Shaping a Story

In early March, a group of young writers from St. Scholastica's Academy Marikina invited me to talk about my writing life and creative process. In the online session I had with them, I included pointers in writing a children's story that will be illustrated by an artist or illustrator. I showed them formats and structures to follow and model. The young writers, a mix of Junior and Senior high schoolers, are aiming to finish a book project.

A couple of weeks after, I received a manuscript where a dream is used as a key literary device. I replied:

 A dream can be used in another way to push the plot forward: as foreshadowing; as a warning; words of caution. There is fear when this happens. However, I would deter you from using a dream as technique to change behavior for plot and character development.

Empower the child character by NOT instilling fear, but by making the child character experience a life changing event. Moving him or her to make the right choice to be a better person or child.

What could happen to a child who bad mouths other people? 

Kahit pag sabihan siya ng parents and teachers niya, ginagawa niya pa din. 

Ano yung cause and effect nito sa child.

What if you show this cause and effect situation?

How will the child learn?

Who will help the child?

 What did the child resolve to do?

There is definitely a part 2! 

 

World Read ALoud Day 2023

 Today is World Read Aloud Day!

Let the telling and the reading of stories from books and oral traditions begin! #WRAD #WRAD2023

For starter, check on the WRAD Activity Packet. WRAD begins on the 1st Wednesday of February, but it doesn't mean you cannot celebrate it the entire month or year. 

Head on to LitWorld for a wealth of resources, activities and soupy ideas to celebrate books, reading aloud and storytelling. There are Live Events you and your community can take part in; a virtual bookshelf of stories for the young and the young at heart; and the Build A Story Challenge where you can share your stories of life experiences in big and small ways!

A Six Sentence Christmas Story by Jamie Bautista

Jamie Bautista had a neat activity for Christmas in Facebook! This post was on his timeline last December 24, 2019.

 Post any photo as a reply to this and say a genre. I'll write a 6 sentence max (genre) Xmas story for the first 10 today.

Jumping into his challenge, I replied with this photo:

Taken on December 12, 2019 between 5.45 PM - 6PM at the Beacon Academy campus using an iPhome 6s.

 Below is Jamie's story which he posted as a reply to my photo and genre, which is Gothic.

 ”Is that seriously the tree you want?” Lord Habershenk asked his wife, Lady Trudy, as the couple stared at the bare and craggly old tree, the moonlight casting web-like shadows on their faces.

“It’s perfect, darling,” Lady Trudy exclaimed. “I can already picture us putting it in the east wing of the manor, hanging all this tinsel and aluminium balls on it and putting on top that glorious gold-leaf star we got during that trip to Bangkok.”

“Isn’t that the tree where Margaret Goldmore hung herself five years ago?” Lord Habershenk asked, sounding almost hesitant to bring up this dark history.

“Darling, I want a Christmas tree that took a life, so I can try to bring life to it. Isn’t that what this season is all about?” Lady Trudy laughed with an unsettling giddiness in her voice.

Now this is how you engage readers in story creation using social media tools. 

More about Jamie Bautista's works featured in the blog:
Jamie Bautista in Sagada
Private Iris on YouTube

Picture Book Month and Picture Books In A High School Library

Our Learning Support Teacher, perusing picture books in the library

As I am now working in a high school library, my collection development program is based on the needs of high school learners as well as their reading interest and developmental levels. There is the curriculum to refer to and I often use it side by side with my selection and acquisition procedures. Pedagogy and instructional philosophy are contexts I latch on as I grow and develop the collection.

So, if you visit our small library, you will find the required General Collection, Filipiniana, Reference Collection, AV and Online resources, and Fiction Collection. Over the years, I have acquired a good number of graphic novels and picture books too.

Yes, our high school library has them.

I think, picture books are important in our high school library because, we involve our students in the process of creating them. While many of them grew up reading picture books, knowing new titles and classic ones help them in creating their own. A few years back, our school project was the creation of picture books for K-3 readers. We called it Early Readers Online. We have started a good collection of stories made by our high school students. The stories in the collection are used by our students during their tutorials with K-1 students of Loma Elementary School. You can view them online through our school website. The link is here: The Beacon Academy: Community and Service.

Picture books are useful tools to teach a second language too. Our learning support teacher uses them to introduce Filipino to our foreign students. Illustrated story books about the Philippines add to context building in learning the Filipino language. The techniques and strategies to learn a new language are many. Using picture books is one of the strategies as it inspires the learner to create one.

Speaking of picture books, Picture Book Month is just around the corner. It is an international celebration of picture books and reading. It is an advocacy started by the sparkling, Dianne de Las Casas, award winning author and storyteller.

Back in 2013, I was part of the gang as one of its champions. Read more about it here: Picture Book Month 2013. This year, another Filipino creative made it to the list. Isabel "Pepper" Roxas is a 2016 Picture Book Month Champion! Head on to the Picture Book Month website! You will discover a wealth of resources to use in your library when you promote reading, picture books and literacy in general.

