The first step in choosing the best arguments for a persuasive essay is to determine exactly who the audience is. Who is the person or group responsible for making the decision that will give you what you want? If you want an increase in your allowance, to stay up later at night, or to get a pet, then your audience is your parents. If you want a decrease (or increase) in homework, more field trips, or fewer group projects, then your audience is your teacher. The principal would be the one to address if you want more after-school activities, more assemblies, or to change the playground rules. The school board handles issues such as closing school libraries, laying off teachers, and shutting down (or establishing) a music program. If you want a stop sign installed, cleaner sidewalks, or new parks, then you should write to the city council.

Once the audience is identified, you must get inside their head and determine what their objectons will be. On a city or school board level, the objection is usually money. Parents look out for the well-being of their children. Teachers and principals are focused on student learning. Which of the arguments for your position will work best for your intended audience? If you make a well-reasoned, well-supported argument to the school board about how important your idea is for the well-being of students everywhere, they are most likely to counter with a statement that they still have no money. Your argument may have convinced them, but it has not overcome obstacles and caused action. And that action, of course, is why you are writing.

Below are some arguments students have used for various assignments. Which audience would they be most effective with: parents, teacher, principal, school board, or city?

Write your choice in a comment, and add arguments of your own. Maybe use this space to test out arguments for an essay you’re working on.

* I will do my chores every day if I can have it.

* Streetlight maintenance will go a long way to reducing crime on the streets after dark.

*Reducing the amount of homework will allow students to spend quality time with their parents after dinner.

*Saturday school would cost more money because of the need to run heat and lights, and buses.

*Everyone else is doing it.

*Honor roll assemblies should be reinstated because they recognize achievement and that encourages students.

*School libraries should remain open so that students continue to have a wide variety of opportunities to read for pleasure as well as research.

*School projects should be done in groups because it allows the smarter kids to help the ones who aren’t as good.

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On my Kindle: Ranger’s Apprentice #10: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja by John Flanagan

Everyone knows that sensory details make a story rich and interesting, but first you have to have a story. The holidays are filled with memories of family get-togethers and fantastic presents. Maybe your family goes caroling or visits a neighborhood light festival. All of these are potential stories.

At our house we have a wooden Advent calendar. It is shaped like a Christmas tree, and has numbered circle magnets 1-24. Each day, you place an ornament magnet on the numbered circle. When the tree is filled, it’s Christmas Eve. My boys loved this calendar when they were growing up. They arranged the little ornaments in some undisclosed order, and were very precised about which ornament was put up on which day, and where on the tree it was placed.

Since they have grown up and moved out, the Advent calendar sometimes goes days without an ornament. They come home to visit in mid-December and are horrified, quickly placing the magnets to catch up. They are also disgusted when I place the magnets in the wrong order or in the wrong place. (Remember, I said they had a secret system known only to the two of them). All I know is, Santa is the last ornament, placed on the tree on Christmas Eve morning.

I know you have Christmas stories, and I’d love to hear them. It can be about family, traditions, or a great present you got once. Let’s get festive!

♥

On my Kindle: Laid Out and Candle Lit by Ann Everett

The initial excitement of tackling a novel has long since faded to hard work. Now that it’s completed, they are proud of it but unwilling to revise and edit. As we all know, those are key steps. And I am not going to read thirty-one unedited novels! So the question remains, how do I fire their excitement once more about this project?

Professional cover artist Tirzah Goodwin is helping me this year. She has agreed to provide each student with a free custom cover for their novel. We can print the cover and attach it to the student’s work, and Tirzah will feature the covers on her website. So do you want to see them? Check out A Clever Whatever, her blog site.

If you’re a current student of mine, oooh and ahhh over your cover, then get back to revising and editing!

♥

On my Kindle: Here, There, and Otherwhere by Phyl Manning

So last week, when I should have been writing encouraging words for your second week of NaNo, I was compiling report cards, planning for parent conferences, carrying off a super NaNoWriMo kickoff, and entertaining a reporter in my classroom (she wrote a wonderful article about NaNo!). All of this left me 5,000 words behind in my own novel as of this morning. Yup, Week Two can be devastating.

On Friday, the local Evergreen Times came out with a wonderful article about our kickoff written by San Jose City Councilmember Rose Herrera. She dropped in at our kickoff and talked to some of the 60 young writers who attended. She was very impressed! Then this morning, the terrific article by reporter Sharon Noguchi of the San Jose Mercury News ran on the front page of the Local section. Both of these community members were very impressed by the work of our sixth graders, and the fourth and sixth graders at aother school.

