Literacy Now

I haven’t always been a children’s author. Previously, I was an advertising/marketing copywriter. I did this for about 15 years—even though I didn’t feel passionate about my craft. Don’t get me wrong. I knew I loved to write. I just didn’t love what I was writing.

My professional life shifted 11 years ago when my daughter, a second grader at the time, became the target of some bullying friends. It was one of those experiences that had a profound effect on both of us.

How do you explain to a 7-year-old…

… the complexity of friendships?
… why her best friends one day can become her worst enemies the next?
… how to gravitate to kids who can accept all the goodness she has to offer and give it back in kind?

I went into research mode to find out as much information as I could about relational aggression, a form of emotional bullying hidden within friendships that often goes below the radar of parents and teachers. I learned that relational aggression (i.e., gossiping, spreading rumors, intentional exclusion, the silent treatment, etc.) is evident as early as preschool and appears to peak in middle school. Researchers report that relational aggression is much more pervasive than physical aggression in our nation’s schools. Kids—both boys and girls—also find it more hurtful than physical aggression.

In my search for age-appropriate books to address the very real and rampant problem of social cruelty among peers, I came up empty-handed. Frustrated with this resource gap, I wrote MY SECRET BULLY (Riverwood Press, 2003) to help empower children to make healthier friendship choices. The outpour of positive reviews and heartfelt responses from young readers, parents, educators, and bullying prevention experts and organizations gave me the impetus to continue writing more books to help kids connect with their peers in helpful, rather than hurtful, ways.

Because the social world of today's children is very complex and difficult to navigate, I try to incorporate into my books the wisdom and insights of young readers who preview my stories, so that they resonate with the authenticity of real life experiences and views. I also collaborate with renowned experts in the field to ensure my messages of empowerment are on target with the latest bullying prevention research findings and practices. Equally important, I have the added pleasure of creatively tapping into my own inner child—letting her laugh, cry, and simply breathe. I've finally reached the point where I not only love to write, I truly love what I'm writing.

But writing stories is just one part of my job. I also spend a lot of time traveling throughout the US, presenting at conferences and in schools to provide children, educators, and parents with practical tips, tools, and resources to help them create safer, kinder school communities.

Turning Stories into Teachable Moments

Numerous studies have shown that literature—with proper adult guidance, supervision, and assistance—is an effective supplemental tool at home, in the classroom, and in the counseling practitioner’s office to build social-emotional learning (SEL) skills, teach empathy, and foster perspective in children.

In her book, TREATING CHILD AND ADOLESCENT AGGRESSION THROUGH BIBLIOTHERAPY (Springer, 2009), Dr. Zipora Shechtman states, “Through the imaginative process that reading involves, children have the opportunity to do what they often cannot do in real life—become thoroughly involved in the inner lives of others, better understand them, and eventually become more aware of themselves.” And the more competent children are in SEL skills, the more successful they will be in school and in life.

There is a wonderful Chinese proverb that I take to heart: “I listen and forget. I see and remember. I do and understand.”

When I present to children in elementary and middle schools, I don’t want the students to just listen to me as a guest speaker. I also want them to do activities with me to help them better connect with the characters in my books, with themselves and, most importantly, with each other. Some of my activities include:

• the use of paper dolls for younger audiences to show how our words and actions can break down or build up the human spirit (click here to download a detailed description of this activity);
• a bully web to show how bullying negatively affects the entire school community; and
• a role-playing activity with my “Empower Tools,” as described in my sixth book, CONFESSIONS OF A FORMER BULLY (Tricycle Press, 2010). In this activity, I provide kids with a starter set of communication tools that allow them to respond to hurtful comments in nonviolent ways and to help them get away as quickly and as safely as possible, with their dignity intact.

photo: edenpictures via photopin cc

Adult-guided activities help instill critical thinking skills in children, getting them to understand and engage with the stories they read and with each other in constructive, pro-social ways. Role-playing scenarios, introspective essays, creative drawing/writing projects, and discussion questions are a few ways to accomplish this goal.

I also encourage teachers to visit authors’ or publishers’ websites for ready-made lesson plans. To see an example, take a look at the guide I recently penned to accompany R.J. Palacio’s WONDER (click here to download “Teaching WONDER with Trudy Ludwig”). Another option is to do a Google search on the Internet by entering the title of the book chosen for a class reading, followed by the words “lessons,” “activities,” or even “Teacher’s Guide.”

