As you read the mentor essays in Nonfiction Writers Dig Deep: 50 Award-winning
Authors Share the Secret of Engaging Writing, you’ll see that the importance of making personal connections emerges again and
again.
A nonfiction’s writer’s personality, beliefs, and
experiences in the world have a tremendous impact on how they evaluate,
assimilate, analyze, and synthesize their research to make personal
connections.
Each writer views the facts and ideas they’ve gathered
through their own lens, and that’s what allows them to present information in
unique and interesting ways. It’s the reason that Death Eaters: Meet
Nature’s Scavengers by
Kelly Milner Halls is so different from Rotten! Vultures, Beetles, and Slime: Nature’s Decomposers by Anita Sanchez and Something Rotten: A Fresh Look at Roadkill by Heather L. Montgomery even though all
three books have some overlapping content.
Currently, most students don’t take time to think before
they write. They don’t “digest” the information they’ve gathered. And because
this critical step isn’t part of their prewriting process, they sometimes end
up plagiarizing.
You see, plagiarizing isn’t merely the
result of students being lazy. It occurs because students lack the skills
necessary to put the information they’ve collected through our own
personal filters and making their own meaning.
When students are able add a piece of themselves to their
drafts, they can move beyond writing dry, encyclopedic survey pieces that mimic
their sources and begin crafting rich, distinctive prose.
How
can students learn these critical skills? I’ll share some of the suggestions in
Nonfiction Writers Dig Deep
over the next few weeks. Stay tuned.
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