On Wednesdays this fall, I’m
sharing the process of creating my recently-published book Ick! Delightfully
Disgusting Animals Dinners, Dwellings, and Defenses step-by-step. (To learn about the whole process in one sitting or to share an age-appropriate version with your students, check out this new resource on my website.)
how my plan transformed from three 48-page books into one 112-page book. You
can scroll down and read that post. Today, I’ll begin a
description of the drafting process for the spread that focuses on flesh flies.
Believe it or not, there are
more than 2,500 species of flesh flies living on Earth, and as I discovered
during the research process, they’re icky in all kinds of ways.
For example:
—Some flesh flies drink juices from
rotting fruit. Many sip liquids from animal poop and animal carcasses.
—Some female flesh flies place their worm-like maggots (larvae) on dung. Others
choose rotting carcasses or the open wounds of living animals.
—Some flesh fly maggots burrow into live animals, including other insects,
snails, and toads.
—Some flesh fly maggots eat their hosts from the inside out and eventually kill
them.
information into the book, but I knew that would be a mistake. Anytime writers
use too many general words like “some” and “many,” the writing gets less
interesting. I wanted my writing to be lively and full of fascinating, specific
details.
couldn’t decide. Luckily, I remembered a technique I learned from Ryan Scala, a
fifth-grade teacher in East Hampton, New York.
encourages them to review their notes and circle facts and ideas they consider
especially important or interesting. Then he invites them to choose one of the
following prompts and jot some thoughts in their writer’s notebook:
…
—I was surprised to
learn …
—This makes me think …
—This is important
because …
I chose the second prompt and wrote the
following in my notebook.
Until
I wrote that sentence on paper, I hadn’t really thought about the irony of a
fly eating a toad. I decided that would be a fun focus, so I did some more
research to learn as much as I could about Lepidodexia bufonivora, the flesh fly that targets toads.
I
highly recommend trying Ryan’s technique the next time your students are writing
nonfiction. Finding a focus of personal interest forces writers to be specific,
and it helps them stay engaged, both of which result in prose that’s
interesting and unique.
Next
week, I’ll continue to discuss the drafting process for this flesh fly spread.
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