What I’ve Learned from School Visits & My Hopes for the Future

I’ve presented to tens of thousands of school children over the years and I continue to walk away from every author visit feeling reassured that most kids are decent and caring people. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Numerous experts including technology journalist and Internet Safety advocate Larry Magid and researchers Dr. Justin Patchin and Dr. Sameer Hinduja report that most kids think it’s uncool to be cruel—online or offline.

The reality is that kids make mistakes. Our job as caring adults is to help ensure they don’t keep repeating those mistakes and move forward in their lives in more positive, healthy ways. We need to be better role models, not only “talking the talk,” but “walking the walk” in modeling how to deal with those we encounter in life.

Last and equally important, we also need to drive the vital message home that every person—regardless of age, gender, physical appearance, sexual orientation, political or religious beliefs, race or ethnicity—has value. While we all may not agree with one anothers’ opinions, while we all may not end up being friends, we all deserve to have our presence acknowledged and to be treated in a civil and respectful manner.

References:

Committee for Children (2012). Why Social-Emotional Learning? Retrieved from: http://www.cfchildren.org/advocacy/social-emotional-learning.aspx

Hinduja, S.and Patchin, J. (2012). School climate 2.0: Preventing cyberbullying and sexting one classroom at a time. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Shechtman, Z. (2009). Treating child and adolescent aggression through bibliotherapy. New York: Springer: 26-37.

Trudy Ludwig is a member of Random House Speakers Bureau, a children’s advocate, and the bestselling author of seven books: MY SECRET BULLY, JUST KIDDING, SORRY!, TROUBLE TALK, TOO PERFECT, CONFESSIONS OF A FORMER BULLY, and BETTER THAN YOU. She is nationally recognized by educators, experts, organizations, and parents for her passion and compassion in addressing friendship, bullying, and cyberbullying issues. An active member of the International Bullying Prevention Association, Trudy collaborates with leading U.S. experts and organizations and has been profiled on national/regional television and radio and in newsprint. For more information, visit http://www.trudyludwig.com.

October is National Bully Prevention Month in our schools but somehow there seems to be a grand irony lost in asking educators to try and step up to stop bullying when I am not sure if there is a professional group of people being more bullied these days than teachers.

“We want you to stop the name calling and eradicate all bullying behaviors in the halls of your schools (you no-good, greedy, low-test-score-delivering louts).”

“We want you to teach respect and civility (you abhorrent, why-can’t-you-just-do-your-job worm lickers).”

“We ask that you reach down deep and instruct our young people in the noble ways of civility, kindness and respect (you detestable, how-dare-you-ask-for-health-care-benefits cretins).”

I’m paraphrasing, of course, but I do think the subtext of so, so many national conversations that take place in the media in regards to the world of teaching and teachers (as instigated by the voice box of agenda-driven politicians, reformers and business folks) is laced with a cocktail of contempt, disappointment, antagonism and good ol’ fashioned anger at those in our collective profession.

What happened to teachers being considered an admirable and necessary pillar of society who deserve support, respect and encouragement? Am I simply being naïve, or have those things merely gone the way of Blockbuster Video storefronts?

Truly, to hear our peers in the world of education be mentioned on the nightly news is to know that, uh oh, it’s time once again to cringe…’cause here it comes.

To wit.

To wit.

To wit.

I swear all this “to witting” is going to make me lose my wits. And the more I think about it, the more I believe that all this railing against those in our profession is being done by nitwits.

Sheesh, to hear the mainstream media tell it, one would think that those of us in education are actually members of Congress.

Yet, to be fair, we now live in a land of polarized news—so to mention the mainstream media is to connote that the media wing (which claims to be fair and balanced and/or proudly right leaning) cuts teachers a bit more slack and delivers a bit more appreciation for their service.

Bzzp.

Bzzp.

Bzzp.

Well, there goes that idea.

From the left, from the right, from up on high and even from within, we are taking a public hammering. We’re being picked on.

We’re being bullied.

And who is our champion? The unions? Boy, is that a mixed bag. The parents? Heck, it’s hard enough for them to rally for back-to-school night and let’s face it, they have their own problems. Well, perhaps it’s the Secretary of Education?

Does he like us? Loathe us? l can’t tell.

Now, to be fair, we deserve some of this criticism. Of course we do—but who doesn’t? Can we count a few of us in our ranks as despicable and horrifying? Yes, I believe we can.

