Making Believe on Paper: Fiction Writing with Young Children

Making Believe on Paper presents primary-grade educators with the opportunity to learn from an extraordinary classroom teacher about how and why to invite and invest in make-believe. - Nancie Atwell Author of In the Middle Little kids delight in telling tall tales - of talking animals, princesses, or good triumphing over evil. Can you turn their enthusiasm for fiction into high-quality writing instruction? Absolutely, says Ted DeMille - and he has the classroom processes and student writing samples to back it up. In Making Believe on Paper, Ted shows what a magical and instructive first writing experience fiction can be for primary-aged children. Making Believe on Paper presents hands-on strategies and the tools you'll need to help young children create fully formed, beautifully illustrated, and powerful pieces of fiction. With Ted's help, you'll guide students from inspiration to finished pieces as you:

• develop children's knowledge of fiction's components through author study and read-alouds
• use drawing to shape students' ideas, then help them make the transition to writing
• encourage high-quality writing through mentor texts
• give kids a chance to put it all together by writing fairy tales.

You'll cherish Making Believe on Paper for its charm, gentle wit, and effective teaching. You'll appreciate how children's innate creativity can nudge them toward independence. You'll see a roadmap for the amazing progress young writers can make through student samples both in the book and in full color on its accompanying website. In short, you'll turn to Making Believe on Paper time and again for ideas and strategies that work. Let students' wonderful stories inspire you. Read Making Believe on Paper and trust Ted DeMille to help you turn students' excitement for telling tales into engaging, lasting writing instruction.