Trying Out A Short Children's Story

"Bear Drill!"               pdf

Writer's Memo:

One of the completely new things I tried to write this month was an engaging short story for young children (maybe about 3 to 7 years old) that would include some educational tidbits within the writing.  I didn't think it would be too difficult because I'vve written stories before, I had worked in the setting for the small saga before and seen some of the vents described in it.

I used voice, point of view, sounds, print conventions, though shots, and snap shots. I conferenced with other writers and my writing teacher. From those conferences I learned about developing the characters, plot lines, foreshadowing, and rising action.   I used a couple of mentor texts (The Velveteen Rabbit and The Story of Lola and Tiva, An Unlikely Friendship). 

When I trade hats from the writer to a teacher of writing I know now how long writing such a seemingly small project can take, especially the formatting, etc., to make it ready to share with the world.  I can of course share what I learned as mentioned above and mechanical issues like where to put page breaks, how to get the illustrations to print, etc.