BACKGROUND:

Creative writers are usually knowledgeable about their subjects, even if the story is fictional. Describing characters realistically adds to the reality of the book. Writers must convince a reader that the characters are real, even in fantasy. Dr. Seuss, a well known writer of Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Lorax, and hundreds of other books was able to make fictional animal characters relay a story with a societal meeting. For instance, in the Lorax, Dr. Seuss creates a fictional land and talks about its destruction by harvesting all of its natural resources. The message is environmental, without Dr. Seuss even mentioning the environmental problems on our Earth caused by humans.

PROCEDURE:

1. Many authors must have a knowledge of their subject before they can write an interesting story. This exercise is for students to look at some science children's books and see if they can create a book of their own. Notice that most books have a writer and an illustrator. You may want students to team up to create a book.
     
2. Also you might want to set up teams of students to produce one book. Students get the wrong idea when they see a book by one author. They sometimes don't realize that writers must research even the "easiest" book. The craft of writing is similar to science in that you must logical think of how the plot will progress.
     
3. You may want to use the worksheet to try and get students to visualize a story. The worksheet can help guide students to think of how to develop a plot.
     
4. Then use the character worksheet to help students who cannot draw, to pick a picture and write a story around that picture. For example the turtle with a soccer ball as a shell could be a story about how the turtle helped his team win a soccer match. But then he realized that this was cheating and had to confess and make the game go to the real winners. Just something silly, but enough to get the students to think about creating a story.