The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

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Model for your students either on the overhead or on chart paper how you might go about beginning a list of story ideas. “I might ask myself, ‘What ideas have been bouncing around in my head lately that I haven’t had a chance to write?'” you may say — thinking aloud so your students can observe the process you are going through. Write a couple of ideas, modeling how you don’t necessarily need to write complete sentences when you are making notes to yourself. “A boy finds magic shoes in his grandmother’s attic — they make it so he can jump over trees.” “A little girl’s collection of plastic farm animals comes to life after midnight.” Use your own story-starter ideas to inspire your students to think creatively when recording their own ideas. Enticed to come up with their own endings, readers will marvel at the mystery behind these lasting drawings and the charm of an everchanging narrative. Chris Van Allsburg often writes stories in which unusual things happen in very normal-seeming situations—like the ocean liner pushing through the Venice canal. Can you think of other books, either by Van Allsburg or by other authors, in which unusual things happen in everyday places? My niece is pretty gifted at story telling and she came up with two interesting stories. She liked the one with the Nun floating up in the air on a chair and the bird on the wallpaper that is coming to life. I must say that Under the Rug is the one that unnerves me the most. What is under the rug??? We will never know, hahaha).

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick – HarperCollins

I thought that some of the authors did a better job at writing stories that really fit the pictures, whereas a few of them used the caption as more of a jumping off point, with the drawing serving more as initial inspiration than actual illustration of something that happens in the tale. All of them, though, had to include the excerpt somewhere in the story exactly as originally written. It was fun to see how they would incorporate it, wondering where in the story it might show up. Okay, so anyone who knows Van Allsburg's art will not be fooled by this entertaining, but clearly fictitious introduction. Nevertheless, the rest of the book is simply one illustration, a title and a caption. The rest is up to you and your own wild imagination. Every picture is full of so much pent-up story, my brain just can't help but fill in the gaps.But what can a picture of a nun quietly sitting in a chair floating in a cathedral have to do with a caption that says, "THE SEVEN CHAIRS: The fifth one ended up in France?" Sometimes dreams contain excellent story ideas. Invite your students to record ideas in their notebooks that come to them in dreams.

Illustrations from mysteries of harris burdick | PPT - SlideShare Illustrations from mysteries of harris burdick | PPT - SlideShare

Try the same process using an idea that comes from an experience your class shared together (in real life). Katie McDonnell is an educator of fourteen years who enjoys finding new ways to teach outside the classroom walls. She graduated from Westfield State University with a Bachelor of Science in Education specializing in Elementary Education and Liberal Arts. Mrs. McDonnell taught for 14 years in Florida in grades second through sixth in all subject areas and one year as the Media Specialist. She has a professional teaching license from the state of Florida with certification in ESOL K-12, Elementary Education 1-6, Middle Grades Integrated Curriculum 5-9, and Educational Media Specialist K-12.

The award-winning author of Jumanji and The Polar Express, Chris Van Allsburg, challenges young readers to use their creativity and imagination in this one-of-a-kind book that asks readers to finish the story. Give different pairs/groups an illustration or caption from the book (or both) and ask them to collectively write a story. Not all the stories are scary, but many of them have at least some creepiness to them, which certainly fits the tone of the drawings and the overall mystery. It made for pretty good Halloween reading, sort of like reading a collection of Ray Bradbury's stories. If you've got younger kids, you may want to preview the book before giving it to them — as with Bradbury's books, a few of these may send a few shivers down your spine, and would be liable to keep my seven-year-old up at night.