Don't you hate it when you end up in the wrong room? I wanted to go to the "New York Showcase," which would look at social networking, blogs, wikis, and podcasting to support reading and writing, but I ended up in an authors' strand session featuring Holly Black and Linda Sue Park, writers of children's books. But sometimes a mistake proves to be serendipitous.

These two authors talked about their books, and they also talked about universal themes in stories. In fact, Park says there are two universal themes:

• hero goes on a journey
• stranger comes to town

In addition, stories follow a certain sequence of actions:

• At the beginning of every story, a change of state occurs: Something goes wrong.
• The resulting need or struggle propels the story
• The conclusion arises when there is another change of state, sometimes one of reaching one's goal, sometimes not.

Identifying these common themes and actions can help students identify them across stories and can help them in writing their own stories.

Next, for a practical classroom example of using these generic themes and actions, Holly led us in a re-making of Cinderella. That is, she asked the questions, and we provided the answers. It went something (I didn't follow all of it) like this:

Once upon a time, there were two struggling young authors who lived in New York City who had a young son named Harold.

One of the parents died and the other remarried to an evil stepfather with his own evil children.

The young lad dreamed of becoming a comic book writer.

Eventually a teacher (the fairy godmother) came to the lad's rescue, bringing his drawings to the attention of an editor (i.e., the prince).

However, the evil stepbrother took credit for his drawings.

So, the editor created a contest so that the one who could draw like the drawings he had seen was the true comic book writer and would receive a publishing contract.

Finally, the good son demonstrated his talent, got the contract, and lived happily ever after.

Again, Holly asked the questions, providing the necessary structure to lead us through our own creating of details and coming to a better understanding of the Cinderella genre.

One other interesting genre described was sijo Korean poetry. In one way it's like haiku: It has three lines, each with a limited range of syllables. (Due to the long length across the page, the three lines can be split into six lines, with the same number of syllables for each two lines.) But it's also different. First the number of syllables ranges from 14-16, much longer than a haiku line. The second is that it is more formulaic. The first line is an introduction; the second gives more details, and the third line provides an unexpected twist. Here's an example:

BREAKFAST

For this meal, people like what they like, the same every morning.
Toast and coffee. Bagel and juice. Cornflakes and milk in a white bowl.

Or--warm, soft, and delicious--a few extra minutes in bed.

Writing poetry with a twist at the end should be interesting to children, and it may be useful for older students in getting them to use their imagination to think out of the box by coming up with a twist at the end.