Mud River

by Judy Light Ayyildiz, Rebekah Woodie, Desiree Shaffer (Illustrator)

This Middle School cross-curriculum Writing Workbook has been designed to help teachers, substitute teachers, home school parents who want a fun and simple way to challenge students and to strengthen students' critical thinking skills . Students are challenged to write stories and poems, design projects, work math problems, conduct surveys, do research, and more. The lessons presented can be completed by students in a relatively short period of time with materials that are readily available. Each two or three-page lesson also includes suggestions for extensions that may be completed over a longer time period. The activities focus on a diversity of topics such as using figures of speech, imagery, and alliteration; budgeting time and money; solving and creating secret codes; the environment; food chains; genealogy; probability; interpersonal relationships. The format of each lesson enables the teacher to easily see the content and activities involved. Each lesson features a teacher page and one or two reproducible student activity pages. The teacher pages include the purpose and focus of the lesson, suggestions for ease in implementing the lesson, and extensions that increase the students' understanding of the lesson or provide opportunities for students to apply what they have learned. The student activity pages contain interesting and relevant activities that require students to work in different situations and in different ways. Depending on the activity, students work individually, in pairs, or in small groups. The skills emphasized in this writing workbook include problem solving, visualizing, defining, synthesizing, listing, recalling, examining, planning, formulating, and applying.

94 pages, Perfect Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Judy Light Ayyildiz, a graduate of the Hollins University Creative Writing Program, has taught creative writing to all education levels. As a graduate of the Marshall University Teachers College with a major in voice, she spent many years in classrooms and on stage as performer, director, and conductor. She has been an instructor and presenter at literary workshops, international conferences on poetry, writing, and women’s studies. Internationally published and translated, she was an editor of Artemis, Artists and Writers from the Blue Ridge for 13 years, a Blue Ridge Writers Conference founder, President of the Medical Auxiliary and founder/director of the acclaimed RAMA Chorus. Author of 11 books in 5 genres include Forty Thorns a novel (translated into Turkish), poetry Mud River, and memoir Nothing but Time, A Triumph over Trauma.New York Quarterly, Mickle Street Review, the new renaissance, Sow’s Ear, Pig Iron Press, Hawaii Pacific Review, Black Water Review, Northeast Journal, Kalliope, The McGuffin, the Nazim Hikmet Festival Chapbook. Judy was featured in professional biographies in Women in Dialogue, an international anthology, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and in Kirklareli’ni Gecmisten Gelecege Tasiyanlar (Outstanding Persons Who Have Come and Gone in Kirklareli,Turkey) by historian Nazif Karacam, and story translated into Italian in the anthology, International Women Writing Today, Rubbettino Editore, 2007. Honors include YWCA Women of Achievement in Education, Virginia Commission of the Arts grants, various poetry short story prizes, Daughters of Ataturk award, Turkish Forum award, College Bookstores Best Book nominee, Gusto Poet Discovery Winner, VCCA Fellow, and JPX International Literary Novel 1st Place. A volume of poetry Intervals, Appalachia to Istanbul is forthcoming spring 2015. Judy has been married for over 50 years to a surgeon. She and her husband, Vedii, have three talented and creative children and two extraordinary grandchildren. Judy is currently completing a memoir titled, The West Virginia Diet.

Reviews

[Zuska · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this collection; some of the poems were outstanding, many were good, a handful were so-s0, but all in all it was definitely worth it. Found a first edition copy in Book No Further in Roanoke, VA, which is a sweet little bookstore with a helpful staff member who enjoys chatting about books. As a result I walked out with an armful. Oh no! not more books! Yes! More books! Always!