A Children's Story: The Investigation, Writing And Review

Abstract

Creativity. The world of literature, especially children's literature, thrives on it. The foundation of any literary work, however, lies not in the author's creative talents but in his ability to seek out a topic. The creative process is not complete when the pen is put aside. The true artist offers the work up to a scrutinizing panel of some sort. Only then has the creative process gone full cycle. The scope of this thesis includes the initiation and completion of the three stages involved in writing and illustrating a children's story. The first stage, investigation, determined suitable reading material for children reading at the fourth grade level. Methods employed to obtain this data from a group of eleven fourth grade students were: (1) a written questionnaire and (2) the "brainstorming" technique. The actual writing and illustrating of a children's story comprised the second stage of this thesis. The content of the story was dictated by the results compiled from the investigation stage. The final stage of this thesis consisted of reviewing the story and illustrations with two groups of fourth grade students Their feedback enabled me to determine the areas in which I had succeeded or failed in making reading an enriching experience for the fourth grade level reader. This minor work has inspired me to pursue children's literature on a larger scale.