Thrilled with both articles, I posted them on Facebbook and they went as viral as anything I have posted. Both were reposted a half dozen times, and comments flew across cyberspace. With that kind of positive press, I HAD to catch up on my own 2011 novel! So I began typing.

And I did it. I’m now at 21,674 words (with a goal of 50,000)! That gets me caught up. It was a marathon day of writing and recognition, and I wish the same for all of you who are toiling away at a NaNo novel. Rejoice in each level of achievement!

From now on, it’s easy. You have so much of your novel completed, how can you possibly stop now? Pour yourself another cup of coffee (or mug of hot chocolate) and keep plugging away at it. You’ve turned the corner, and the rest is downhill. Goal: 50% completion by November 15!

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On my Kindle: Rocamora by Donald Michael Platt

But November looms, and November is not about basking in the success of a completed novel. It’s about cranking out the sequel. I am more than a little terrified, since I don’t think I will have the luxury of two years of revising to polish this one. I envision legions of fans demanding the sequel by next summer. I’m sure I will be inundated by their requests!

So I must plan carefully. The idea of outlining the book and assigning a chapter to each of my students crossed my mind (while I was under the influence of mild panic), but I rejected it. My students are too eager to write their own novels! So, like I did two years ago, I worked through the character planning with them, planning the three main characters in excruciating detail. But characters are no good alone. I need to give that protagonist something he wants more than anything. Then I need to give my antagonist a reason to get in the way. Then I need a role for the sidekick. It has to make sense. And it has to be a minimum of 50,000 words. (more if I want it to be closer to publishable)

So what goes into a good NaNo plot? (Good being defined as potential for a lot of words) It needs a solid beginning, middle, and end. And it needs to have the potential to add more scenes to make the word count, if necessary.

One way to do this is to write the EPIC QUEST. Introduce the protagonist and his sidekick in the beginning. Set the world (setting, time period), and write the inciting event that sends our hero on the quest for…the Jewel of Youth, the Fountain of Power, the Triforce of Everlasting Beauty…whatever object he must have or the world ends. This is a good plot because you have a built-in climax when the protagonist struggles to achieve the item once he/she reaches it. You also have a built-in ending when the hero triumphantly returns. In between, a myriad of possiblities for adding scenes exists as the protagonist makes his/her way to the item and back.

Another option is to write the TWISTED PLOT. In this one, you have multiple characters, each with their own story arc, interacting in a story that has an overall arc of its own. For example, On a Wing and a Dare is about a town that is striving to save its herd of winged horses. The horses are poisoned and begin to die, so they must save the horses and find out how they were poisoned. The protagonist, Emma, assists in that effort, but she has her own arc, too. She doesn’t want to become a rider in her father’s barn as tradition demands. She wants to ride a winged horse in a rival barn. Her boyfriend, Evan, is a junior rider in that rival barn. He wants to be a leader, to have his own barn with riders that look up to him. Evan’s brother, Davyd, is in love with Emma. Davyd is scheduled to become a rider with Emma, but he is secretly afraid of heights. Then there is Tristan, Lady Margery, and Lord Farley, all with their own arc, weaving into the overall story about the horses. Complicated, but lots of words.

I’m sure there are other ways to organize a NaNo plot. I know you have story ideas. What organizational device are you going to use to make sure you meet your word goal?

♥

On my Kindle: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (which, by the way, started out as a NaNo novel)

These days it seems the traditional big publishing houses only want to work with authors who can sell upwards of 20,000 copies of a book. They pay big advances, but actually signing a contract with them is difficult to accomplish. Once you do, you may be left to market your book pretty much on your own.

Smaller independent publishers may not have the range of the big houses as far as distribution goes, but they often work more closely with new authors and offer more marketing support. Indie presses attract authors who haven’t achieved the big sales numbers with their first book, but hit reasonable sales around 10,000 copies.

Authors who want to be published by the big publishers almost always require an agent. Smaller publishers will take direct queries, but many of them also prefer to work with agents. One of an aspiring author’s decisions is whether or not to land an agent. I have a full time job that is not writing, so I initially assumed an agent would sell my book to a publisher and market it for me, allowing me to use what time I had to write. Apparently I am not alone in this line of thought, and querying agents brought no success.

