Margin Notes

What I was reading:

Things to Look Forward To by Sophie Blackwell is a collection of small and large joys. She acknowledges that there are many big long-term achievements to look forward to but we can also look forward to the everyday things. She describes these as “things that will buoy our spirits and make us laugh and help us feel alive and that will bring others comfort and hope.”

Moves I noticed the author make:

The moves can change with every selection! Here is one example:

Moves:

• Uses the “if, and, then” format
• Descriptive wording – “tiny droplets/shimmering rainbow”
• Repetitive sounds – “bend/bounce/back”
• Uses tiny details – “raising our sights 42 degrees”
• Rule of three – “refracted, reflected, and dispersed”

 Possibilities for writers:

• Notice something in the text.
• Name what it is that you noticed.
• Talk about what impact of what you noticed.
• Choose a symbol in your own life and try using this writer’s craft to write about any 
• Using the “if, and, then” format, write your own passage of Things to Look Forward to.
• Zoom in a moment to write in descriptive, tiny details.
• Try out the rule of three in a descriptive writing paragraph.

What I Was Reading:

All My Rage by Sabba Tahir takes us from Lahore, Pakistan (then) to recount the story of Misbah and Toufiq (who are Salahudin’s parents) to (now) in Juniper, California to join the stories of Salahudin and his best-friend, Noor.

It is a fantastic YA novel told in three points of view– tackling issues of Islamophobia, alcoholism, and domestic violence; while also exploring the pressures of high school, the heartbreak of family, the beauty of friendship and the gift of forgiveness and compassion. Heartbreaking and tender, well worth the read.

What Moves I Noticed the Author Making:

Tahir makes some writerly craft choices worth exploring: using repetition, italics, and single word sentences that follow the rule of three.

• The first repetition is the italicized “ Bang. Bang” taken from her reference to a song which is punctuated with the actual sound of gunshots. (Many young readers will likely get this reference.)
• Her next paragraph employs the rule of three: the names of the three Universities that she has been rejected from in single word sentences, one after another– just like the gunshots. And, followed by yet another magic three: the repetition of the word rejection. Each letter, each rejection, are like gunshots to her hopes.

Here is the passage:

The letters come in hard and fast. Like the gunshots in M.I.A’s “Paper Planes.” Bang. Bang. Bang.

Yale. Columbia. Cornell.

Rejected. Rejected. Rejected.

• The book itself is divided into six parts. Each part opens with a stanza from Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art.” Noor selects the poem for her English analysis essay because she liked the first sentence. Or, she amends: “Well. Sort of. Mostly I picked it because it’s short. But it’s also weird. It’s about misplacing stuff, like keys and houses. How the hell do you misplace a house?” But the poem is really about accepting loss as inevitable. And so is this novel.

“One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

• Tahir gives us Noor’s inner thoughts as she reveals the veneer of Noor’s college admission essays, juxtaposing the truth next to what she actually submits.

A problem I solved. (Truth: heartbreak. What I wrote: a poor English grade.)

A life-altering experience. (Truth: my entire family dying and the smell of their bodies rotting around me. What I wrote: working at Juniper Hospital.)

My biggest life challenge. (Truth: they don’t want to know. What I wrote: bullying in high school.)

• Throughout the novel Noor is plugged into music or at the very least referring to it. Here is (a mostly complete) Noor’s Playlist. It already has some songs I do love, wonder what else I may discover? Check it out here.

Possibilities for Writers:

• Experiment with the rule of three repetition in your own writing.
• Play with one word sentences and short paragraphs to create effects in your writing.
• Use the stanzas of a poem to create an outline for a piece of writing.
• Play with offering a character’s (or your own) inner thoughts. You can copy Tahir’s set-up of: Truth… and What I Wrote… or Truth… and What I Was Really Thinking…
• Make a playlist inspired by a novel you are reading. What might the characters listen to? What songs would be perfect background for a scene? Or, do you characters actually refer to songs, movies or other texts that may help you compile a playlist?

Michelle Wuest is and English teacher & SPR at Leo Hayes High School with over 20 years helping students find the right book. When not teaching or reading you’ll find her tap dancing, practicing yoga, walking her Doodle, seeing live music with her husband, or listening to her son rattle of random NFL stats for the eleventy-billionth time.