But is that who “we” are? Is that the lion’s share of our constituency? How come there’s so little pushback against this insane stereotyping of teachers as malcontents who are actually overpaid underperformers that are doing more harm than good in our community?

I’ll tell you why—it’s because most educators are too nice and too dedicated to the work and too tired to fight the outrageousness.

Photo: BlueRobot via Photopin cc

As professionals, we’re not really all that combative by nature. To spend a great amount of our energy battling the nattering nabobs of negativity feels like a waste of time to most of us. Instead of waging a collective counterattack against the propaganda which seeks to paint us as low-performing and under-delivering, many of us simply absorb those messages, feel demoralized by the incessant abuse, and try to believe that better days will one day soon come and society will once again return to its senses.

Does anyone who is profiteering off of bashing and bullying teachers really see the long-term ramifications of such actions? They may think they are a “force for change,” but what’s really happening is that fewer people are aspiring to be teachers (in a time when we are facing a teacher shortage in the coming decade) and less respect is being accorded to teachers, which undercuts an educator’s ability to actually do the job society asks of them (and needs them to do). I mean, the last time I checked, pretty much every lawyer, doctor, engineer, software salesperson, Internet billionaire and venture capitalist began their career in the hands of a caring, concerned, knowledgeable teacher.

Teaching is the job that precedes all other jobs, and to tear the profession and its people down for short term glory (i.e. ratings or political gains) is to participate in a circular firing squad. Eventually, all of us will fall.

Bully away folks. But know that you do so at the expense of our collective future.

And never forget—it’s much easier to tear something down than to build something up. That’s a critical point to remember.

It’s also a point relayed to me once upon a time by a teacher.

Alan Sitomer was named California's 2007 Teacher of the Year. In addition to being an inner-city high school English teacher and former professor in the Graduate School of Education at Loyola Marymount University, Alan is a nationally renowned speaker specializing in engaging reluctant readers who received the 2004 award for Classroom Excellence from the Southern California Teachers of English, the 2003 Teacher of the Year honor from California Literacy, the 2007 Educator of the Year award by Loyola Marymount University and the 2008 Innovative Educator of the Year from The Insight Education Group. He’s the author of six young adult novels, three children's picture books, two teacher methodology books, and a classroom curriculum series for secondary English Language Arts instruction called THE ALAN SITOMER BOOK JAM.

I have problems with authority. Which is a pretty funny thing for an author to admit.

I learned this about myself while I was writing IVY AND BEAN MAKE THE RULES, the latest installment in the Ivy and Bean series. It was a very difficult book for me to write, not because of the subject, which is childhood camp, or the storyline, which is about my girls, Ivy and Bean, setting up their own camp, but because—as I discovered—I am not mature enough to write a book about camp that doesn’t advocate total mayhem.

It’s not rules that bother me. I adore rules. Rules of punctuation—love those! Rules of etiquette? Great! I am a big fan of rules of the road (How many miles per hour when crossing a railroad track? Fifteen!) and safety rules (Mostly). As a parent, I have rules galore, and as a child, I followed my parents’ rules on many, many occasions.

What put me in a snit are rules dressed up as fun. Rules that organize, militate, and regiment fun, particularly kids’ fun, cause me to behave very badly. They always have. This is an enormous character flaw, because everyone knows that you can’t have a good game without rules. Where would baseball be without the Infield Fly Rule? Okay, that’s a bad example because I have no idea where baseball would be without the Infield Fly Rule.

Let’s take card games, let’s take Scrabble, let’s take Monopoly. I can’t stand any of them. I was one of those kids who knocked over the board in the middle of the game because I couldn’t bear it any more. I used to rob the bank in Monopoly so the game would just END already. Nowhere do rules and fun coincide more oxymoronically than at camp. Every camp, from the three-weeks-of-fresh-air-and-dirt camps of my youth to the five-day, four-hundred-dollar Gourmet Groupies camps of today bill themselves as big fun. Maybe educational, but also fun. Fun, fun, fun! More fun than a barrel of monkeys! Just look at all the smiling kids in the brochure! You never saw so much fun in your life!

And yet, once the kids actually get to the camp, there are lots and lots of rules. There are safety rules and instructions about how to do things. Usually, there are lots of group activities and everyone has to do them, plus tasks and clean-up, not to mention rousing songs that you’d better learn or you won’t get to participate.

And I am inside my tent, plotting a revolution.

Actually, I am not, because I never went to camp. (Also, I would hate a revolution. So noisy.)

