Happy to be Back at Roslyn School!

 I could've posted the pic of three boys balancing white boards on their heads, but I decided to start my first blog of 2024 with a more customary pic! That's me with teacher Ms. Julie and one of her four Grade Two English classes at Roslyn Elementary School here in Montreal.

I should tell you first that Ms. Julie was one of MY students when I taught at Marianopolis College. If I sound proud, it's because I AM. She is a delightfully warm, kind, fun and smart teacher who obviously cares a lot about her students. I also loved that there was a notice on Ms. Julie's white board saying: "Let's hope we find some trouble." That's because Ms. Julie shares my view that trouble gives energy to our stories. As I told the students today, writers need to be trouble-makers!!

Over the next eight days, I'll be doing two sessions with each of Ms. Julie's four classes. Another fun thing is that I met most of the students last year when they were in Grade One and when I visited Roslyn to read them my picture book The Brass Charm and do writing workshops.

Today and tomorrow, I'm doing introductory stuff -- next week I'll be helping the students develop their own stories which they'll be working on during the days I'm not around.

Besides sharing writing tips, we did a bunch of exercises. We did the word--a-day exercise in which I asked the kids to come up with a word to describe how their yesterday was and another word for how they hope today will be. In the first group, Elorm said yesterday was "normal" and Isabel said she hopes today will be "super crazy." In the second group, Max said his yesterday was "piano" (he explained that he had played piano) and Milu hoped her today will be "awesome" (which I pointed out is not an easy word for a grade two student to spell!!).

When I discussed how even fiction writers need to do research, I asked the students what topics they might be interested in researching. Wesley told us he is interested in bananas; Keila in Star Wars; Caël in soccer, Charles in toilets (!); Alison in monsters and Max in sports. I told the students that if they research any of these topics the material could well find its way into a book!

Then, because we were talking about my picture book The Brass Charm, I asked the students to write about their most treasured object -- and the story behind it. Sophie wrote about her precious rocks; Celia wrote about her two cats; many of the students wrote about their stuffed animals; Teresa wrote about a necklace that was a gift from her parents; and Jack B made me laugh when he told us, "I was going to say my Switch, but then I thought of my dog." I told the students that I've found objects can sometimes carry important stories!

I ended both of today's sessions with an exercise about memory. That's because I believe memory is an important writing tool that helps inspire many stories. I loved Aila's memory of her fifth birthday party because the memory was so detailed: "I remember my dad's beard. It was rough." See how the language is simple, but powerful?

I'll end today's blog entry with a quote from Eisley. The quote is about his most treasured object -- a brass button bear named Taylor. Here's what Eisley told me about Taylor: "If I'm sad, I rub this brass button. It makes me happy when I need it most." Such beautiful words. I told Eisley that not all writers -- even experienced ones -- are able to describe emotions in such an honest way.

Stay posted to learn what happens next with my friends at Roslyn. I think we're all looking forward to hearing more of this story!