Bird by Bird

[Laurel Topken]

Lamott, Anne.  (1995).  Bird by bird: Some instructions on writing and life.  United States of 

     America: Anchor Books.

 

Anne Lamott is a writing professor and her book, Bird by Bird, is set up as she would teach a class. There are fifteen chapters each one being a lesson for each week.  Lamott is personable as a writer bringing her readers in with wit and wisdom.  She imparts truths and lessons she had experienced throughout her writing life that developed the type of writer and teacher she has become.  It is easy to see how her classes would be just by reading her book.

Lamott begins her book with a bit of background information to let the reader or students know where she comes from and how her writing life developed.  She imparts on her students the importance of reading and writing in life.  The following chapters discuss things such as putting something on paper so that there is something to work with, publication, and the concerns with libel when writing about your past.  She has clever ways to jumpstart writing and strongly pushes for writing everyday to get the brain in the habit of writing. 

Because her class is on the fiction workshop, Lamott spends time discussing the finer points of a piece of writing with chapters specifically on characters, plot, dialogue, and set design.  These were the most insightful portions of the book for me.  For one, I found it fascinating that she talked about character development as the process of letting the characters show the writer who they are.  This is by writing descriptions, actions, and dialogue as it comes as creating different and independent characters.  This is something that I have actually done on several occasions.  My characters never seem to stick to the role I dreamed up for them before writing, they develop on their own it seems. 

In her plot chapter, she discusses the importance of letting the character develop the plot and not the other way around.  People are going to do what they will do; they don’t normally look at what their high point is going to be and then work towards that.  Instead, they go about their business and things happen that change their trajectory.  We need to see this in the writing.  This also helps to keep the characters from being flat. 

 

 My questions for the rest of the group are:

1)      Can we use Lamott’s discussion of fictional craft in a nonfiction class?  In other words, could I use the discussion on character in my essay class to bring about a more rounded essay that discusses people (profiles)?  Would a discussion on dialogue help in research writing?  These seem like farfetched ideas but are they viable?

2)      Lamott spends a lot of time telling her students to be truthful in their writing as it will be more engaging and clearer than not, but then in the final chapter she discusses exaggeration.  The exaggeration is to disguise a person so as to not be sued for libel.  What does this idea of exaggeration do to truthfulness?  Is there a true importance to truthful writing in fiction?  If the writing is creative-nonfiction where is the limit to exaggeration?

Sorry about the extended questions to these two ideas.  They are things I have been contemplating even before reading this book.

[Gia Maraccini]

Hey Laurel!

 

1.  I think that craft is a big part of both fiction and expository writing.  Maybe you could do a lesson where you examine the different types of non-fiction writing that you like.  Students could even bring in their favorite examples and have a class discussion on what types of craft make those pieces of writing so engaging.  Then you could use what you gathered from the discussion, along with what you have learned in this book, to help guide students into more effective essays and research writing.

 

2.  I think that all great novels have an author behind it that has exaggerated the truth.  It is what keeps the reader turning the pages.  As a writer, you walk a tight rope between telling the truth and exaggerating.  Learning that balance is an important skill and something that should be discussed with students as they are developing their plots and characters.  You really have me thinking about this.  I am going to add this fact/ficiton discussion to my shared reading discussions so we can start to think about how authors use  a bit of exaggeration to keep their stories moving along and then work on applying that to our own writing.  Thanks!

 

Gia

[Leigh A. Rasmussen]

Hello Laurel,

 

Lamott sounds like an excellent instructor. She uses fiction to hook her students. As a science teacher one of the objectives I taught was observation, fact verses opinion, your question reminds me of this lesson but backwards! I do think you can use fictional in a nonfictional class. An easy lesson would be to use fictional to help define what nonfictional is, use compare and contrast. You could even use a fictional character description as a kind of interview. Students could write a nonfiction paper about a fictional character! Could be interesting, you could develop the idea I am sure.

Exaggeration sometimes is what hooks a reader and can also be determined by the reader. I think exaggeration would be very interesting for students to explore, discuss and research to find the worth of in writing. Just have them look and listen to political campaigns! They are based on truth and can be very confusing, just watch television right now or read the paper, so confusing. This I think is a real great area for your students to explore.  See you soon.

[Megan Garijo Pruitt]

Hi Laurel!

 

I am very interested in reading this book and using it as a mentor read-aloud for students.  For what grade levels would it be appropriate??  (I know older grades, but what ones specifically do you think?)  I like the idea of learning a lesson in every chapter.  Is it a lesson on being a writer or more of a life lesson?  This book also sounds like it would be great to use as a mentor text in idea development.  As far as using it to teach nonfiction, I have not read it so may be mispeaking, but it seems like it would be better to use a nonfiction mentor text to teach nonfiction, even if it is adding dialogue to nonfiction writing.  This book definitely sounds good for using as a mentor text to develop characters - an important skill as a writer!

 

Thanks for the info on this book, Laurel!  I will definitely add it to my list of mentor texts and check it out.

Megan

[Laurel Topken]

Megan,

This book would be a good mentor text for a nonfiction, personal writing type of class.  I would say that the book would be great for high school, but it has bad language throughout.  I use "Shitty first drafts," a chapter in this book, on the first day of class for my college students.  However, I find that I am usually apologizing for the language even though she uses "shit" probably about six times and gets no worse.  I know the younger college students love it because it allows them to see that they can write with some bad language but I know that there are issues in public schools.  It could be a text for you to read and design your own lesson.

 

Hope this helps.

Laurel

 

Megan Garijo Pruitt said:

Hi Laurel!

 

I am very interested in reading this book and using it as a mentor read-aloud for students.  For what grade levels would it be appropriate??  (I know older grades, but what ones specifically do you think?)  I like the idea of learning a lesson in every chapter.  Is it a lesson on being a writer or more of a life lesson?  This book also sounds like it would be great to use as a mentor text in idea development.  As far as using it to teach nonfiction, I have not read it so may be mispeaking, but it seems like it would be better to use a nonfiction mentor text to teach nonfiction, even if it is adding dialogue to nonfiction writing.  This book definitely sounds good for using as a mentor text to develop characters - an important skill as a writer!

 

Thanks for the info on this book, Laurel!  I will definitely add it to my list of mentor texts and check it out.

Megan