I never went to camp because, no matter what the grownups said, I knew that if I went, they’d make me follow rules. They’d make me join. They’d make me sing. They might even make me play games. I’d be part of the gang, part of the team, part of the big, happy family. Yuck.

I refused. And what kind of wild, ungoverned behavior did I engage in while everyone else was in camp? I read. I read and read and read. Every once in a while, my mom would take the book out of my hand and tell me I had to run around the block, but that, thankfully, was rare.

Reading, to me, was—and is—perfect freedom. Sure, there are a few rules: left to right, and you’ll probably get more out of it if you hold the book right side up. I can’t think of anything else. Once you know how to read, you don’t need an adult’s help to do it. You don’t have to negotiate with anyone. You get to find out stuff on your own. You get to have your own experience. You decide when to do it and when to stop doing it. It’s not competitive. There’s no show at the end. It is absolutely unlike camp.

This is why I am an advocate of Free Reading, Drop Everything and Read, Sustained, Silent Reading, whatever you want to call it. I call it reading. More than anything else, I want reading to be a rule-free zone for kids. In my perfect world, kids would be able to read and run. They’d be able to read any book, at any lexile level, on any subject (okay, almost any subject) they desired. There would be no tests, no notes, no questions, no reading logs, and no response journals, nothing at all that regulated, militated, or organized the experience for them. Without all these mediations and interruptions, maybe reading would regain its status as a freedom, rather than a task, for kids.

I bet you’re asking yourself why, if I am a reading liberationist, did I write a book about camp? Why, you ask, didn’t I write a book about reading? Well, I did. Of course, a book in which nobody does anything but read is going to be a tad dull, so I transplanted the act of interpretation, which is the essence of reading, to the subject of camp. Bean and Ivy, bless them, are giving their free-verse rendition of the idea of camp, with accompanying good times. Their version, Camp Flaming Arrow, is their reading of “camp,” and their reading of “camp rules” is the most glorious possible: none at all.

Obviously, there are lots and lots of kids who have a great time at camp. They like being part of the gang, on the team, one big happy family. Ivy and Bean, being reasonable human beings, don’t want to change those kids. They don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade. They want to live and let live. That is the one rule they follow at their camp, and it’s the one that’s the hardest for all of us grownups to learn.

Maybe there should be a camp for that.

Annie Barrows is the author of the Ivy and Bean children’s series, which has sold over 2 million copies, as well as of THE MAGIC HALF. She is also the co-author, with her aunt, Mary Ann Shaffer, of THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY.

© 2012 Annie Barrows. Photo: Annie Frantzeskos. Please do not reproduce in any form, electronic or otherwise.

Originally from a world beyond our own, DIRK LLOYD lives in the town of Whiteshields, England, where he spends most of his time trying to get back home to his Iron Tower in the Darklands. Some of his achievements include: building the Iron Tower of Despair, raising vast armies of Orcs and Goblins, the casting of mighty spells and enchantments (including the spell that forced JAMIE THOMSON to submit to his will and record his life story), and excelling in English, science, and math classes in school.

Hi, I'm Jamie Thomson, creator of Dirk Lloyd and author of DARK LORD: THE EARLY YEARS. I've written a lot of choose your own adventure books and novels as well as various computer games for a good 30 years or more, all involving goblins, dragons, aliens, spaceships, creatures of the night and the like, so I've been thoroughly immersed in fantasy/SF/games pretty much all my life.

A lot of this work was with my writing and business partner, and life-long friend, Dave Morris. One of the things we've noticed over the years is how the idea of a “Dark Lord” or “Supreme Villain” has always been such a staple of our genres, but they're hardly ever explained. Why does Sauron do what he does in Lord of the Rings? Why is Voldemort like he is?

Of course, they do have back stories, but they're really not that important to the plot and therefore not explored in too much detail. It's all about the good guys. Which is fair enough of course, but why do Dark Lords become Dark Lords? What motivates them? What would it be like to tell their story, from their point of view? Or, as Dirk puts it “Why is the Dark Lord always the bad guy? It’s just not fair!”

Well, if you did it straight, it'd be interesting, but ultimately not much fun. It'd be like reading a novelized biography of someone like Hitler or something. People would end up hating your main character, and no one would read it!

