Literacy Now

I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the bleakness of October than by reveling in it with Edgar Allan Poe. Seriously, is there a better time to teach Poe than October? (Okay, well, maybe in the “bleak December,” but I prefer happier stuff that month.) October is cold and dreary. The days are shorter; it’s darker longer. Classrooms are decorated with bats and ghosts and kids are itching for a good scare.

So, indulge yourself and turn off the classroom lights. Indulge the students and let them sit on the floor. If you’re lucky, the weather will cooperate and rain will pour down. If you’re really lucky, maybe you’ll get a little thunder and lightning, too! Then pass around the Poe and let your imaginations run wild.

But wait! Don’t stop there! You don’t have to let Poe be a one-day ghost story session. Okay, sure. You could frost cupcakes black for his birthday (which is today, October 2nd), but the bosses tend to frown on food in school these days. You could dress in a trench coat and pass out roses in honor of the anniversary of his death (which is October 7th), but I’m pretty sure those sorts of coats violate most dress codes. There is a way, though, to extend your visit into the über-creepy landscape of Edgar Allan Poe—one that doesn’t require a trip to A.C. Moore for specialty food coloring or silk flowers.

Here’s the idea: Together, with a lot of clarifying along the way, we read a few Poe pieces—my go-to favorites are “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” for short stories, and “The Raven” and “Annabelle Lee” for poetry. After several days interacting with Poe, I ask students to identify some of the characteristics of his writing. Generally, they come up with things like:

• lots of adjectives and adverbs
• lots of verbs
• repetition
• lots of dashes
• big words
• figurative language
• all-caps
• talks to the reader
• creepy subject

Then, as a class, we write a starter paragraph in a mysterious setting using the first person point of view. Once we’ve done that, students apply each of the following steps. (I’ve condensed the steps for you below, but if you’d like the full handout, email me at mzcotillo@gmail.com and I’ll happily share with you.) After writing a class model, students attempt to fly solo.

STARTER PARAGRAPH

It was early evening in late November. I was working late and feeling sorry for myself. Everyone else had gone home so I was alone in the office. I popped a bag of microwave popcorn for “dinner,” and got a soda out of the vending machine. I was walking back to my office along the empty hallway when I thought I heard footsteps behind me. I turned, but there was no one there.

SAME PARAGRAPH, BUT APPLYING CHARACTERISTIC #1: USE LOTS OF ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

I was working terribly late and feeling horribly, pitifully sorry for myself.

photo: odd sock via photopin

SAME PARAGRAPH, BUT APPLYING CHARACTERISTIC #2: USE MORE THAN ONE VERB AT A TIME

I was strolling, walking slowly and quietly back to my office along the deserted hallway when I thought, I imagined, I heard the faintest brush of footsteps behind me

SAME PARAGRAPH, BUT APPLYING CHARACTERISTIC #3: REPEAT YOURSELF

I was utterly alone, alone in the empty office. …Quickly I turned and looked, but there was no one there. No one there.

SAME PARAGRAPH, BUT APPLYING CHARACTERISTIC #4: USE DASHES

I was walking slowly and quietly back to my office—along the deserted hallway when I thought—I imagined—I heard the faintest brush of footsteps behind me.

BREAK OUT THE THESAURUS FOR CHARACTERISTIC #5: USE BIG WORDS

I was laboring—toiling—terribly late and feeling horribly, pitifully sorry for myself. All and sundry had gone—flown home.

ADDING A SENTENCE WITH CHARACTERISTIC #6: USE FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

The late November night was as dark and cold as the devil’s heart.

EMPHASIZE WORDS WITH CHARACTERISTIC #7: USE ALL-CAPS

I was UTTERLY alone, alone in the vacant office. … Hastily I turned and looked, but there was no one there. NO ONE THERE.

ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE DIRECTLY WITH CHARACTERISTIC #8: TALK TO THE READER

I was strolling—walking as slowly and quietly as a THIEF back to my office—along the hallway as desolate as the winter sky when I thought—you will say I imagined—I thought heard the faintest brush of footsteps behind me.

FINAL PRODUCT, EMPHASIZING CHARACTERISTIC #9: THE CREEPY SUBJECT

The late November night was as dark and cold as the devil’s heart. I was laboring—toiling—terribly late and feeling horribly, PITIFULLY sorry for myself. All and sundry had flown home to warm and welcoming nests. Everyone else had gone. I was UTTERLY alone, alone in the vacant office. I had only the sharp smell of a meager bag of tasteless microwave popcorn for company. I retrieved a diet, caffeine free soda from the vending machine. I was strolling—walking as slowly and quietly as a THIEF back to my office—along the hallway as desolate as the winter sky when I thought—you will say I imagined—I thought heard the faintest brush of footsteps behind me. Hastily I turned and looked, but there was no one there. NO ONE THERE.

Sure, this writing lesson makes for a super-cool addition to student portfolios. But it also provides an opportunity to review of the parts of speech. And by encouraging students to go overboard, you’re giving them permission to be “bad” writers so they don’t have to worry about being “good” writers. It’s also a fun way to engage kids who otherwise tend to hold back.

