Author uses humor, fun to teach kids to write
Jeff Mohrman
[reprinted with permission from the Chronicle-Telegram, Saturday, November 22, 1997]
EATON TWP.
When students crowd around a piece of paper, Brian Cleary loves it.
When they talk about what they're going to put on it, he's ecstatic.
Cleary, of Lakewood, a children's book author, spent Wednesday teaching students at Brush Elementary School how to "play" with the English language.
Going from classroom to classroom, he was giving groups of students several activities designed to get them to use their imaginations. For instance, he created the first two lines of a poem and asked some students to come up with the next two lines.
"I think it gives the people who think they are nonwriters a chance to participate," he said. "I have them starting off with a blank piece of paper, like I do."
Seconds after getting the assignments, the students talked over what they would write, then wrote their ideas down. Many of them came up with many ideas and read them aloud to their classes.
Last year, Cleary won a "Children's Choice Award," for his books from a joint committee of the Children's Book Council and the International Reading Association.
Cleary, also a greeting card editor for American Greettugs Corp. in Cleveland, used humor to help write seven books, which include "Janlaica Sandwich," a geography- book that features maps on countries he's talktag about.
"I use humor as a teaching tool," he said.
Trish Rasor, a teacher at Brush, said she found out about Cleary's work while she was attending a workshop last summer. The book "Jamaica Sandwich" caught her eye.
"I was just so taken by the colors and cover," she said. "I didn't even realize it was a social studies book" until she started reading it.
"I thought it was a great way to start the year," she said.
School officials got some of his books for the school's library. Students also have ordered at least 60 copies of his books for themselves.
"They are really excited" about having him at the school, Rasor said.