Writer’s Craft à la Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen published Take Joy: A Writer’s Guide to Loving the Craft in 2006. However, the book just made its way into my classroom a few days ago. I perused it to see what I could use from it with my kids before I put it into the reference section of my classroom’s Writing Center. Here are three sections I think my fourth graders can identify with:

Chapter 5: The Alphabetics of Story
Want to share the secrets of creating a great story with your kids? Check out the ABC’s List in this chapter, which includes explanations about these and twenty-two other elements of good story writing:

C is for Clarity

H is for Hope

O is for Opinion

(I love the first line of this section. Yolen writes, “Keep it to yourself.”)

R is for Relief

Chapter 6: Advice
Yolen goes beyond neat quotes in this section of the text. She has prepared true advice for budding writers about writing. The following are the sub-headings for the advice she dispenses in this chapter:

Write Every Day

Write What Interests You

Write for Yourself

Write with Honest Emotion

Be Careful of Being Facile

Be Wary of Preaching

Be Ready to Go Topsy-Turvy

Be Prepared for Serendipity

Chapter 8: What Is A Poem?
Yolen included a poem that spans pages 94-96. Here’s an excerpt from part of it:

What Is A Poem?
What is a poem?
Hard work.
A single great line.
What we see and hear the moment before sleep
takes us.
The pause between heartbeats.
The first touch of the drumstick on the tight stretch
of drum.
A word discovered after an afternoon of trying.
An emotion caught in the hand, in the mouth.
…

Click here to learn more about this amazing resource.