What I was Reading:

A middle school novel by Lawrence Hill? Yes, please! Beatrice and Croc Harry is a genuine and creative romp filled with fascinating words, a new land full of adventure, an intriguing and brave protagonist and a talking crocodile, who build a curious and complex relationship out of intellect, wit, and sincerity. “Using playful language and a comic touch, the novel explores themes of identity, the courage to confront injustice, and the possibility that perpetrators of injustice and those who have been harmed might find themselves in a place of healing and respect” (from Lawrence Hill’s website).

Moves I Noticed the Author Making:

• Complex words in a new and complex world: Throughout the novel, Beatrice and Croc Harry share witty banter full of wild new vocabulary words that are wielded almost as weapons used to challenge and outwit. Some words will be new to readers, some are completely made up, and some are related to local/cultural dialect. It looks like this:

Croc Harry exhaled loudly. “Attitudinous brat!”

“How dare you call me attitudinous,” Beatrice said.

“Well, you are!”

“Is that even a word?”

“It’s a word in my books. It means too mouthy for your own good.”

“Well, if I’m attitudinous, it so happens that you smell like an unwashed bear. And you are positively assitudinous.”

“I bathe daily,” Croc Harry said. “And assitudinous is not a word.”

“It is in my books,” Beatrice said.

“So what’s it mean, then?” Croc Harry asked.

“Stubborn like a donkey.”

• Create an authoritative text to make it real: The author gives a specific name to the made-up dictionary that holds many of these creative and complicated words and concepts explored by Bea and Croc Harry, which makes them seem more meaningful. As complex vocabulary is introduced, the words are often defined by one of the characters or by Beatrice’s unique dictionary. Hill names the dictionary in this story “The St. Lawrence Dictionary of Only the Best Words, Real and Concocted.”

Possibilities for Writers

• In March 2022, the New York Times’ Learning Center encouraged teens to compete by creating new words and definitions. Check it out here: 24 New Words Invented by Teenagers – The New York Times (nytimes.com). See what exciting words your writers can come up with. Build a word wall to display what new words students have learned and created.
• Challenge your writers to invent a new dictionary to hold these exciting new words. Create elaborate definitions for words and come up with a creative name for individual dictionaries. You could also make this a collaborative event in the classroom by creating a classroom dictionary of weird and wonderful words.

Cristina Furey is a UNB student who loves sharing words and stories with people of all ages. She believes there is no better feeling than recommending good books to the readers who need them most and always hopes the magic of storytelling will capture attention and foster the joy of reading in all hearts and minds.

What I was reading:

The “What’s the Difference?” and “__________ vs __________” posts from Mental Floss are excellent examples of a unique take on descriptive and explanatory writing. Some recent examples are:

Calzone vs. Stromboli: What’s the Difference?

Em Dash vs. En Dash v., Hyphen: What’s the Difference?

What’s the Difference Between a Sound and a Noise?

What’s the Difference Between Hard and Soft Water?

What Moves I Notice the Writers Making:

As I read these four texts, I can identify many of the qualities of effective description and explanation:

• Explaining how something came to be: “Calzones originated in Naples as a portable alternative to pizza. The name translates to ‘pants leg’ because customers can enjoy the doughy package while walking around rather than sitting down to eat pizza with a knife and fork.”
• Explaining how something works: “Groundwater sourced near porous rocks, for example, will contain more minerals, while water from glaciers has almost none. If your water picks up calcium and magnesium in large amounts en route to your tap, it’s considered hard water.”
• Describing the relationship between the two subjects: “While all noise is sound, not all sound is unwanted noise. It can also be subjective. If you love heavy metal, that’s pleasant sound. If you hate it, it’s noise.”
• Using details supported by research and/or outside sources: “According to Bon Appetit, the biggest factor separating strombolis from calzones is how they’re assembled.”
• Including a classification system: “According to the US Geological Survey, anything below 60 mg/L is soft, up to 120 mg/L is moderately hard, 121 to 180 mg/L is the hard stuff.”
• Incorporating figures or data: “…but if the calcium is over 100 parts per million (ppm), you’re likely to notice something seems a little off.”

