Marshfield Dreams
by Ralph Fletcher
In Marshfield Dreams, Fletcher describes his early years growing up in a large family in Marshfield. This book a similar feel to Fletcher's Fig Pudding, but this book is a memoir and not a work of fiction.
If you working on personal narrative or memoir with your studtents this book is awesome. It is filled with stories that demonstrate the keys aspects of the idea trait: exploded moments, precise details, dialogue, and thought shots. It covers every other trait as well, but I'm currently focusing on ideas in my classroom, so that's what I noticed.
You could choose to read the entire book to your class or just pick and choose a few stories. The book does blend together as a whole, but the majority of the stories could stand alone also.
The Woods
by Paul Hoppe
In The Woods, a young boy sets out to find his lost stuffed rabbit before going to bed. On his quest, he imagines he is in the woods and encounters many scary monsters. To defeat the monsters, he does nice things, and by the end he has his stuffed rabbit and a few other stuffies to snuggle with.
I see using this book for copycat writing. Students could follow the organizational structure of searching for a lost item, running into obstacles, and overcoming them. The obstacles wouldn't need to be monsters, and the solutions wouldn't need to be solved with kindness. If you assign this copycat write, students could choose to follow the exact format or invent their own. It could be realistic or fantasy based. This book could be used a lot of ways.
Published: 2011
Fig Pudding
by Ralph Fletcher
In this work of fictional personal narratives, 11 year old Cliff covers all of the emotions from laughter, tears, shame, and joy. These stories can be used to teach the ideas trait in writing, especially for expanding details. Examples of exploded moments, precise details, dialogue, and thought shots are found throughout the book.