But really, the best part is that you’ll have kids reading Poe like they’ve never read him before. They’ll be dissecting his style, questioning when and where he uses punctuation and figurative language. They’ll be laughing at their own ridiculousness, getting excited about language, thinking, writing, and—MOST importantly—having a fabulously creepy time.

Mary Cotillo is an 8th grade ELA teacher at Horace Mann Middle School in Franklin, MA. Mother to two children, she enjoys engaging in light saber battles and hanging out on soccer fields. She earned her National Board Certification in 2009.

© 2012 Mary Cotillo. Please do not reproduce in any form, electronic or otherwise.

As a writer, I like to gather inspirational or instructional quotes from other authors to spur me on, over, or through the difficulties of writing. Eventually, many of those quotes sneak into my classroom to inspire and instruct my middle school writers and readers as well. Usually the quote is short, full of meaning, and easy to remember.

The following isn’t. Short, that is. But it is full of meaning and well-worth remembering the message if not the words.

Before I introduce this quote to my middle school students at the beginning of the year, I introduce them to its author, Julia Cameron, a talented writer of fiction, plays, movie scripts, and nonfiction. She is most famous for her timeless bestseller, The Artist's Way, a book famous for encouraging millions of artists—not just writers—to pursue their art. I explain to my students that her name is equated the world over with helping people learn to better access their own innate artistic abilities. And then I share Ms. Cameron’s wise words about the way to write a first draft:

Early in my writing life I tried to polish as I went….Writing this way was frustrating, difficult and disheartening…I learned to write, setting judgment aside and save the polish for later…For the first time I gave myself emotional permission to do rough drafts and for those rough drafts to be, well, rough. Freed to be rough, my writing actually became smoother. Freed from the demand that it be instantly brilliant, perfect and clever, my writing became not only smoother but also easier and more clear.

–Julia Cameron, The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life.

After I share this with my students, I tell them that this is how I expect them to approach writing in my classroom. I expect them to know that the first draft is not the final draft, but that it is a necessary part of the creative process. I explain that they will write far more first drafts than final drafts, and that’s okay. Finally, I tell them that their first drafts should be mostly about creativity, fun, and enjoying the intoxicating freedom of getting their ideas down on paper.

And once they breathe a sigh of relief, they want to know how to go about writing such a fun, creative, free first draft.

And so I tell them.

Most experienced writers approach their first draft fast and furious. They don’t worry about conventions, or mechanics, or spelling, or coming up with beautiful language. They don’t even worry about writing in chronological order, instead, they just write down what appears in their head as it appears. The experienced writer knows that the most important thing at this point isn’t flowing language or beautiful words. No, the most important thing is to get those fleeting thoughts and ideas down on paper. Now!

Whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction, the same basic approach applies. Read over your notes and then set them aside and begin writing. Write until you run out of things to say. Drain the brain. Write until you are worn out. Or more likely, you will be exhilarated because this kind of low stakes, purely creative writing is fun. If you are writing along on your nonfiction piece and all of a sudden you realize that you need some particular fact or piece of information that you didn’t research, whatever you do, don’t interrupt the flow of that first draft to find those facts. Make yourself a note to look for them later, and keep writing!

If you are half way through your short story and all of a sudden you know exactly how that final scene should go, write it down. It doesn’t matter if it is out of order. You can always come back and switch things around, but you might not be able to come back later and recall that brilliant idea.

In the process of writing your first draft, it is wholly possible that you realize that it won’t work. You realize that your story isn’t completely developed in your mind so you can’t get it completely down on paper or that your nonfiction article needs more research. Oh, well. That is also what the first draft is for. Get down what you have, and now you know exactly what you have to think about in order to get it finished. No sweat.

As you write a first draft you don’t want to invest too much time in polishing and crafting something that you ultimately might be cutting out. Just keep writing, knowing that you are throwing in more than you need. It is easier to cut than to add, so don’t worry about it. As Julia Cameron advises, when in doubt, throw it in.

Don’t make a point of editing as you go along. Editing and revision are for drafts down the road. First drafts are purely creative and fun. They are a riotous garden full of all kinds of flowers that later will be culled and tamed, cut and manicured. But that is for later. The first draft is just about the purity of writing. And thinking. And putting strange and seemingly unrelated thoughts together.

A first draft isn’t complete until the structure of the story or nonfiction piece that you are writing is complete. Once that structure is there, your first draft is done. Whew! Congratulations!

One fun way to get loosened up and in the mode of this type of first-draft, edit-less writing is to sign up for NaNoWriMo, or the National Novel Writing Month, in November. This is a month-long program that encourages writers of all ages to stop thinking about writing and just get it done. In addition to the adult program, there’s a NaNoWriMo Young Writer’s Program as well.

Last year, 50,000 young writers took the challenge and signed up to write—and complete—a novel in the time span of one month. Imagine, a whole month devoted to writing without the worry of editing your words!

