Written and Illustrated By?.. By David Melton

Jeanne Miller

I recently completed reading Written and Illustrated By?.... The beginning of this book presents the theory of academic and creative hemispheres of the brain. Melton considers this theory when presenting lessons and activities.

The book is a series of writing insights and specific writing sessions to engage writers. As an elementary teacher I found many of his ideas would work well with the fourth grade students I teach. Melton's beginning session involves establishing a classroom publishing "company" of which the teacher is the CEO. Writers then sign a contract where they agree to write and illustrate a book. Subsequent sessions involve establishing editing/response groups.

I appreciated the framework Melton establishes in Written and Illustrated By?, but I felt there were many holes in the sessions. Many of the sessions would work well after you have done several months of writing with your students (remember, I am looking at these through the eyes of a fourth grade teacher). He recommends jumping right in with the writing and illustrating task and I would need to do lots of other writing before proceeding with this. I would not use his session involving editing and revision because he states this should be learned quickly and the presentation should only take a few minutes. I have found editing and especially revision takes lots of modeling and practice.

Overall, this book is presented by a motivated instructor and I enjoyed his enthusiasm. Like many instructional texts I take what I think will be useful, try it out and add or alter where needed. This book offers an interesting model for proficient writers and I will remember this quote, "The best ideas come from the work, not from out heads."