Showing posts with label Alexander Graham Bell Answers the Call. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alexander Graham Bell Answers the Call. Show all posts

Friday, November 17, 2017

The Science of Writing and Illustrating a Biography for Children

Author and illustrator Mary Ann Fraser breaks down her scientific process for creating an educational biography for young readers. 

Recently I was asked to speak at a STEMposium about the creation of my latest book, Alexander Graham Bell Answers the Call. The book chronicles Alexander (Aleck) Bell’s childhood. I’m not an educator, but while preparing for my talk, I looked at the current science standards for elementary education and made a remarkable discovery — the process I use as an author and illustrator of children’s books is much like the method employed by scientists. Using Alexander Graham Bell Answers the Call as an example, the steps typically break down something like this:

1. First, much like a scientist, I posed a question. In the case of the Bell book, I asked, “How did Alexander Graham Bell grow up to become the inventor of the telephone?”