Eddie is anxiously awaiting a favorite author's visit to his school. Eddie has been reading the author's books and wants to know how a writer can write parts meant just for the reader, so his teacher encourages to save his questions to share with the author. As the class prepares for the visit, students come up with questions to ask during the question-answer sessions.
I've used this book to talk to students about how to write meaningful personal stories. How many stories have you read that are "bed-to-bed" stories? This book coupled with what Ralph Fletcher calls "small moments," can help kids to zero in their writing to expand a meaningful event and end up with a piece that matters.
Before starting to read, we briefly got ideas from the group about what it meant “to write a meaningful story.” Students were asked to listen for what tips the author gave to being a good writer. After completing the story, we created an anchor chart to help them as they worked on personal narratives. Students, then, created a list of topics and met in pairs to share their top three choices. Partners were asked to give input on which story they could connect with the best and why.
It is also a story that helps teach questioning. The idea of “Thick and Thin Questions” was introduced. As a group we sorted the questions from the book and brainstormed some questions readers could ask before, during, and after they read.
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