Nonfiction Book Review: Chasing Lincoln's Killer

Chasing Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As some middle schools muddle along seeking good nonfiction to satisfy their common core requirements, I raise James L. Swanson's book for your consideration. The text will be accessible to your reluctant readers;as a matter of fact, a colleague of mine sent me a message saying that her 7th grade son really enjoyed the book, and from what I gather he'd much rather throw a ball or catch a frog than read.

The story is high-paced and high-intensity narrative non-fiction. Swanson offers a quick foundation for the race, and then he fires "the" gun and the reader is off and on the whirlwind manhunt for John Wilkes Booth.

Many opportunities exist for discussion and digging deeper...whether for writing or research. Swanson presents several people who assisted Booth along the way deeper into the South.  Amazing that some who never met him and only knew of him through his heinous crime, assisted Booth because of their roots and obligation to the Confederate states.

Nice opportunities for comparisons to today--one that jumps out is the openness of Lincoln's White House as opposed to the Secret Service world of current Presidents. Also, in a world devoid of telephone or any of the modern communications of today, Booth was trying to outrun word of mouth.  I think a teacher could get some great discussion going about how effective the manhunt was in comparison to popular investigations and manhunts today.

Swanson does a great job noting that at the same time that Booth was running for safety, so was Jefferson Davis.

I like the book for a literature circles situation, especially if your middle school curriculum includes studying the causes of the Civil War, or the Civil War itself. It is the perfect way to get your kids to read (and enjoy) nonfiction, and potentially continue turning to nonfiction for their education and entertainment.

At the very least, a really easy pick for your middle school classroom library.



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YA Book Review: Shooting Kabul

Shooting Kabul by N.H. Senzai
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After reading multicultural titles Bamboo People, by Mitali Perkins; The Red Umbrella by Christina Gonzalez; and Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai, I started to become critical of the books I made available to my students. I took stock of my classroom library--several hundred titles--it was lacking in variety. Where were the multicultural books? Where were the books that appeal to boy readers? Where were the books that could challenge my best readers? For each category I could think of, I wasn't happy with had. What I had was a mostly inherited collection of books, passed along by two retired teachers. I hadn't taken care of the collection by growing it, and retiring the titles that had seen better days.

What had I been exposing them to that had any contemporary value or resonance in their own lives?  Sure the yellowed and tattered Newberry winners from twenty years ago still ring true, great writing is great writing, but what about the literature being produced now? 

For the past two years I've been on a reading blitz of sorts. As best I can I pick up YA titles and have found that YA multicultural literature is out there. It just wasn't in my classroom. So, in addition to titles I mentioned above, I discovered A Million Shades of Gray by Cynthia Kadohata; Finding Family by Tanya Bolden, and Heart of a Samuri, by Margi Preus.

I read A Step from Heaven by An Na; The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie; and One Crazy Summer by Rita-Williams Garcia.

I read All the Broken Pieces by Ann E. Burg; Someone to Run With by David Grossman; and Leaving Gee's Bend by Irene Latham.

Now I've read Shooting Kabul, by N.H. Senzai. And I will be thrilled to include it in my classroom library and offer it as a book talk at the very least.

Fair or not, I am beginning to build up a expectations as I pick up contemporary YA literature. Each sub-genre carries unique expectations. Through the multicultural lens, I'm hoping my students would pick it up and be exposed to something they may not encounter in their everyday lives.

Shooting Kabul is built on the days around 9/11. Those of us who lived it (and taught through it) weren't just exposed to hatred, but immersed in it...from all directions.

Interestingly, the author notes at the end of the book that she did not want to write this book because of the sensitivity of the topic. The wounds still have not healed. How could they? Equally as interesting, my 8th graders this past year knew very little about 9/11.

(Where has the time gone?)

Oh, they knew "of" it, sure. But what was missing that had a real presence other years--an emotional knowledge and connection. The emotional knowledge of living it or gleaning bits and pieces through their family. Through the passage of time, it appears that 9/11 is beginning to take on the patina of an encyclopedia entry.

Shooting Kabul has us watch as families escape an Afghanistan growing more oppressive beneath the Taliban. Based on some of her husband's family history and escape from Afghanistan, Senzai offers many details (and opportunities for questions and classroom discussion) that my students would not likely encounter.

The family's new life in America is shattered by the events on 9/11. Living in an community called "Little Kabul" we see, from a unique perspective the fears and pressures on anyone not white. Even a Mexican is called a terrorist by an adolescent.

One note, "Shooting" in title is a reference to a camera, and not violence.

Senzai offers a comprehensive glossary of terms familiar to her culture, and unfamiliar to my traditional classroom composition.

The book reads very easily, but you wouldn't be coming to this book for its complexity of style, but for the richness of what the topic offers. I can't help but offer another photography term: exposure. Put this book on your classroom library shelf simply for the exposure it affords into a world unfamiliar to our eyes other than through the images depicted on the news--accompanied with so many explosions and so much death.

Shooting Kabul is about perseverance, love, and tolerance. I anticipate many kinds wanting to talk about what they confronted in this novel.

