On Monday I had the opportunity to go into a classroom and work with some awesome third-graders. It was so much fun and what a great class/teacher! I taught a mini class that I call, “The Why Lesson.” It was awesome to see the kids engage, share their wonderful imaginations and participate. I loved seeing their wonderful minds at work; it’s a great reminder of the beautiful and unique intelligence with which we are each blessed.
(Note the Laundry Santa necklace. I learned from a music teacher once – always where a crazy necklace or scarf when teaching children. Even if they aren’t paying attention to your words, they’ll be more likely to pay attention to you.)
During the mini class, I discussed with the kids just how important it is as authors to ask ourselves why. Why would a character change its usual pattern to include something completely different? This is what makes fiction – and nonfiction – so interesting. The class totally got it and hands flew up to answer the many questions I asked them after telling them my terribly-written-on-purpose story of Sam and Sally, the two cats I illustrated in the picture I’m holding up. They had some fantastic answers to the many whys I left unanswered in the story of Same and Sally!
Next, I asked them to answer a few one-sentence questions. Here are a few examples:
Why was the fly riding a motorcycle?
Why did the elephant ask the mouse if he could borrow his hat?
Why was there a pepperoni on the ice cream?
Why didn’t the rat have a tail?
I loved hearing their totally off-the-wall, yet very logical-within-fiction responses to my questions. Favorite answer because the visual it provoked was so great: ‘The elephant asked the mouse for his hat because he wanted to keep his trunk warm.’ Hehehe! Kids are so funny!
One of the reasons I feel passionate about this subject is due to the fact that I had to learn this lesson the hard way. During the first draft of my YA novel, Inheritance Aflame, I definitely didn’t ask myself enough questions about my characters and this resulted in quite a bit of rewrite. It all ended up great, however, because in the end, I knew my characters well and I discovered that I enjoy the process of pondering the whys.
By the time I wrote the first three Broden and Cookie books, this process of questioning myself about my characters was a lot easier, and one I learned to begin with, not end with.
It was a great experience to hang out with some super fun kids and I look forward to getting more hilarious answers from kiddos in other classrooms!