I also noticed several craft moves that are not specific to descriptive and explanatory writing:

• Starting with similarities to introduce differences: “Strombolis and calzones are pizzeria staples for a reason—they consist of many of the same ingredients as a pizza and can easily be assembled using dough scraps and leftover toppings.”
• Organizing information with subheadings that group details: “Em Dash vs. En Dash” “En Dash vs. Hyphens”
• Providing a variety of examples: “This includes compound words like old-fashioned and left-handed; longer phrases like merry-go-round and run-of-the-mill; and numbers like twenty-seven and two-thirds.”
• Incorporating a bullet list of examples: “You should opt for a hyphen over a dash in these situations as well:
  • To signal that a word is continued on the next line.
  • To signal that a word is being spelled out, letter by letter.”
• Beginning by connecting with what readers probably already know or believe about the topic: “Few people say, ‘That’s a lovely noise,’ for example, or ‘What’s all that sound?’ If those present as clunky to your ear, you’re halfway toward figuring out the difference between the two words and when to use each.”
• Introducing a topic with a question: “So what exactly is ‘hard’ water, and how does it actually differ from ‘soft’ water? Also, what counts for just plain water?”
• Closing by circling back to previous examples: “If you love heavy metal, that’s pleasant sound. If you hate it, it’s noise.”
• Defining technical or subject-specific vocabulary: “As its name suggests, an em dash is roughly the length of the letter M, while an en dash more closely matches an N. A hyphen is shorter still.”

Possibilities for Writers:

This type of “What’s the Difference Writing” combines elements of explanatory and descriptive writing. It invites students to write about a topic of interest that allows they to share their insider knowledge or to write to satisfy their curiosity about a “What’s the difference?” topic they’ve been wondering about. The __________ vs. __________ structure can be used as a framework for students compare two texts on a similar subject or theme, two perspectives, or two pieces of writing in the same form or by the same author.

What I Was Reading:

In The Women’s National Team Taught Canada How to Be a Soccer Country, Harley Rustad, whose sister played for Canada from 1999-2008, analyzes the impact of the women’s national team on Canadian soccer fandom.

This paragraph is about Canada’s reaction to the team’s gold-medal win at the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo:

Canada won gold. In soccer. I cried. I watched Sinclair—who was nineteen during that breakout 2002 tournament—celebrate nearly two decades later with an Olympic gold medal. I wasn’t alone. While more than 4.4 million Canadians watched at home on the CBC, no fans were in the stadium that night in Tokyo, that second summer of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some might have seen that victory as anticlimactic: to win gold without a crowd watching and screaming. But, in a way, it was perfect: the exuberance and exaltations of the team weren’t muffled by the screams of a jubilant horde. We screamed at home, we cried at home. They screamed on the field, they cried on the field—and we heard it all.

What Moves I Notice the Author Making:

• The first thing I noticed about this paragraph is that it includes an intentional variety of sentence types and lengths to create interest, rhythm, and flow. For example, the opening three very short sentences are followed by a much longer sentence.
• The writer uses a wide range of punctuation for effect, including the em dash to set off details about captain Christine Sinclair in order to provide background for the reader.
• The pairing of the related sentences beginning with “Some might have seen…” and “But, in a way…” is reinforced by repeating the same technique of using a colon to introduce detail in both sentences.
• Similarly, the repetition of the structure “We screamed at home, we cried at home. They screamed on the field, they cried on the field…” underscores the sense of solidarity between the team and their fans being described.

Possibilities for Writers:

• Notice and name other interesting craft moves in this passage.
• Watch for interesting sentences varieties and structures in texts they are reading.
• Identify other paragraph organization and structure techniques they find in their reading.
• Find places in their reading where the writer uses repetition for effect.
• Revise a draft in their writer’s notebook by incorporating some of the craft moves you notice in this excerpt.
• Use this as a model for experimenting with rhythm and flow in a paragraph.

What I Was Reading:

A Field Guide to the Heart by Georgia Heard and Rebecca Kai Dotlich is a compilation of poems written and collected by two friends discussing their experience during the pandemic through a reflection of life on the topics of love, comfort and hope.

As I was reading, I came across the poem “Flight” by Georgia Heard and was reminded of a video from Jason Reynold’s series “Write. Right. Rite.”  The website describes the series by saying “Reynolds shares his passion for storytelling while discussing topics like creativity, connection, and imagination. At the end of each video, Reynolds shares a prompt that encourages young people to work toward a specific idea.”

Here are the texts:

Tell the Story of Jason’s Tiny Neighborhood

Jason Reynolds, seventh National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, challenges kids to write about a tiny imagined neighborhood.

