Susan Rowan Masters

Writer – Elementary, Middle and High School

Notebooks, Journals and Memories
The students will explore journal keeping – what it is and what it isn’t. Hands on exercises will help students mine their  memories and enhance  observation and description skills.
NYS Learning Standards: ELA 1-4, ARTS 1-4

The Elements of Fiction
Susan will guide students through each step of the creative writing process to develop a piece of short fiction. She will read a selection of her published work to the students, encouraging the class to examine the development of an idea/character into a manuscript. Students will then define their own story ideas and develop them while exploring various technical aspects of short story writing.
NYS Learning Standards:  ELA 1-4, ARTS 1-4

Haiku and the Curriculum
Nothing matches the joy of creation more than when an idea takes shape on paper.  Students will explore haiku, how it has been used in the past and today, preview examples of other works and compose their own haiku integrating it with the curriculum ( i.e., writing haiku poems on  England’s Stonehenge.)   For the culminating event students will read from a selection of their poetry at a public reading.
NYS Learning Standards: ELA 1-4, ARTS 1-4

Creating the Tiny Book – “A book is like a garden carried in the pocket” — Chinese proverb
Students will write and illustrate a “tiny book” (e.g. Happiness Is,  The Tiny Book of Dreams, Big Wishes for a Tiny Book, etc.). For the  culminating event students will share their books with another classroom or at a public reading.
NYS Learning Standards:  ELA 1-4, ARTS 1-4

The Artist:
Author of four novels for young readers.   Nominated for a variety of awards, including a 2010 Individual Artist Grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. Attended the SUNY Fredonia, and Vassar College Institute of Publishing and Writing.