Word After Word After Word

As teachers, we want our students to be good writers. We want them to believe in themselves as writers. We want them to love writing and write so they change their lives. So, this is the book we need to read to them,  Word After Word After Word by Patricia MacLauchlan.

This "...inspiring story is about what is real and what is unreal, and about the ways that writing can change our lives and connect us to our own stories..."  Four fourth grade students feel that every day at school is always the same.  Then Ms.Mirabel came to their classroom.  The way she sees things and the magical words that she brings to the classroom change their way of thinking about writing.

Here are a few quotes from the book:
"Hen carried a notebook with him at all times, sometimes stopping in the middle of soccer practice to pull it out and write something."

"Why do you write?" he asked.
Ms. Mirabel sighed. There was a sudden hush in the room as if Ms. Mirabel was about to say something very important. As it turned out, she was.
"I, myself, write to change my life, to make it come out the way I want it to go," she said. "But other people write for other reasons: to see more closely what it is they are thinking about, what they may be afraid of. Sometimes writers write to solve a problem, to answer their own question. All these reasons are good reasons. And that is the most important thing I'll ever tell you. Maybe it is the most important thing you'll ever hear. Ever."

"You have a story in there, Lucy," she said, touching my head. "Or a character, a place, a poem, a moment in time. When you find it, you will write it. Word after word after word after word," she whispered.

Happy Reading!