I highly recommend it.

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Resource Review: The Craft of Revision

The Craft of Revision by Donald Morison Murray
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Murray cautions us:
“Students, first of all, must learn a positive attitude toward revision. The process of revision, for most students, has not been concerned with finding meaning, but it has focused on editing superficial mechanical and grammatical errors to a preconceived and often not clearly understood standard.”

My reaction:
The one word I’m left with is INFORMATION. It seems most of the revision process is rooted in arranging, adding, removing, improving, and making decisions based on the best use of the best information in each moment.  The title could very easily be "The Craft of Writing" because as Murray demonstrates the very act of writing itself is a revision of our thoughts or the seed of an idea.

Format of each chapter:
Murray explains one concept at a time
Organizes chapters in a very specific order / how to write, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite
Most chapters offer exercises and/or examples
Some chapters offer Common Problems and their Solutions
Interviews with different writers at end of each chapter


1. Getting Writing Done—creating a discovery draft
No such thing as writer’s block. Excuse for poor habits.
a. “Writing becomes relatively easy if writing becomes a daily habit.”
i. No truck driver refused to work today because of truck driver’s block
b. Know tomorrow’s tasks today
ii. Know the territory and the task for tomorrow’s writing today


2. Rewrite to Focus

Exercise:
An effective piece of writing says on thing and, before rewriting a draft, you should be able to state it in a single sentence. (Steinbeck did it.)

Exercise:
To discover and state the focus be able to answer the following questions with specific, brief statement: a sentence or less.
a. what is the single dominant meaning
b. what is the central tension within the dominant meaning?
c. What do test readers say is the meaning of the draft?

Exercise:
Frame Your Meaning
a. like framing a picture with a camera
b. draw a box around a part of a picture
c. use the frame like a zoom lens
a. give students same picture with different size frames
b. write a piece on the picture





3. Rewrite to Collect (information)
a. writers write with information
i. words are symbols of information
b. don’t be word-drunk
i. readers hungry for information, images, facts, insights
c. readers read to become an authority
d. concrete, accurate, significant details
i. creates trust
ii. makes writing lively

4. Rewrite for External Order
a. you should have a draft and a bunch of information to work into it
b. now you need to shape everything and take control of it
c. FORM IS MEANING
i. 5 paragraph essay may seem harmless (but it isn’t)
-5 paragraph essays lives only in a school, not real world writing
-suggests that FORM is more important than the content
-suggests that meaning can be changed to fit the form
-there is one right way to tell all stories
-the reader has to be told what the message will be, what the message is, what it means
d. the purpose of the form is to carry meaning to the reader
i. essay? Narrative? Argument? Expository? et al…

5. Rewrite for Internal Order
a. Readers should be able to follow a trail of information
b. Remember a reader is always in control and it is up to you to give them a trail worth following (“a seductive trail”)

Exercise: Answer the reader’s questions
a. all effective writers hear the reader’s questions and answers them immediately
i. How come? How do you know that? Says who? I’d like to know more about that… Why’d she do that? Whoa, back up, I don’t understand…

Exercise: Outline after writing
a. to expose the structure of the draft
b. adapt/redesign the structure

6. Rewrite to Develop
a. an underdeveloped draft is fully developed in a writer’s mind but not on paper
b. stand back and look at it like a reader (hungry for information)
c. look for the signs of an underdeveloped draft:
-it is predictable
-it could have been written by anyone
-there is no individual vision
-the reader learns nothing the reader did not already know
d. develop with information
-reveal with specifics
-write with abundance
e. develop with authority
-convince with authority
-persuade with evidence
f. develop with clarity
-dominant impression-every piece of info supports a single meaning
-the reader should receive information in a natural order
g. develop with context
-address the reader who asks, “So what?”
h. rewriting starts with rereading
-read fragments of your writing
-search for code words or words that have meaning only to you
-read to add snapshots of memories that haunt or move us

Exercise – Emphasize the Significant
a. Arrange and Rearrange paragrahs in a 2-3-1 order
b. moving the most significant information to the edges will clarify the writing

7. Rewrite with Voice
a. lack of voice is most common reason we stop reading
b. signs of a draft without voice:
-no individual human being behind the page
-no intellectual challenge
-no emotional challenge
-no flow
-no magic


8. Rewrite to Edit
a. Twenty ways to “unfinal” a draft
-listen to the draft -cut the end -make new connections
-welcome the unexpected -cut or extend the length -reorder the draft
-expand what works -play with a new focus -change the pace
-tune the music of the draft -reconsider the audience -unbalance the proportions
-start closer to the end -put draft into new context -try a new genre
-add new evidence -look for instructive failure -role play a reader
-use a test reader -observe the draft

b. attitude change…writing is editing…trust your ear more than your eye

Exercise: Interview your draft
a. what is the one thing I wanted to say?
b. What single message does the draft deliver?
c. To whom is the message being sent?
d. Does everything in the draft support or advance the message?
e. Where are the greatest failures in the draft?


9. Rewrite at Work


10. The Craft of Letting Go








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