Author Imitations

The past two weeks, we have studied the art of imitation. We learned how to read a story, appreciate it for its unique style, and then attempt to write our own story in a style imitating that of the author's.

Our goal was to write a class book imitating the style of Laura Numeroff's "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." I had never done anything like this before and wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. It looked great in my head, but we teachers know that sometimes even the best, most creative idea turns out to be a flop in the classroom!

My students have exceeded my expectations and goals. In an around-the-world writing format, we created this book together, assisted each other with ideas, and offered suggestions on how to keep our writing style in the same style as Laura Numeroff's. We referred to her book often and constantly analyzed and critiqued ourselves as we went. Last week we drafted our notes and mapped out the story from beginning to end, and this week we fine tuned our notes into stories where every sentence was approved by the class and even the illustrations were voted on and created. I am so very proud of my students!

I bet you are dying to know the titles of their stories.....

Monday's: "If You Give a Puppy a Pizza"

Tuesday's: "If You Give a Penguin a Pie"

Did you know that if you give a puppy a pizza, she's going to ask for a bubbly beverage to go with it? You will give her some of your favorite root beer, which will remind her of a jacuzzi tub.......

And if you give a penguin a pie, she is going to ask for some whipped cream to go on top. You will make some of your own delicious homemade whipped cream. The whipped cream will remind her of snow.....

From there, the students did a beautiful job of creating cause and effect stories, bringing their tales full circle, leading back to the original requests of the animals. I love their stories! I wish I could publish them on the blog, but you are just going to have to request a copy from our publishing company instead!