Great Books for Generating Ideas (Prewriting)

I use several months in the beginning of the year to teach prewriting (pretty exclusively). From August to, ideally, the end of November, my students work on generating ideas and prewriting. My students compile a list of stories that they might write about. From that list, they decide which ideas they will actually form into a piece of writing.

As for generating ideas, I use a few books that really spark ideas. I'll continue this list throughout the next few months.

Getting Ideas:
- Gooney Bird Greene (Lois Lowry)

• Gooney Bird tells stories about her life. These stories typically spark an idea in students for a personal narrative of their own.
  

- Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge (Mem Fox)

• Wilfrid is a boy trying to understand what a memory is. I have my students compile a list of memories using the definitions of what a memory is from the book (something warm, something from long ago, something as precious as gold, something funny, something sad).