A Novel Project For Some Creative Kids

An evil guy with plans to melt part of Antarctica. A mysterious tooth-shaped man who just may be a cavity. A talking llama who battles a cactus – and wins the heart of Selena Gomez.

One of these very well could be the next Great American Novel.

Creativity was the recurring theme in the stories that fourth-graders at wrote this year in conjunction with National Novel Writing Month, commonly known among writers as NaNoWriMo.

Teacher Stephanie Fosdeck participated in NaNoWriMo the last two years and met the adult goal of 50,000 words during the month of November.

It wasn’t always easy meeting her daily goal of 1,500 words, she admitted.

“I stayed up until midnight; I would get up at 4 a.m. to write,” she said.

And when she went to school later that morning, she would work with her class on their own novels. There is no specific NaNoWriMo goal for children; each participant sets his or her own.

“It varies wildly,” Fosdeck said. “If they have trouble writing like, 50 words in a day, they may say their goal is 75 or 100, and then multiply by 30 (days) for their final goal.

“Every child has the ability to complete a novel.”

Fosdeck’s students rose to the challenge – some wrote more than 20,000 words – so she planned to do it again this year, this time, with the company of fellow fourth-grade teacher Kathy Parrish and her class.

The students began journaling their ideas in September, and by October, were learning to brainstorm and go through the process of creating characters and plots, and examining the story arc.

And on Nov. 1, they sat down at their Alpha Smart keyboards and began to type.

“Given the opportunity and the structure to do it,” Fosdeck said, “they write.”

Fosdeck said that the students looked forward to writing time.

“They love being creative and they love stories,” she said.

Since NaNoWriMo is only a month long and therefore largely an exercise in speed, the students had to adapt to writing with the understanding that their first draft was not their final draft.

Once November was over, they began revising their stories and eventually submitted them to StudentPublishing.com. By early June, every child had a published copy of his or her novel, complete with original cover art.

Among them were “The Adventures of Dr. Tooth,” by Zyriahn Louis, the story of a tooth that does battle on a trampoline, wins a trophy and is revealed to be a cavity.

“They wonder, ‘Who is this guy?’ ” she said. “In my next book, I’m going to be talking about Dr. Cavity.”

Katie Herrera’s book may have Justin Bieber on the cover, but she was adamant that she is not a fan.

“The Ugly Mom” is the story of how everyone hates the teen singer “and everyone thinks he’s faking and stuff, so he moves to another city, and people follow him wherever he goes.”

So, did writing 9,000 words about The Bieb make her a fan?

“No,” she said emphatically.

Another celebrity to get top billing was Michael Jackson, whose ghost haunts a kid named Devin in “The Haunted.”

Author Devin Fields said that he thought of the idea, “because I like Michael Jackson.”

He also clarified that his story’s protagonist is “another kid named Devin” – not himself.

And about that talking llama …

“The Battle,” by Theo Grutas, is the tale of a talking llama and his nemesis, a cactus that antagonizes him with the taunt of “stupid llama.” The llama eventually wins the battle – and marries actress Selena Gomez.

“They have a child named Llama Jr., and the cactus has a child, and they become enemies (and) start throwing rocks at each other,” he said of his 8,000-word story.

So where did this idea come from?

Theo shrugged.

“Well, when I was writing this book, I was thinking about llamas … I just started thinking of stuff and threw it on a big piece of paper and put it all together.”

Parrish said she was thrilled by her students’ enthusiasm for the project.

“Watching the whole writing process and how they understood was impressive,” she said. “When they started to write, they didn’t want to stop.”

Fosdeck agreed.

“They can write literature now,” she said. “They have all this great knowledge of what it means to be a fiction writer, which is phenomenal because it passes over to their reading capabilities.”

And learning to write fiction has taught the fourth-graders that their lives are a story.

“Everyone wonders, ‘What would happen if I did this?’ ‘What would happen if this person did this?’ ” Fosdeck said. “That constant what-if helps them in all subject areas and they’re applying those curiosities outside. We see benefits across the curriculum.”

As for Fosdeck’s own efforts, she has pitched her story from 2009 at a few writing conferences and is currently revising her newest offering, a young-adult novel. She worked on the latter at the Night of Writing Dangerously in San Francisco, a six-hour write-a-thon for NaNoWriMo participants.

“Every time the bell rang, it meant someone else had finished their book, and that gave me good motivation,” she said.

But even more satisfying is the gift Fosdeck has given her students.

“I’ve had kids who hate writing, and by the end of the year, they love to write,” she said. “That’s the best thing I can give to them.

“NaNo isn’t about spelling, and it’s not about grammar, and it’s not about having the perfect story. It’s about setting a goal and reaching a goal as a writer. It’s a great life lesson for them.”