So, how can you make your Dark Lord sympathetic to the reader? Well, one obvious way is to make his story redemptive. And funny. Very funny. We started with the idea of a Dark Lord exiled to modern day earth and trapped in the body of a twelve year old kid. Then the “Dark Lord sounds like Dirk Lloyd” joke, and then the idea of having him go to school. (School? NOOOOOoooooooooo!) Everything just took off from there.

Out of that, I discovered new themes and tropes. For instance, as Dirk is a powerful being in his own world, what would it be like to suddenly find yourself powerless in a new and confusing world? That got me thinking: rightly or wrongly, our school children are actually pretty powerless and highly controlled themselves, especially these days. There are all sorts of rules and lines they can't cross and places they can't go.

Dirk finds himself in the same position. To get things done, and to realize his goals, Dirk has to use subterfuge and subtle persuasion—unusually for him, as normally he'd just use force, or a magic spell or an army of orcs. He can't persuade people with threats, (though he does try of course.). He has to use other methods—kindness and friendship for instance. And that's where his journey to redemption begins. Well, sort of.

Essentially, it's a classic fish out of water/odd couple plot, but it also parodies its genre, albeit in a loving way. It lampoons fantasy, but it is also a cracking fantasy tale in itself, though I do say it myself. It's also interesting that this book probably couldn't have been written thirty years ago. Its time is now because everyone knows what a Dark Lord is, the imagery, the “trope” is everywhere. For instance, the books have come out in Germany and Spain, but they keep the English “Dark Lord” on the title. The publishers know that their readers will be familiar with the term from LORD OF THE RINGS, Harry Potter, STAR WARS and so on. And then... hold on a moment, someone's coming... Uh-oh! It's Dirk himself! Oh my, he's here...

Thomson, you blubbing maggot, what are you doing?

Nothing, my Dark Master, nothing...

Move aside, you absurd walrus. Let me take a look...

Umm... it's just... I didn't mean…

What!!!! You're not still peddling this nonsense that you created me? What drivelacious goblin-snot! Everyone knows I found you penniless in the gutter, deigned to choose you as the writer of my memoir, and raised you up like a phoenix from the sodden ashes of your pitiful misery!

Yes, Master. Sorry, your Magnificence, I...

Silence, wretch! Who is it you are writing for?

Umm... it's the—

I said silence, Thomson, or it's the Iron Maiden for you! Ah, I see... It's for that lot over the water, the ones the weakling human wretches in England call “Yanks.” Teachers, eh? Interesting. Right, I'm taking over.

Now, listen to me, puny humans of America! It is I, the Great Dirk. Heed my words.

It won't be long before all the people of earth will be bending the knee to me, Dirk Lloyd, the Dark Lord, so you'd better do as I say or else it'll be the Rendering Vats for you, and you'll be turned into sausages. My Orcish legions will be requiring a lot of those, oh yes!

What you need to do is to introduce a new curriculum for your pupils. Well, I say curriculum, but really I just mean “brainwashing.” They must be filled with unquestioning obedience to the Dark Lord (i.e., me) so that when the time comes my transition to ultimate and total power will be seamless and unopposed. You can start by forcing every single last one of them to read my memoir—written by me that is, not that ghost writer and lickspittle lackey, Thomson, who is nothing but a worthless slave. Though I suppose I must admit he has been useful from time to time.

Oh, thank you, Supreme Lord, thank you, your kindness is...

Oh, stop your sycophantic mewling, Thomson, and get back to work, there's book three to write! In any case, I may have been over hasty in my praise. After all, as every manager knows, the appreciation of talent and the giving of encouragement only leads to complacency and laziness. No, better to use the lash.

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, instructing the teachers of America. Your charges will enjoy reading my book where they will learn their true places in the order of things... no wait, I mean... they'll learn new words and laugh whilst doing it, where they'll be uplifted through the power of storytelling, where boys who don't normally read books will find that reading is fun, where.... Oh, who am I kidding? They'll love it, or else. And I'll get some royalties. And boy, do I need royalties. Have you got any idea how much an army of orcs and goblins costs these days? And Dragons? Don't even mention Dragons!

By Order of the Dark Lord The Seal of Dirk

I, the Dark Lord, Master of the Legions of Dread and Sorcerer Supreme, the World Burner, the Dark One, Master of the Nine Netherworlds, the Lord of Darkness and the Lloyd of Dirkness, his Imperial Darkness and his Imperial Dirkness, Dirk the Magnificent, make this missive my own with this seal, on this date the 27th of the month of Misery, Year of the Dark Lord Two, in the Reign of Iron and Shadows.

