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Gordon Korman Skype
Tuesday, May 15th Merton Intermediate’s 4th grade and 8th grade Language Arts/Literacy classes used Skype to meet Gordon Korman, author of 77 books. Series books that Korman wrote that are very popular with our Intermediate students include: 39 Clues , Swindle, Everest, Dive, Island, On the Run, and Titanic, as well as individual titles like Son of the Mob and No More Dead Dogs. Korman began the skype meeting answering questions the students prepared ahead of time. Sample questions ranged from “How do you plan out the plot of your stories?” to “If you could be better at one thing when it comes to writing, what would it be?” He explained the process that helps him to write is to map out the story ahead of time. Korman suggests knowing the beginning and end of a story. He makes up the middle as he goes. Korman says he gets his ideas and inspirations for writing by observations. He describes his writing style as similar to what standup comedians do. He says they always start off by saying “Did you ever notice that/when…” Korman commented he strives to be better at research giving the example of how he wrote the Titanic series. Since he could not base his trilogy on his life experience, he had to rely on attaining quality research.
Korman engaged the group by telling humorous stories as well as sharing about specific character developments in his books. He encouraged the students by suggesting they make writing a part of life by journaling in a diary or writers notebook. He advises to make it an everyday activity. “How else to you get good at something? Practice,” he said. Students got a chance to ask additional great questions where we learned of his upcoming book Ungifted that will be out in September. He spoke of his future book that will be the 5th in his Swindle series that plans to call Hide Out as well as a potential made for tv movie on Swindle.
The positive energy and enthusiasm that students displayed upon meeting Gordon Korman leaves no doubt that they benefited from this experience. Not only did they get a chance to research, create questions and interact with a popular author, they learned he wrote his first book when he was about their age and discovered inside secrets to writing.
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