Crafting Writers Chapters 1-3 and 6

The author of this text has a very unique way of addressing writing in elementary classes. I really enjoyed how she tied into the chapters her personal stories of figuring out recipes at restaurants and learning how to swim. At first these stories seemed irrelevant but as I continued reading I was able to understand how these stories tied into what I am supposed to be learning. One of my favorite parts from these three chapters was the quote from Don Fry about voice: "Voice is the sum of all the strategies used by the author to create the illusion that the writer is speaking directly to the reader from the page." I had never really understood what a writers voice really means but this section helped make it clear to me that each writer has his or her own unique style that would be very difficult to mimic.
Chapter 2 had some very good ideas on how to get a child to write with more detail and it introduced how to look for specific craft in writing. I still find specific craft kind of confusing but what I think it means is using something in writing that has specific instructions on how to use it, such as a simile. Chapter 3 really made me think about how you include the 5 senses in writing and how important it is to do that to make your writing truly descriptive. I think everyone could improve their writing just by thinking about how all 5 senses would be used in what they are writing about. I had also never thought about how the many variations of particular words came about. There are so many different ways to say the word "said" but they all give off a slightly different meaning. Chapter 6 was different from chapters 2 and 3, it focused more on incorporating writing with earlier elementary grades. I really liked the section on art and how essential it is for a student who is learning how to write. Writing and drawing are both ways to express emotion and you can add more detail to both art forms to make them more effective. All in all these chapters did a good job at keeping my attention and I feel as if I learned some very valuable things from them.