Another option is for authors to self-publish their books. I have done so with two anthologies of student work, Novel Central and Novel Central 2, and find the process to be relatively easy. With these books, I have total control (and responsibility) for editing, cover, and distribution channels. Unfortunately, bookstores do not want to stock self-published books because they cannot return them to the publisher. If I order a stack of books that are not sold, then I am stuck with a book of books in the garage gathering dust. Plus, 100% of the marketing must be done by the author. I do not have the time or the range to make that effective.

My publisher, Briona Glen, is a small independent house, as is Parker Publishing, home to Apocalypse Gene. As October unfolds, watch my reading blog for a chance to win a copy of Apocalypse Gene, or a free Kindle and other prizes. Read my review of the book on October 7. In the meantime, comment here about small publishers, big publishers, or marketing books. Where do you hear about new books that you want to read?

♥

On my Kindle: Alanna (The Song of the Lionness) by Tamora Pierce

The climax of the story is the easy part. That is usually the event that pops into your memory first. For example, do you remember what your best friend was wearing at your fifth birthday party, or do you remember that you blew out the candles on the cake and sprayed frosting all over her?

From the memory of the climax, students work on rising action and falling action. Initially, they want to start every story with waking up and brushing their teeth. So a story about a ride at Disneyland starts with getting up, brushing teeth, riding eight hours in the car, getting into the park, having ice cream, lining up for the ride, and oh did I tell you I’m finally tall enough?

In actuality, the story was about the excited revelation of being tall enough to finally ride Thunder Mountain Railroad. It had nothing to do with brushing teeth, so it should not have started there. I guess you could say that every personal narrative starts at the moment of the author’s birth, but to make a great story the author needs to focus the story on the smallest moment possible: a morning, an hour, an instant. The internal thinking that leads up to standing next to the height measurement, memories of past failures, sets the mood. When the author finally gets the go-ahead to board the ride, the reader feels the same exhiliration.

If you always start with getting up and brushing your teeth, the reader is as bored as you are by the details of daily life. Focus on the heart of the story and the immediate emotions and events just before and after it. Then you will have a great small moment story.

♥

On my Kindle: Nefertiti by Michelle Moran

August classrooms are like new outfits. They are clean and pressed, with a life of their own. Only through hard use do they conform to the people within and develop character. I like the promise of a new classroom, like that of a new outfit. That new outfit will make me feel dressed up, make me look thinner. The new classroom will hold students who are eager to learn and excited to tackle whatever I give them.

If you are a student, or a parent, or even a teacher, I know you are looking at the upcoming school year in a positive light. Everyone hopes for a good year, a good combination of teacher, homework, classmates, and experiences. If I could only bottle the hope and excitement of the first day of school, I’d be rich.

So how do we all cling to that positive vibe? Refuse to listen to that negative person inside that tempts you to fall into the same bad habits. Take one day at a time, and do your very best. If you miss a homework assignment, make it up quickly and smile. Stay positive. Absolutely do NOT let that nagging voice convince you that you can’t do it.

Any new experience, a new job, a new novel, a new summer camp, can be a fantastic experience if we are able to stay positive throughout. It’s not easy, because the self-bashing person inside is very quick to tell us we’re not good enough. Surround yourself with people who will overwhelm the negatives, not add to them.

I know you can be positive and happy, if maybe a little nervous, on the first day of school. Set yourself a little goal–be positive and happy on the second day, too. Take care of anything that gets in your way immediately, and move on to your confident spot. One day at a time.

Speaking for teachers everywhere, I am excited to greet my new class and get started! See you all next week.

♥

On my Kindle: The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

Maya

for receiving the most comments on her posted writing. Maya will get a copy of Priscilla the Great: The Kiss of Life by Sybil Nelson. I’ll put it in the mail tomorrow, Maya! I hope you enjoy every page.

♥

On my Kindle: Forever by Maggie Stiefvater

Most publishers say to allow a standard six to eight week window before you can expect a response, so I tried to focus on getting ready for school to start. I also worked on my new novel, Under the Almond Trees. But every morning I held my breath as I checked my email.

Tonight my husband I returned from the gym sweaty after a good workout. I sat down to drink a protein shake and check my email. And there it was. An email from the acquisitions editor at Briona Glen Publishing.

She wants to publish my book.

She wants more books, ‘at least’ a trilogy.

I have some work to do. She listed seven items I need to focus on rewriting, some of them major but none of them deal breakers. Most importantly, she loves my writing.

And she wants to publish my book!

Stay tuned and I’ll tell you all about the process of becoming a published author. Did you catch that?

A published author.

♥

On my Kindle: A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin