Award Winning Author N. L. Sharp Shares Her Writing Secrets with K-8 Students

by Betty Bricker

March 02, 2010

On Monday, March 1, Award winning Author N. L. Sharp shared her writing secrets with students from kindergarten through eighth grade. With the kindergarten, she shared how she came up with ideas for her stories and had the kids brainstorm ideas from their own life that they could write about. She also read excerpts from her books: Today I'm Going Fishing With My Dad, Effie's Image, and The Flower Girl/The Ring Bear. With the first and second grade, she shared her three secrets to being a good writer: 1) all writers must be readers, 2) writers must write every day and 3) writers must be spies, thy must use their eyes and ears to observe the world around them to come up with story ideas. With the third through sixth graders, she shared her writing notebooks and some key ideas for them to write in their notebooks, such as lists of memories, observations and ideas, pictures of what they envision their characters to look like, writing tips, reflections as well as many other ideas. Nancy compared the six traits of writing to the art of cooking with the seventh and eight grade classes. She shared how she used the six traits in her writing and she challenged them to write the perfect sentence. We'd like to thank the Elementary and Middle School PTO for sponsoring her to come share her expertise with the students.
In honor of Read Across America Week, fifth through eighth grade students were invited to share their favorite poems. At the conclusion of presentations by N. L. Sharp, several students read poems. Tessa Cernousek shared a poem that she wrote, Mary Schwarz-Wood read one by Shel Siverstein, Jami Isaacson, Ali Matousek and Megan Hunke performed a skit of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Tessa Perez shared poetry that she had written, Stacy Kaslon read a poem by Poe and Nathan Sunblade had written his own poetry. We have some very creative students and are proud that they had the courage to present in front of their peers.