On Feb 28, author Adam Rubin came to visit with our sixth graders. His enthusiasm and humor was inspiring and got the kids excited about writing and reading!
In his previous middle grade book, The Ice Cream Machine, he encouraged kids to write and submit their own Ice Cream Machine stories and six were selected and printed in the paperback version of the book! It was such a huge success that he's offering this writing exercise again with The Human Kaboom. But he cautioned the kids not to send in their first draft. He emphasized the importance of the revision portion of the writing process, which he calls "Monkey Time." It's the time you take after you've written the story to just mess around with the words and the plot. It's a time to take things away and rearrange and add details.
He also compared the writing process to making nachos. The first draft is like the base layer of chips. But chips on a plate aren't nachos. You need to add more toppings (details, characters, etc) in order to make nachos. An interesting analogy that I'm sure the kids will remember.
Fun was had by all and hopefully our budding writers were inspired to submit their own Human Kaboom story!
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