Monday
By: Amir, 4th grade
She’s written about 30 books. On her bookshelves there are loads and loads of Writer’s Notebooks. It took her 155 pages to finish a picture book. George Ella Lyon. The author came to my school only this past Monday. I’d would be happy to take you back in my mind to relive the memory for you. Here we go!
I had every single bit of my attention on Mrs. Lyon. Mrs. Lyon herself was small woman which if I remembered correctly had a red sweater on that day. She had short light brown hair too. Her facial expression was solemn, but she was glad to be with us. I smelled the musty air of Mrs. Carnes room. I felt the nippiness of the table and once in a while the soft touch of my cheek. My ears heard the raspy voice of Mrs. Lyon, for I can find no other word to describe it.
“Take out a piece of paper, please, Mrs. Lyon directed at all the writing majors. “and we are going to start drawing one floor of our house, or a house you have lived in before.”
I drew the first floor of our house in which we live in right now. Then Mrs. Lyon requested we put a memory we have in each room, even the bathroom. I forgot to draw that room. Mrs. Lyon then said we had to write about one memory in one room. I chose watching videos if the family room.
Mrs. Lyon also showed us one of her “writer’s notebooks.” She told us that she writes in it very frequently and that you can even put movie passes in it! A little thought crept into my head that told me I should start to keep one too. She also had a scroll that had all drafts (which together were 155 pages long) for an 8 page picture book. For me I can’t believe it killed so many trees!
I benefited from Mrs. Lyon’s lesson because she gave me some tips such as ‘rewrite your work’ and ‘keep track of your daily life by writing.’ Shem also gave me a way to organize my ideas if I’m writing a memoir. This is the first time I’ve had a lesson taught from a published writer and I was inspired by that for I want to be a published writer myself. It was interesting to see another person of my interest talk about how she gets her ideas. I will truly remember this experience as a venture into writing.