What Moves I Noticed:

• The author uses descriptive language such as “oval window” and “snaking green river”
• The author uses generic characters without detail such as “woman”, “man” and “teenage boy”
• The author uses figurative language such as “constellation of ceiling cracks” and “roar of a plane”
• The author uses a dash for punctuation
• There is repetition in the sentence structure in the beginning of the stanzas marked by the commas and locations of the people

Opportunities for Writers:

Read the poem and watch the video.

• Write whatever comes to mind
• Using the structure of the poem, write about what other characters could be doing in the tiny houses
• Use the beginning phrases of the poem but change the description of what they are doing. Try out some of your own figurative language!
• Write about what you imagine when you look at houses you walk by or look down upon in a plane.

What I Was Reading:

Why the USMNT Couldn’t Go Any Further by Eric Betts (Slate, Dec 3, 2022) is an analysis of the US men’s soccer team 3-1 loss to the Netherlands at the World Cup.

This paragraph caught my attention as an example of the way a writer can create flow within a paragraph by using details to narrow and widen the lens:

More importantly, though, the USMNT simply looked drained by the effort it expended to get through its group. While it grinded out its win against Iran, the Netherlands got to coast to victory against Qatar, and the difference showed. Every team wants to make it hard to play through midfield, but this time Adams, Yunus Musah, and Weston McKennie couldn’t summon the energy to brute-force their way through the Dutch marking by outsprinting them or winning the most important duels. Much of the game was played at a slow pace that favored the Netherlands, and the U.S. didn’t have the horsepower to push it and put the Dutch under stress. They finally managed it toward the end of the second half, but that was the only moment when it looked like a comeback from a 2-0 first-half deficit might be possible.

What Moves I Notice the Writer Making:

Breaking this paragraph apart sentence by sentence helped me see how the writer uses each sentence to shift the perspective by widening or narrowing it:

More importantly, though, the USMNT simply looked drained by the effort it expended to get through its group. (Wide lens: introduces the topic of the paragraph very broadly—the team was tired from the game it had played before its match with the Netherlands)

While it grinded out its win against Iran, the Netherlands got to coast to victory against Qatar, and the difference showed. (Narrows the lens: supports the introductory statement with details of the previous game and a comparison with the experience of the Netherlands)

Every team wants to make it hard to play through midfield, but this time Adams, Yunus Musah, and Weston McKennie couldn’t summon the energy to brute-force their way through the Dutch marking by outsprinting them or winning the most important duels. (Zooms in: specific examples of the team’s lack of energy)

Much of the game was played at a slow pace that favored the Netherlands, and the U.S. didn’t have the horsepower to push it and put the Dutch under stress. (Lens widens slightly: an analysis statement of the team’s overall play)

They finally managed it toward the end of the second half, but that was the only moment when it looked like a comeback from a 2-0 first-half deficit might be possible. (Zooms back in: offers a specific non-example but brings it back to the overall point)

Opportunities for Writers:

• Use this as a model for experimenting with perspective and flow in a paragraph.
• Revisit a paragraph in a draft and try using details to shift the perspective.
• Find places in their reading where the writer uses a similar technique.
• Notice and name other paragraph flow techniques they find in their reading.

What I was reading:

Be a Good Ancestor by Leona Prince and Gabrielle Prince; illustrated by Carla Joseph

“Rooted in Indigenous teachings, this stunning picture book encourages readers of all ages to consider the ways in which they live in connection to the world around them and to think deeply about their behaviors.” (Goodreads)

Available on SORA

What Moves I Notice the Author Making:

• On each two page spread, the text follows the same format.
• The first line is always “Be a good Ancestor with ________”
• Each line begins with the word that ended the previous line.
• Each line goes from individual, small actions to large systemic change.
• The illustrations are symbolic of the text. (And completely stunning).

Here is an example from the text:

Be a good Ancestor with your neighbours

Neighbours become friends

Friends become communities

Communities become nations

Nations become allies

Possibilities for Writers:

• Discuss/think about how small things can make a big impact in the world.
• Write poems following the format “Be a good Ancestor with…, _______ become ______…
• Write with the intention of the last word of a line/sentence being the first word of the line/sentence to show connectivity.
• Create illustrations.
• Share poems with another class/grade.

What I was Reading: The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin

“In a future world racked by violence and environmental catastrophes, George Orr wakes up one day to discover that his dreams have the ability to alter reality. He seeks help from Dr. William Haber, a psychiatrist who immediately grasps the power George wields. Soon George must preserve reality itself as Dr. Haber becomes adept at manipulating George’s dreams for his own purposes.