MIBF Moment: Meeting Kids and Parents Who Care for Them

Weeks after the MIBF, I got this email from Mrs. Teresa Gumap-as.

This is what she told me in her letter:

I just want to let you know how your workshop turned one-on-one activity with my eldest son (Yanthy) influenced him. :) 

Teresa is a writer too. She is the author of the books, When My Bridegroom Comes, How to Have the Wedding of Your Dreams and BREASTFEEDING: A Journey Worth Taking. She home schools her two kids and blogs about motherhood in Mommy Bares All

She narrates Yanthy's experience during my workshop and the follow up activities they did at home together in her blog. Read it all here!

Thanks, Teresa! I hope to meet you again, sometime soon!

The Story Behind the Stories

2nd Gig Contest Winners Announced

From the FB wall of Genaro Gojo-Cruz --

Gig and the Amazing Sampaguita Foundation, Inc. (GASFI) is happy to announce that ten stories won the Gig Book Storywriting Contest. The authors will receive P20,0000.00 each, a winner’s certificate, and a chance for their story to be published as a full-color, fully-illustrated children’s book.

Arranged alphabetically by title, the winning stories are:

Hello, Tatay!
-----by Genaro R. Gojo Cruz
Ishmael And The Ocean
-----by Franklin P. Andaya
Junior's Diary
-----by Carlo Baltazar Ventura
My Dad And I Travel The World
-----by Francesca Cielo M. Ravanes
Postcards To Papa
-----by Raissa Claire R. Falgui
Postscript For Pio
-----by Mia Ayroso Buenaventura
The Stranger At My Door
-----by Gail Christiane Te
The Woman In Daddy's Wallet
-----by Fernando R. Gonzalez
What's Inside A Turtle's Shell?
-----by Raymond G. Falgui
When You Are Away
-----by Bella Charina Alexandra D. Mercado

GASFI, the contest sponsor, is a non-profit organization. Founded and headed by Marissa Oca Robles, GASFI is driven by three of Marissa’s passions: honoring the memory and youthful spirit of her son Gig, promoting the reading habit among children and their families, and serving the needs of Filipino seamen and their families.

The first has to do with turning the loss of a loved one into life-affirming action.

The second is about giving children and their families something that will always keep on giving: a life-long and shared love of reading. “Twenty Minutes At Bedtime” is not only GASFI’s slogan, it is also the minimum amount of time, Marissa believes, that parents should set aside everyday to read to their children.

The third means continuing and expanding the life-work of Marissa’s family, a hallmark of which is the Associated Marine Officers and Seaman’s Union of the Philippines (Amosup), the largest union of seafarers in the world founded and headed by her father, Captain Gregorio S. Oca.

Marissa plans to publish all ten winning stories as full color illustrated children's books. This time, the books might turn out to be more thought provoking and meaningful for seafarer children and their families. In the previous year, the rules specified: “The theme must be something that seafarers’ families---especially children---can identify with. The story must . . . resonate well with children whose fathers are mostly away at sea.” This year, the rules also stated that “bonus points and a greater chance of winning will be given to positive, sensitive, and creatively child-appropriate stories that deal with difficult seafarer family issues like relatives, in-laws, neighbors, troubled teens, money management, parental infidelity, sibling rivalry, resentment, anger, alienation, abandonment, illness, and others.”

All in all, the storywriting contest received more than a hundred and fifty stories. The judges were Karina Africa Bolasco, children's book author and Publishing Manager of Anvil Publishing, Inc.; Neni Sta. Romana Cruz, children's author, book reviewer, educator, and Chairman of the National Book Development Board (NBDB); and Beaulah Pedregosa Taguiwalo, children's illustrator and Regional Advisor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI).

For inquiries about the Gig book project,
e-mail gigbookcontest@gmail.com
or visit http://gigbookcontest.blogspot.com/.

For inquiries about GASFI,
e-mail gigfoundation@gmail.com
or visit http://www.gasfi.com/

Live Blogging: Early Readers Online

Sigh.

Our presentation's done!

The Early Readers Online is a Community and Service project of high school students in Beacon Academy, Laguna. Students wrote and illustrated stories for kids age 5-7. These illustrated stories underwent an editing process and coaching-mentoring sessions by teachers who make up the team of facilitators. Once the stories were revised and final copies were made, the stories were uploaded to the website where members of the community can read, download, print and translate them.

Here's how to access the stories:

a. Go to Beacon Academy Mail - mail.beaconacademy.ph
b. Username - guest
c. Password - beaconacademy
d. Go to "SITES"
e. Click EARLY READERS
f. View the stories

Feel free to translate any of the stories in your mother tongue. Send your translations to library@beaconacademy.ph. Feedback is welcome as well.