For Other Professionals
The Exquisite Prompt Challenge
Linda Sue Park
Prompts and resources:
Linda Sue Park, Korean American author of children's fiction, has been an avid reader and writer her entire life. In fact, she began poetry and story writing before kindergarten — at the age of four. Growing up outside of Chicago, one could often find this notorious bookworm grazing the pages of Nancy Drew, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and E. L. Konigsburg. At the age of nine, Park had her first publication — a haiku — in Trailblazer magazine. She received a one dollar check for her hard work, which she gave to her father for Christmas. To this day, the un-cashed check is still framed above his desk. Park's first published work:
In the green forest
A sparkling, bright blue pond hides.
And animals drink.
Park is particularly drawn to historical fiction. Seesaw Girl, Kite Fighters, A Single Shard (2002 Newbery Medal winner), Project Mulberry, Bee-Bim Bop, and Archer's Quest all delve into Korean culture and history — embroidery, kite fighting, celadon pottery, silkworms, and Korean food.
Prompt for grades K-2 (Level I)
In Park's picture book Bee-Bim Bop! we join a young Korean girl and her mom as they shop, chop, and prepare a delicious meal together. Everyone has a favorite family recipe, something wonderful that is cooked up for special friends or special occasions. What's yours? Does it have special meaning for your family? For this prompt, you'll need a kitchen partner — your mom, dad, grandparent, or older sibling — to help you cook this delicious dish. Write up the recipe, the directions, and one descriptive sentence about the experience of cooking and sharing the food with others. Include a drawing if you like.
Prompt for grades 3-5 (Level II)
Family is a recurrent theme in many of Park's stories. How much do you know about your own relatives and the interesting stories that are hidden in the family tree? In this challenge, you will choose an older family member to interview — aunt, uncle, grandparent, or great grandparent. If your relatives live far away, you can ask your questions by phone or e-mail, or interview someone in your neighborhood. Here are some things you might ask:
- Where did you live when you were little?
- What's your oldest memory?
- What was the wildest adventure you had as a child or young adult?
- Did you ever play any practical jokes on your siblings or friends?
- How did you meet Grandma/Grandpa?
- Describe a favorite family holiday or celebration
- Describe your most interesting job
- Did you ever have the chance to do something heroic?
- Tell the story of how you came to the U.S.
- Tell me what you remember from your childhood about a famous date in history
Be sure to take careful notes as you listen (if you have an audio recorder, you can tape the interview and listen back later). From your conversation, select one story or telling detail that really captured your imagination and write a vivid anecdote that reveals something unique and authentic about your relative. Include a photograph of your relative if you can.
Prompt for grades 6-8 (Level III)
Park's books are a window into her native Korean culture. Tap Dancing on the Roof is a lively introduction to sijo (pronounced see-zhoo), an ancient Korean verse form similar to haiku but with a different structure — and a distinctive witty twist at the end. For this challenge you will write your own sijo, about a very ordinary topic. In Tap Dancing, Parks breathes life into everyday subjects like breakfast, thunder and lightning, houseplants, pockets — even freshly laundered socks!
The structure for sijo is simple: three lines, 14-16 syllables in each line. What makes it complex and joyful: careful word choice, visual imagery, play on words, metaphor, and humor. Here's a sample:
Pockets
What's in your pockets right now? I hope they're not empty:
Empty pockets, unread books, lunches left on the bus — all a waste.
In mine: One horse chestnut. One gum wrapper. One dime. One hamster.
Two more:
Summer Storm
Lightning jerks the sky awake to take her photograph, flash!
Which draws grumbling complaints or even crashing tantrums from thunder —
He hates having his picture taken, so he always gets there late.
Shower
Hurry, wash fast, sister's used up most of the hot water again.
Soap, scrub, rinse. Rub and wrap. Hair shining, skin glowing, smelling fine:
From a tiled cocoon, a butterfly with terrycloth wings.
Prompt for grades 9-12 (Level IV)
Park is a gifted writer of historical fiction. She weaves together powerful storytelling with a deep interest in Korean history to create timeless stories like her Newbery winner A Single Shard (set in the 12th century), Kite Flyers (15th century), and Seesaw Girl (17th century). Historical fiction puts you the reader at the potter's wheel with the young apprentice, on the field at the king's kite-fighting competition, or inside the court walls of the royal palace. Good historical fiction is grounded in facts but not a slave to them — that's where the writer's imagination, sense of place, character development, and narrative arc come in to give the story life.
In this challenge, you will choose a time period, place, and character that interests you and do some background research to create a toolbox of facts and descriptive details. Drawing from your research, identify a primary character and what issue or conflict you want to explore in the story. You might want to use a story map graphic organizer to help you get organized before you write (see link to examples below).You'll write a short opening chapter that establishes the following:
- Primary character
- Time period
- Setting
- Foreshadowing of the storyline (what will happen to your protagonist)
Include dialogue if it helps to strengthen the characters and story
Resources
More about Linda Sue Park
More about informational text and writing recipes
- Informational Text and Young Children (National Geographic, Nell Duke)
- Ways to Teach About Informational Text (Barbara Marinak and Linda Gambrell)
- Get Cooking with Words (ReadWriteThink)
- Write a Recipe (ReadWriteThink)
- Let's Write a Recipe graphic organizer (ReadWriteThink)
- Spatulatta: Cooking 4 Kids Online
More about interviewing, family stories, and oral history
- The Interview (Scholastic)
- Collecting Family Stories (Story Arts)
- Top 10 Tips for Interviewing Family Members (My Heritage blog)
- What Is Your Story? (Scholastic)
- Exploring and Sharing Family Stories (ReadWriteThink)
- StoryCorps (NPR)
- The Veterans History Project (Library of Congress)
- Family Oral History
More about sijo
- Tap Dancing on the Roof: Sijo by Linda Sue Park
- Monday Poetry Stretch: Sijo (The Miss Rumphius Effect blog)
- Tanka and Sijo (The Haiku Cupboard)
- AHA Poetry: Sijo
More about historical fiction
- Unlocking the Past: Reading, Writing, and History (AdLit.org)
- Seven Rules for Writing Historical Fiction
- Writing Workshop: Realistic Fiction (The MiddleWeb)
- The Dilemmas of Historical Fiction (Amy Padgett, Fiction Writing and Other Oddities blog)
- Learn about writing historical fiction with author Laurie Halse Anderson (Watch "Hooking Young Readers" and "Historical Accuracy")
- Learn about writing historical fiction with author Deborah Hopkinson (Watch "It's All in the Details")
- Learn about writing historical fiction with author Rosemary Wells (Watch "Breathing Life Into History" and "Finding the Emotional Content")
- Story map strategy and graphic organizers (Reading Rockets)
- More story map graphic organizers (ReadWriteThink)
