Seventh and eighth graders at Oxford Middle School were treated to a day of presentations on March 10 by Nan Willard Cappo, children’s author of Cheating Lessons.
“This is the first guest author we’ve had here in about six years,” said Media Specialist Marianne Barran, “at least since we moved into this building.”
Cappo, of Farmington, released Cheating Lessons in 2002, and has received multiple reviews. She holds a bachelors of arts from the University of Notre Dame and a masters in creative writing from Wayne State. She currently works as an adjunct writing teacher.
Cappo has won several awards and honors during her career. She was chair for the Detroit Women Writers – Oakland University Conference in 2002 and creative writer in schools for the Michigan Council for the Arts in 2002. She was the winner of the Judy Blume Novel-in-Progress Grant SCBWI and the winner of the Best Short Story for Young Adults in the Michigan Library Association state contest.
At Oxford Middle School, Cappo gave large assembly presentations and one personalized session to a group of about 30 hand-selected students.
“The students participating in the smaller session were chosen because of their love of writing and potential in the field,” explained Barran.
Cappo’s presentation is entitled “Swine Before Pearls: The Power of Revision.” During her work session, the children’s author used overhead foils and examples from classic and contemporary young adult fiction to instruct students on the art of revision. Cappo believes that “e-mails, term papers, complaint letters, best-sellers – all of them read better on the second (and third) draft.”
The small group session focused upon techniques that work in any genre: Characters Are What They Do, Why Specific is More Memorable, Writing While Driving and many more. After reviewing these writing techniques with the students, Cappo assisted them in creating the first few opening lines of a fictional piece.
Cappo welcomed questions during both the assembly presentations and the small group workshop.
“I’ve been hearing nothing but favorable reports from the teachers and students,” said Barran. “I think we’ll definitely be doing this again.”