Author Study: Jan Brett

Today, we are going to launch a project that will be produced for the February 17th, 2012 Reading Rally. This year's reading rally theme is Jan Brett's book, The Mitten. So to prepare ourselves for this enormous undertaking, we need to get to know the author. Click here, or the image below to visit her extensive website.



As a child, Jan Brett decided to be an illustrator and spent many hours reading and drawing. She says, "I remember the special quiet of rainy days when I felt that I could enter the pages of my beautiful picture books. Now I try to recreate that feeling of believing that the imaginary place I'm drawing really exists. The detail in my work helps to convince me, and I hope others as well, that such places might be real."

Today, I want you to imagine that you are one of the animals from the story, only you know something about the mitten that the Jan Brett didn't mention... when you wiggle your way inside the mitten, it transforms your world into anything you can imagine. For your descriptive writing essay, I would like you to think of MANY, VARIED, and UNUSUAL things that you might see. What does it smell like? How does it make you feel? Who's there? What are they doing?

Remember, your essay will be used as narration for what your character is doing during our performance. You must be EXTREMELY DESCRIPTIVE. When I read your work, I want to feel like I have been transported to your imaginary world. Be sure to use similes and appropriate adjectives to convey the image that you want your audience to visualize.

A sideline project we will be touching on today is one that will help us develop our public speaking skills. Each week, from now until our Reading Rally, we will record ourselves reading a poem. This week's pic was The Bear, The Fire, and The Snow by Shel Silverstein. Below, you can see a clip of Byron and David reading away. Check in to watch our progress!