Through the NaNoWriMo program and website, the young writers who participate have many resources available to them, including help setting reasonable word count goals, workbooks to help them formulate their ideas before they actually start writing, online pep talks from published authors, and the opportunity to communicate with other young writers taking on the same challenges. The workbooks are located at http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/workbooks.

For teachers, the program offers a Resources for Educators page, which includes lesson plans and the ability to set up a virtual classroom. You can even request a free kit to help your students log their progress.

NaNoWriMo begins one month from today. Consider taking that time to introduce NaNoWriMo to your students, and encourage them to accept the challenge it presents.

After all, it’s definitely a great way to encourage your students to experience the fast and furious fun of a first draft!

Julie Danneberg has learned all about first drafts through the writing of many books for children including, First Day Jitters and her newly released picture book biography, Monet Paints a Day. In addition, she has taught reading and writing in both elementary and middle school. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado, where she teaches 7th grade reading. Visit her website at www.juliedanneberg.com.

by Helen Marx and Greg McVerry

The Internet has opened new pathways around the globe and transformed the way we read, write and collaborate. In addition, new social practices have emerged that have redefined community.

At the same time, business, social, and political leaders have called for greater global awareness. In fact, the fate of humanity may lie in the ability of future generations to solve problems together on a global scale. This in turn requires us to rethink the social practices of literacy that we teach in the classroom. Classroom teachers can shape the leaders of tomorrow by teaching online collaborative inquiry through global education initiatives.

Literacy educators need to place online collaborative inquiry, which is the ability for a group of local or global participants to reach a solution through multiple pathways of knowledge, at the cornerstone of their digital text and tools curriculum. Without online collaborative inquiry, young authors and readers cannot fully harness the power of the Internet. The surest method to incorporate online collaborative inquiry into the classroom is through global education.

Three Principles of Global Education

Three principles guide our understanding of Global Education. These goals will unite our communities, require students to consider multiple perspectives, and utilize interpersonal communications skills.

1. Considering Global Connections

First, Global Education requires students to think about knowledge and issues in an interconnected and systematic way and to consider how local and regional realities might have larger, global connections. To illustrate, in the video below Chief Almir uses new technology to share his tribe’s story with the world while protecting important national resources.

Imagine bringing that power to your classroom. A group of dedicated individuals living deep in the Rain Forest changed their world for the better. What can you do with your students?

2. Examining Cultural Perspectives

The second Global Education principle asks students to explore their own culturally bounded understandings and to consider the ways culture can influence one's perspectives and value systems. The key to the second principle is to do more than simply read a book that has a picture of a child from another country on the cover. Teachers must go beyond simply having students hang flags or prepare local flavors of the country du jour.

For example the GlobalEd 2 project hosted by the University of Connecticut and the University of Illinois at Chicago asks students to role play as members of different cultures and countries while solving real world problems. Learners across the United States must attempt to understand how others might view the issue and, in the process, challenge their own beliefs while engaging in science curriculum and content area reading.

3. Applying New Skills and Knowledge

Finally Global Education focuses on an array of interpersonal communication skills needed to function within increasing culturally diverse and technologically complex contexts. The world economy revolves around the flow of information in a new digital world. This world requires students to utilize new knowledge and skills in order to engage in literary practices necessary for global citizenship. Through online collaboration and the creation of truly international and cross-cultural online communities, students can begin to develop and practice these vital interpersonal skills.

Three Pathways to Global Education

Educators can find vast resources if they want to get involved with a Global Education project. Like most inquiries we began our hunt on Twitter. Using the hashtag #GlobalEd we connected with many teachers, found daily newspapers published by curators, and links to many initiatives. Below we share just three. 

1. Photo Essays

Your students do not have to engage with others to build on the three principles of Global Education. You can collaborate in your classroom on photo essays. First start by reading some of the powerful photo essays published by the Carolina Navigators. As a class discuss the essays. Make sure to focus on the cultural beliefs embedded in the essay. Discuss how these beliefs are reflected in the chosen photos. Then have students use presentation software or a movie maker to create their own essay.

2. i-Spy in the Community

i-Spy in the Community is a Global Education project for students in grades K-3. It revolves around the essential question, “How do you know that you are part of a community?” Students investigate their communities and share what they elarn with the world using VoiceThread. The project wiki has detailed lesson plans and contact information to get involved.

3. Global Education Conference

Interested in learning more about Global Education? Want to meet other educators to share ideas or discover a collaboration project? Then we encourage you to attend the free online Global Education Conference. The conference is November 12 to17. The goal of the conference is to foster a world wide community of teachers committed to Global Education.

Ultimately, we have an obligation to our students to make sure they can understand and address problems with a global perspective. This will not only require new skills and practices, but more fundamentally a keen understanding of diverse perspectives and belief systems. In order to meet this call, we implore you to set a goal of engaging students in online collaborative inquiry through Global Education.

Helen Marx and Greg McVerry are from Southern Connecticut State University. 

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

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.