Resource Topics
Teaching Writing - Genre - Fiction
Additional Resources
Get Ready for National Novel Writing Month and Find Out How You Can Use It in Your Classroom
October 2011
In this episode of NWP Radio, hear from the staff of National Novel Writing Month, who will talk about how to write a novel "by the seat of your pants in 30 days"—this November. Also, NWP teacher-consultant Donalyn Miller will discuss how her students wrote a novel last year and how her class is gearing up for more novel writing this year.
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Why I Write: CJ Omololu Explores the Thrill and the Terror of the Teen Years
October 2011
CJ Omololu might be called an accidental novelist, but once she found herself as a writer, she began writing with such drive that she writes 1,000 words a day, even on Thanksgiving and anniversaries.
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A Conversation About Creative Writing Pedagogy: Where Are We Going Next? (Part 2)
Fiction Writers Review,
September 2011
Stephanie Vanderslice, director of the Great Bear Writing Project, along with educators Cathy Day and Anna Leahy, discusses creative writing pedagogy and how it fits into the educational landscape.
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A Conversation About Creative Writing Pedagogy: Where Are We Going Next?
Fiction Writers Review,
July 2011
Stephanie Vanderslice, director of the Great Bear Writing Project, along with educators Cathy Day and Anna Leahy, discusses creative writing pedagogy and how it fits into the educational landscape.
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Students Write Novels—in 30 Days
May 2011
Art Peterson
The National Novel Writing Month's Young Writers Program makes writing fun for students because of, not despite, its audacious goal: kids must pen a novel in a month.
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Digital Comics Spur Students' Interest in Writing
January 2009
Grant Faulkner
Fourth grade teacher Glen Bledsoe has his students create comic strips together, which engages their creativity and teaches them writing, critical thinking, and other skills.
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Why We Are Sticking To Our Stories
Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education,
Winter 2007
Tina Deschenie
In the Winter, 2007 Tribal College Journal, Deschenie, a teacher-consultant with the Bisti Writing Project (NM), discusses the value of storytelling in her native family. This article won a bronze in the "Magazines-Editorial" category from the Society of National Association Publishers.
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Building a Community of Stories and Writers: Lake Wobegon Comes to the Classroom
The Quarterly,
2004
Lesley Roessing
Inspired by Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion, Roessing has her middle school students collaborate to create their own fictional communities, write stories about the inhabitants, and finally produce radio shows from their stories.
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Mining the World of Writing Material
The Quarterly,
2003
Evan Balkan
Describing his work with college students, Evan Balkan offers suggestions for encouraging students to look at their lives for rich writing material and to think critically about the world around them.
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Episodic Fiction: Another Way to Tell a Story
The Quarterly,
Summer 2001
Dan Holt, Pen Campbell
Using as a model John O'Brien's story "Birds"— in which separate episodes are juxtaposed for the reader to weave together into a story—the writers experiment with this form for themselves and in their classrooms.
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Promoting Social Imagination Through Interior Monologues
The Quarterly,
Winter 2001
Bill Bigelow, Linda Christensen
The authors demonstrate how the interior monologue form provides students with opportunities to think about why others do what they do and why they think as they think.
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Staging Learning: The Play's the Thing
The Quarterly,
Summer 2000
Jean Hicks, Tim Johnson
The writers describe a method that employs sticky notes to create dramas that give students a voice.
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Building a Story: The Art of Narrative
The Quarterly,
Summer 1999
Marilyn Bates
The author presents a series of steps—from incident to dialogue to character sketch to interaction of the narrator with the characters—that launch writers toward telling a story.
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Personal Memory and Fictional Character
The Quarterly,
Winter 1999
Kim Stafford
Stafford demonstrates how a random collection of thoughts and experiences from his life serves as fodder for his teaching and writing, and how the same sort of collection may serve his student writers.
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You Know More than You Think You Do: A New Look at "Write What You Know"
The Quarterly,
Summer 1997
Mark Farrington
The writer shows a way that a visualization exercise can help writers respond to the perennial writing advice: Write what you know.
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Revisited Article: Writing Fiction: A Self Interview
The Quarterly,
Winter 1995
Donald Murray
Murray revisits a self-interview written in 1983, in which he lets us in on writing advice he gives himself and his students, addressing such questions as "What do you mean by voice?" and "How do you organize a story?"
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TR 36. “Once-Upon-a-Time” Reconsidered: The Developmental Dialectic Between Function and Form
National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report,
July 1989
Anne Haas Dyson
This essay traces the evolution of "once-upon-a-time" in a case study of a child's classroom story writing, demonstrating how the story forms young children learn from others are catalysts for development.
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TR 15. Negotiating Among Multiple Worlds: The Space/Time Dimensions of Young Children's Composing
National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report,
May 1988
Anne Haas Dyson
In this examination of the drawing, talking, and writing of primary students, Dyson focuses on children's growing awareness of text time and space as they develop as authors of fictional prose.
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Writing Fiction: A Self-Interview
The Quarterly,
March 1983
Donald Murray
Murray lets us in on writing advice he gives himself and his students, addressing such questions as "What do you mean by voice?" and "How do you organize a story?"
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