Jamie Thomson is the minion and slave of the Dark Lord, Dirk Lloyd. Jamie has been writing books, comics and computer games for his Dark Master for many years now. He lives in the dungeons below his Master's Iron Tower, chained to a desk, where he spends every day writing for his overlord. Or else.

Jamie Thomson Dirk Lloyd would like to offer you the chance to read a teaser of his memoir, DARK LORD: THE EARLY YEARS. So click here!



In Other Words: Brandon Mull (Fablehaven series) Believes in Heroes

Character Connections: Finding Yourself in the Story

Early in the writing of my first historical novel, COME AUGUST, COME FREEDOM, I considered quitting.

After collecting notes for several years about Gabriel's Rebellion, one of America's largest planned slave insurrections, I had decided to write a young adult novel that would imagine Gabriel's life leading up to the thwarted rebellion of 1800. I dove in to the archives and spent a year reading and re-reading through primary sources, becoming familiar with the historiography of Gabriel's Rebellion.

The research was going well; my inner archive-rat was nicely tipsy off a strong, tall cocktail of centuries-old trial documents, private correspondence, legislative resolutions, and period newspaper ads. With each pass through the original documents and historical works, the details surrounding the insurrection plot settled into my mind more deeply, but new questions were arising in demand of answers that I didn't yet have. I understood the facts, but processing the meaning of those facts was proving difficult for me. There was so much to learn about: the U.S. presidential election of 1800, the Haitian Revolution, Virginia's shifting of its capital from Williamsburg to Richmond, the nature of slavery in Virginia during the early republic, geography, currency, and the criminal justice system.

I was in way, way over my head.

One morning I seized up, froze up, and almost gave up. The only reasonable response to that sort of paralysis is to get up and walk the dog. I needed to go do some thinking, reflect on all that I knew, and try to assess the gaps in my understanding.

So, I gave myself a good hour's walk to ask questions, consider new ideas, and try to aim higher in my thinking. I went walking to try to reconnect with my curiosity. On the day I took myself on the first of many thinker's-block walks with my dog, Biscuit, my interior conversation went something like this:

Discouraged Little Me: I don't write historical fiction. I'm not a historian. I truly don't even know if that sentence should be: "I'm not an historian." I can't do this.

Aim Higher Me: Come on, snap out of it. Don't be a baby. Think! What do you know about?

Discouraged Little Me: Nothing. I'm not a historian. Or "an" one. Whatever.

DLM was not cooperating.

We have a mantra in our family: dig deep. I'd like to say that Aim Higher Me helped Discouraged Little Me to dig deep and find her confidence, but there's a good reason for taking a dog along when you're off exploring. A hound dog companion lets no wild thing go unobserved, not the two crows taunting the juvenile Cooper's hawk overhead, not the lone cottontail trying to blend in to the brush, nor the last of the Monarch butterflies coaxing the tail end of summer to stay around. Discouraged Little Me picked her head up and sighed. Aim Higher Me tried again with a softer touch.

AHM: Come on, sweet child. You know about lots of things. Name one thing you know.

DLM: Cities. I know about cities. [Well, it was a start.]

AHM: Yes! You do! You know all about cities. Tell me something about cities.

DLM: Cities are where people live. [I didn't say it was a great start.] And where people work and learn. Cities have housing and transportation and employers. And ways of getting food to people, places for people to worship, to trade, and to have fun. Cities can be beautiful or functional or beautiful and functional. You can have walking cities or automobile cities or garden cities. Prince Charles made a city—Poundbury!

AHM: Good! Good! Now, how do cities relate to Gabriel? [See how long AHM waited to raise the REAL issue? At least thirty minutes of walking the big dog.]

DLM: I don't know.

Having come this close to a breakthrough, AHM didn't follow the pileated woodpecker down the creek and hardly noticed the eastern bluebird feeding its young on the power line.

AHM: You DO know. Come on. One thing.

DLM: Okay, Gabriel may have hired out in the city. He came into the city every Sunday to plan his business. When his plot was discovered, he escaped at the edge of the city by hopping a ship to Norfolk (a city!), where he was captured by the sheriff. He came back up the James River to Richmond. He walked through the city up to the Governor's house. He was sent to the new penitentiary in the city. He was tried at the courthouse on the north bank of the James. The same courthouse where he was tried in 1799…in the city!

AHM: See, you know about this city, and Gabriel knew about this city, too.

