sorts of questions. By asking good questions and observing closely, the interviews should produce strong results very quickly, now that the students know that they’re looking for golden details.

Step Five. Immortalizing Your Subject - 30 minutes -

Once each student has notes about their assigned peer, they can do one of two things:The Simple but Essential Character SketchYou can ask them to simply write one-page character sketches of their peers, which should be compelling, true, well-observed, and (of course) beautifully written. This alone is a very worthwhile assignment. When these are read aloud, the interview subject benefits from what in most cases is the first time they’ve ever been thus defined. It’s strange but true: it’s pretty rare to have someone observe you closely, write about your gestures and freckles and manner of speech. In the process, the interviewer improves their powers of observation, while the interviewee blushes and can’t get the words of their brain. And these two students get to know each other far better than they would almost any other way. Its’ a good way to break though cliques, create new bonds of understanding.Find Your Subject in Rural India (for example)The lesson works pretty well either way, but something extraordinary happens with this second part, the curveball part. At this stage, after the first 15 minutes, hand out pictures to the students. These pictures, one per student, should depict some unusual, strange, foreign, bizarre, or historical setting. Usually I make copies from old LIFE books about various cultures of the world. Thus the student might end up with a picture of a Swedish farm, a royal Thai court, a Nairobi marketplace, or a scene from rural India. Then tell the class that they need to a)use the details they’ve gathered about their classmate; and then b) place that student in a foreign setting. The writers then need to concoct a reason that their character is in rural India, or in Barbados, or Grenada, or in the drawing room of a Scottish duke. This requires the writer to imagine this new/strange world, and also solve the problem: What is their character doing there? Are they stuck, are they trying to leave? How would this student react to being lost in a marketplace in Nairobi? Who are what are they looking for?If you have some time, or want to expand the exercise, have the students research their location a bit. Even by using the picture alone, they are using their observational powers, but with the added benefit of some book-oriented or Internet research, they can conjure ever-more convincing settings.I have to admit that I came up with this exercise on the fly. I had no idea that it would work, but it did the first time I did it, and it always works. Here’s why:

• The process of interviewing one’s classmates is always appealing to the students• The close observation makes both students, interviewed and interviewee, feel valued and singular• The curveball of putting this person in a foreign setting forces the student outside their own school/home/

neighborhood, and requires the solving of a fairly sophisticated problem: Who is this person and why are they here? The drama and conflict are built into the setting, and get a short story off to a quick and intriguing start.

A stellar example of one such exercise is on the following page. In their interview, 17-year-old Sally Mao’s subject told her about some nightmares he’d been having, and mentioned having recently been to the hospital to visit his mother. Then Sally was given a picture of Bombay, c. 1970. From this, Sally created this story in about 20 minutes.

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L e s s o n 2

LITERARY FACEBOOKSBy k aTHry n riddLe

2 hours

MATERI ALS: Magazines to cut up, scissors, glue sticks (optional)

Curious what Elizabeth Bennet’s, Harry Potter’s, Bella Swan’s, or Percy Jackson’s Facebook profile would look like? Wonder no more! In this lesson plan, students create a mock Facebook profile based on their very favorite literary character. There’s lots of room for creativity. Use it as a fun wrap-up activity, or to assess student understanding of character traits.

This lesson can be implemented electronically or on paper, using either the Facebook website or a blank paper template (page TK). When using the paper template, it works well to expand it onto a large piece of paper, leaving lots of room for writing and instant classroom decoration when the product is finished!

Start by having the class discuss what they have in their own Facebook profile and how it represents them. Students should then pick a book character to use for their Facebook and brainstorm what they want to include in it.

Pass out the templates and get ready to write! Students often like to have the text they are using at hand to check details. Encouragement to get creative is also important, as not all Facebook details will be able to be found in a book. In this case, encourage students to make up details based on other character traits. Have magazines, scissors, and glue sticks on hand so students can paste in profile pictures and other images.

Now brace yourself and be ready to be amazed by your incredibly creative and talented students. Have your students share their creations with the class. This offers both an opportunity to show their skills and prove what they know about the text (and it’s a great review for those students who may have missed a chapter or two!). Because sharing the entire Facebook would be very time-consuming, encourage your students to pick five parts that they want to share or ask them what they put for various areas of the page.

This lesson does not have to stop with literature lessons. Students can create pages for acclaimed scientists, famous historical figures, or celebrated mathematicians.

L e s s o n 10

SEE YOU AGAIN YESTERDAY: PLAYING WITH TIME

by Audrey Niffenegger

2 hours +

Playing with time is a great exercise for a beginning writer. It relieves the pressure of having to begin at the beginning, which not everyone is suited to doing, certainly not me. My own work tends to start off with a phrase or an image, and I don’t necessarily know what it means. In the case of The Time Traveler’s Wife, I started out with that phrase, and then had an image of an elderly woman with her cup of tea, waiting. And from there, eventually, it became a novel.

Nontraditional timelines work in almost any genre of literature. It doesn’t have to mean science fiction time machines. For me, the time travel was mimicking memory. Memory isn’t all that tidy and doesn’t come in strict chronological order, so often a jumbled chronology can give a more naturalistic story.

Sometimes playing with time is done in an obvious way, and sometimes it’s subtle. The nice thing about atypical approaches to time is that it allows you to give and withhold information in ways that heighten the reader’s experience of suspense. Often in mysteries and suspense novels the author starts with the end or the climax—they f lash you a jolt—and then in chapter one you go back and see how you to get to that point. It’s done so often it doesn’t even sound like time travel.

In this lesson students practice playing with their own nontraditional time schemes.

EXERCISE #1: SCRAMBLE A STORY.Have students write a story in which every sentence starts with “And then.” Then, have them put the sentences back in a different order for a different outcome. The fun thing is to write a bunch of unrelated sentences. Then it gets very surreal. It’s great to have the students read these aloud.

EXERCISE #2: WRI TE A STORY BACK WARDS.A harder and more interesting thing to do is to start a story at the end point and work backwards. It’s sounds simple, but it’s not the way we’re used to thinking.

EXERCISE #3: WRI TE 100 UNREL ATED SENTENCES.One of the things that’s makes playing with time such a great exercise for a writer is the underlying principle of unfamiliarity. It jars you out of your habits and habitual way of looking at things, which is always good for creativity. So I do a lot of exercises that force people into peculiar juxtapositions. In this one, I have students write 100 unrelated sentences. After the first twenty, it gets surprisingly hard. But when the students are done they have is a grab bag of stuff they can use all semester.

EXERCISE #4: BEGIN AND END W I TH T WO RANDOM SENTENCES.Once the students have their sentences, I’ll have them write a story that begins with, say, sentence #74 and ends with #22. The results are typically hilarious, but the work they’re doing, getting from point A to B, is worth doing. Obviously you can connect any two points if you write long enough but usually these are timed, in class. That’s another thing: giving yourself finite time periods to write is REALLY helpful.