On Thursday, November 5th, author Mr. Ralph Fletcher joined the fourth graders at N.M.E.S. Because we read his memoir, Marshfield Dreams, the students knew a lot about Mr. Fletcher’s life and were very excited to meet him in person. Several students created posters and were able to greet him as soon as he arrived.
During the presentation, Mr. Fletcher shared several poems with us, and he also told us about some of his other books. He shared some personal stories with us, and he told us that many of these stories inspire him when writing. Fig Pudding, which he categorized as autobiographic fiction, is somewhat based on his life but also somewhat made up. We learned quite a funny story about his sister that inspired him to write the chapter, “The Headless Chicks.”
Mr. Ralph Fletcher shared his writer’s notebook with us, and he showed us a rough draft of Hello, Harvest Moon. We were able to see the changes the illustrator made before the book was published.
Several of us found his three tips at the end of the presentation to be memorable. His three pieces of advice were:
1. Get a writer’s notebook and write something every day. To be good at anything, we have to do it often.
2. Read. Good writers are good readers, and the more you read, the better your writing will get.
3. Don’t forget to be a kid.
Below are some of our reactions to our assembly with Mr. Ralph Fletcher:
- “It was funny how he was talking about his family.”
- “I am now inspired to write a story.”
- “I was surprised that he remembered all that stuff that happened awhile ago.”
- “I thought Ralph Fletcher’s presentation was pretty interesting because I got to hear stuff about him that I never knew before.”
- “I think his advice will help us to become better writers.”
If you’d like to learn more about Ralph Fletcher, his website is: http://ralphfletcher.com/
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