So, newly invigorated with a fresh way of organizing my thoughts about Gabriel, I sprinted home up the hill and made straight for our library. I knew Jane Jacobs could help me. I grabbed our copy of her book, THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES, from the social sciences shelf and read enough to reframe how I was approaching the facts. By then, I had started a research wiki; now I added a reflection section and wrote, paraphrasing Jacobs:

Takeaway from this book: A city exists as a problem of a sizable number of variables that are all interrelated to the organic whole. A city is an organized, complex problem. So, was slavery also an organized, complex problem? (not a simple problem b/c there are more than 2 variables, not disorganized b/c why?) So if slavery is an organized, complex problem...(lots of interrelated variables) what does this mean for Gabriel and how he ultimately decides to take the problem on? I think there is evidence to suggest that he DID understand the interrelated aspects of the problem and how it all came together in 1799-1800. How then, to illustrate this kind of thinking?? Can the city itself be the metaphor? Does living in the city, working in the city, teach him something about the problem of slavery and what he ultimately comes to see as the solution? Or is it the problem of freedom that he is giving his thinking to? (Go read just a tiny bit about radiant city, garden city, city on a hill refs)

I wondered, what the heck just happened? It was awesome!

"That's called metacognition," my friend Meg Medina told me. "Thinking about thinking. Knowing about knowing. Look it up."

Metacognition. With a name that big, surely, then I could replicate the experience whenever I needed to:

1. Go explore.
2. Ask questions.
3. Express a new idea. Just try!
4. Aim higher.
5. Reflect on the experience of exploring and thinking.
6. Record my thoughts.

Here's another example. After finishing up some research in Colonial Williamsburg, I went exploring, this time in the College of William and Mary's bookstore, and picked up NOTES OF A NATIVE SON by James Baldwin. The question I was pondering at that time was: what biases do I have that I don't even see?

I sat down and read his essay "Everybody's Protest Novel." In it, Baldwin links together Harriet Beecher Stowe's UNCLE TOM'S CABIN and Richard Wright's NATIVE SON as protest novels that reject life and deny beauty. I read Baldwin's words accusing Stowe of covering the nakedness of Africans with the hidden values prescribed to color-language in her novel. He wrote, "For black is the color of evil; only the robes of the saved are white." I had asked the question, "What bias do I hold?" Baldwin had answered. Before even returning to my manuscript, I knew I would find I also had equated the color white with goodness and light and black with malice and evil. A different question arose: What do I do now?

Having been made aware of my bias, I had two choices: forge ahead unchanged or evolve. I recorded in my wiki, "White and black are just colors; we can assign to them any value or symbolism we want. Does my current use of color symbolism make sense for Gabriel? Does the way I've written about colors make sense for this story?"

Here's the thing: Gabriel was a blacksmith. He spent his life in the black of the forge. He planned the insurrection by a creek in the dark of the woods. For his story, I realized, the color black should represent safety, freedom, and salvation and white would equate with blinding injustice and evil. Reading "Everybody's Protest Novel" didn't directly relate to Gabriel's life, but exploring and questioning did help me grow as a thinker and as a writer.

Seeking out metacognitive experiences can shape us into passionate lifelong learners. Curiosity, inquiry, and reflection can and do occur naturally—as when my walk led me to Jane Jacobs and a new framework for processing many variables. And, cultivating such periods of exploration and reflection, as with James Baldwin's essay, can transform our self-awareness—not to mention our thinking about the world we live in.

Gigi Amateau is the author of the young adult novels COME AUGUST, COME FREEDOM (Candlewick Press, 2012) and A CERTAIN STRAIN OF PECULIAR (Candlewick Press, 2009). She also wrote the middle-grade novel, CHANCEY OF THE MAURY RIVER (Candlewick Press, 2008). Her debut young adult novel, CLAIMING GEORGIA TATE (Candlewick Press, 2005), was selected as a Book Sense Children's Pick, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, and a VOYA Review Editor's Choice. She also contributed to the acclaimed anthology, OUR WHITE HOUSE: LOOKING IN LOOKING OUT (Candlewick Press, 2008). Gigi is a native of Mississippi. She grew up in Mechanicsville, VA and graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in Urban Studies and Planning. She lives in the city of Richmond, VA with her husband and daughter. Visit her online at http://www.gigiamateau.com/.

© 2012 Gigi Amateau. Author photo: L. Leigh Meriweather. Please do not reproduce in any form, electronic or otherwise.