In middle grades/YA novels it is common for the main characters to talk about school assignments. In Geek High by Piper Banks, Miranda is extremely talented in math, but she enjoys language arts more. She thinks the following when her crush who ended up dating her step-sister asked about the topic of her short story writing assignment, "This I didn't want to answer. Because my short story was about a girl whose boyfriend had been stolen away by her awful stepsister.And--other than the part where Emmett had never been my boyfriend, of course--I'd borrowed quite heavily from my own life to write it. At least, the emotions were all mine" (125). I will include this excerpt when we are doing our short fiction genre study and discussing how many authors draw on their real life experiences for ideas. In combination with author's notes at the end of fictional texts explaining connections to reality (such as Pam Muñoz Ryan's Esperanza Rising) we will look at this topic using different examples.