The Lathe of Heaven is an eerily prescient novel from award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin that masterfully addresses the dangers of power and humanity’s self-destructiveness, questioning the nature of reality itself. It is a classic of the science fiction genre.” – https://www.ursulakleguin.com/the-lathe-of-heaven

The novel starts with the following three paragraphs:

Current-borne, wave-flung, tugged hugely by the whole might of ocean, the jellyfish drifts in the tidal abyss. The light shines through it, and the dark enters it. Borne, flung, tugged from anywhere to anywhere, for in the deep sea there is no compass but nearer and farther, higher and lower, the jellyfish hangs and sways; pulses move slight and quick within it, as the vast diurnal pulses beat in the moon-driven sea. Hanging, swaying, pulsing, the most vulnerable and insubstantial creature, it has for its defense the violence and power of the whole ocean, to which it has entrusted its being, its going, and its will.

But here rise the stubborn continents. The shelves of gravel and the cliffs of rock break from water baldly into air, that dry, terrible outer space of radiance and instability, where there is no support for life. And now, now the currents mislead and the waves betray, breaking their endless circle, to leap up in loud foam against rock and air, breaking…

What will the creature made all of sea-drift do on the dry sand of daylight; what will the mind do, each morning, waking?

What Moves I Notice the Author Making:

• The use of metaphor (the jellyfish) to set up the premise of the novel. I have to admit that this was a bit jarring when I read on and realized that the book was about a dystopian future society. However, I kept thinking of the jellyfish as I was reading – so it was a very effective lead.
• The use of hyphens – current-borne, wave-flung (see our conventions inquiry on compound modifiers for more mentor texts to study)
• The vocabulary in these paragraphs could be studied for days. (diurnal, radiance, insubstantial, for example)
• Repetition – the use of borne, flung, tugged in both the first and second sentences. The use of hang, sway, pulse in two sentences as well. And the repetition happens in the sentence immediately following, not later on.
• The first paragraph is describing the jellyfish, the second paragraph is describing the obstacles and the third is questioning if the jellyfish will be able to cope with such change.
• The second sentence in the first paragraph has a semi-colon. It is a wonderful sentence to look at carefully.
• The last paragraph is one sentence, in the form of a question. It includes a semi-colon that joins two sentences.
• The sentence lengths are varied.
• The second paragraph ends with an ellipse.

Possibilities for Writers:

• Try the repetition of the words from one sentence to the next.
• Try using the some of the vocabulary.
• Try writing with semicolons, using the sentences in the first and last paragraphs as mentors.
• Try to vary sentence lengths.
• Try to use ellipses.

What I Was Reading:

I have been slowly reading through One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder by Brian Doyle. This compilation of some of the best of Doyle’s writing, celebrates the wonder we can find in everyday moments when we stop, look, and listen. I’m trying to read only a few essays at a time and follow Doyle’s lead by using them as an invitation to look for the wonder (and the possibilities for writing) in my own surroundings.

“The Old Typewriter in the Basement” is one of my favorites from this collection. Written as a response to a question about how he became a writer, Doyle celebrates the impact of his father’s writing career on his own.

What Moves I Notice the Writer Making:

• The first thing I notice is that “The Old Typewriter in the Basement” is a mash-up of first-person essay, memoir, and poem.
• Doyle uses repetition as he lists his reasons for becoming a writer by introducing each new idea with “Because.” At first, the responses come quickly, with each new sentence starting with because. As he progresses, elaborating more on each memory, the pattern changes and “Because” appears at the beginning of each new stanza.
• The central focus is the typewriter, but Doyle uses his relationship with it to reveal details about his father: “Because his typewriter was a tall older model that he loved and kept using even when sleek electric typewriters came into vogue and tried to vibrate their way onto his desk.”
• Doyle fills this piece with images such as “you could listen to it like a song,” and “you could see by the pattern of wear which letters he used more than others” that help us imagine the scenes through his childhood eyes and ears.

Possibilities for Writers:

• Use the same structure as a model for your own writing. Begin with a why question and answer it with a list of reasons starting with “Because…”
• Experiment with the technique of repetition to embed a list into another type of writing.
• Use an object as a springboard for describing someone.
• Try combining the elements of more than one form into a single piece of writing.
• Read this text as a writer to notice and name other interesting craft moves and discuss how they impact you as a reader. Try some of them in your own writing.