April Pulley Sayre Children's Book Author » Nonfiction Writing

The Sound of Nonfiction

admin — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 02:22:04 +0000

A little bit of my sound art, related to nonfiction.

Special Moments: Writers’ Group

admin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:29:08 +0000

Val Byrd Fort, media specialist at New Providence Elementary fixed up these great invitations sent to students chosen for a special small group writers’ chat with me. This is a new event I started offering in addition to my traditional large group talks at schools late this school year. I met with only about 12 students each time. And oh, the joy of it! The young writers I met were intelligent, creative, and impassioned. They shared their work. I shared writing tips and responses. Mostly, we talked as the writers we all are. We talked about structure, detail, and voice in our work. We talked about the frustration of having a great idea just as one is trying to go to sleep. We talked about the surge of inspiration and problem of having too many ideas at once. Regardless of age or grade level, we are working on the craft of writing. We are channeling our best selves into our work.

Bumblebee Poetry and Nonfiction Writing at Midway Elem

admin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:53:24 +0000

Read The Bumblebee Queen. Pull out the chewiest, most evocative vocabulary and put it on sticky notes. Then move around the words to make a poem of your own.
This is one of the activities done at Midway Elementary in Lexington, SC. by Mrs. Huff’s and Mrs. Crapps classes. Wow. These student are digging into nonfiction and finding their own voices. Understanding nonfiction “informational” texts is parts of the S.C. state language arts standards. These teachers are fulfilling that standard and going beyond, to inspire young writers and scientists. Hooray!

I believe that Mrs. Huff mentioned T he National Writing Project as one of the sources for her ideas. Also mentioned frequently in S.C. were workshops and books by Ralph Fletcher, Linda Hoyt, and Jeff Anderson.

The Dynamic Nonfiction Classroom: a Visit to Indian Hill Elementary in Ohio

admin — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:30:56 +0000

It is going to take me quite a while to process all the great teaching techniques I witnessed at Indian Hill Elementary and Indian Hill Primary, two schools in Cincinnati. Just look at what Mrs. Bauer and her class were doing with nonfiction. This is a classroom full of words. You can see their process on the walls. They also wrote their own wonderful chant, inspired by my chant books. This kind of work was going on throughout the school. You’ll see more about their creativity in future posts. I visited with them on February 10, 11, 2009. The photos below are from the classrooms of Mrs. Bauer and Mrs. Jones.