This document is an e-portfolio by Kristie Sheridan for a class on writing for children. It includes samples of her original poems and short stories for children, as well as feedback from peers on her work. It also provides biographical information about the author and reviews of her writing. The portfolio is divided into three parts: written works, feedback and reflections, and an appendix with additional author details.

1. Writing For Children:
E-Portfolio
Written and Designed by:
Kristie Sheridan

2. Writing For Children E-Portfolio ©2011. All poems and stories
contained within are original works of Kristie Sheridan. All rights are
reserved. No part may be copied without express permission of the
author.
All images used for educational purpose of this class and rights
remain reserved to the companies who have produced them.
Sun Picture courtesy of Free ClipArt Pictures .net.
Waterfall and Phone Pictures courtesy of ClipArt Of.com.
765 Fox Avenue, Glendale Heights, IL 60139
Made in the USA. Published by Penn State University

3. In dedication to all my friends and family who
help me find happy moments every day to
Celebrate. Through the good and the bad, we
will always find an answer together.

4. Table of Contents
Part One: Written Works
Children’s Poems
Oh, Sunlit Day
Credo
The Waterfall
Poetry
Short Stories
The Laughter in Your Voice
Part Two: Feedback
Peer Critiques Given to Me
Peer Critiques given to Peers
Philosophy of Children’s Literature (Revised)

5. Part Three: Appendix
Author’s Note
Biography
Blurbs

6. Part One: Children’s Poems and Stories
Oh, Sunlit Day
Oh sunlit day
that wakes my mind
go away and give me time
to cuddle in my cozy sheets
and burrow in my comforter
back to deep and peaceful sleep
full of dreams of toys and play
Oh sunlit day
so bright, so curt
just go away until dessert!
Credo
I, have a chance.
I, have a choice.
I, have the ability...
To dream.

7. Metaphor Poems:
The Waterfall
Watch the flowing water,
Rushing round the rigid rocks
Jumping up and splashing down
Faster to the end of space
Never stopping, only falling
Pooling at the base.
Watch the flowing water,
A silent pass and sway
Wrinkling plots of sand
Till it drifts away
Poetry
A short song.
Playful.
Upbeat. Sweet smooth sounds.
A step and a hop.
Hear its tune,
Feel its words,
creating a picture
inside you.

8. Short Stories:
The Laughter in Your Voice
As I hear the ringtone I wait. Part of me wonders if you'll
have the time to talk. I hear the Brrrrrrrr.....Brrrrrrrrr....
Brrrrrrrrr....... I ponder, "Will you pick up?" "Will I get your
voicemail?" "I hope I'm not bothering you." I wait, listen-
ing to the hum of the ring, hoping, but not daring to hope at
the same time that you’re available. And then, suddenly,
click! "Hello there."
I can hear the smile behind the phone as you ask how my
day has been. Playful, with a hint of tease to your words, I
can't help but smile hearing your tone. You know how my
day has been going. It's only been a few hours since we last
talked. He starts the conversation with a question, "Where
will you be when I come pick you up this weekend?" He
tells me about his new job, and I try to remember every-
thing that he's saying even though I have been working on
creating a website for my 11th Grade design class for four
and half hours. My head hurts, my body aches in my wrists
and my neck, but my heart feels light as a feather. He talks
to me so easily, "Ok, you need to stop right now. You're
gorgeous and you already know how to bake, and you're
telling me you're teaching yourself how to make chocolate
from scratch? I'll have no prayer. I will end up taking you."
A thought my mother would be scared to death of, but one
that makes me curl my toes in anticipation. Again, he
teases, and it makes me feel like I could fly. My smile
broadens to the edges of my face. My heart starts beating
faster. I can feel my body aching in a sensational way to be
touched. The more we talk, the more I want to talk, telling
him everything I care about and everything that makes me

9. Me. He kids around about how wonderful I
am and how tempting it is to show me how
exhilarated I have made him. But instead,
he tells me that the more he talks to me the
more he repeats to himself, "She's in love
with my best friend. She's in love with my
best friend," attempting to calm the tempta-
tion. His best friend of childhood, Joe, hap-
pens to be the person I have been best
friends with for the past 7 years, not to
mention on-again/off-again boyfriend and
girlfriend since high school started. Joe
doesn’t like that we talk.
The call gets dropped. I call him back. "Do
you know how tempting it is to just bend
you over and grab your hair and give you
something to smile about?" he says. His
tone starts to send a shiver down my spine.
I start to imagine him touching me and how
good it would feel to be craved again. I
want it so badly I could grab him through
the phone. And then, the thought goes
through my head as I tease back, "I can just
imagine how Joe would squirm if he knew
how easily we could embrace each other."
And it dawns on me why that embrace will
never happen.

10. Part Two: Feedback and Reflection
Peer-to-Me Comments:
Post 3.7– Cheyenna Eversoll Duggan:
“This poem describes poems as short songs that paint pic-
tures and provide happiness. I think it is beautiful in its' flow
and strong in how concise it is. I think it could be reworked
to get rid of some cliche's like "silver lining" and I also think
you could replace "creating" with a more specific verb for a
picture. I am confused by the description of a poem as "short,
upbeat and playful" as not all are, but I think this could be
fixed by choosing a more specific title. Overall, it is very
sweet! “
Although a silver lining never seems cliché to me since there
are so many situations that can been seen as both positive
and negative, I can understand that when you write some-
thing you want it to feel brand new yet still connect to the
reader. Because of this, I changed silver lining to something
contrasting the even flow of the smooth and sweet so that it
showed another aspect of how poems can be. The reason I
chose to portray a poem as a positive song is because, even
the most deep of poems that may seem dark or even negative,
can bring out positive affirmation. To me, any kind of poem
is a play on sounds telling a story, like music, toying with
your emotions to help bring you to a new understanding.
And, anything that helps us learn more about ourselves or
life is a positive process. This aspect came out a lot in my
writing this semester.

11. Post 11.2– Linda Neville
“Kristie,
I like the alliteration in the second line of your poem. "
Rushing round the rigid rocks."
If you replace "it" with they it is better agreement if "it" re-
fers to the plots of sand.
Your poem brings a pleasant image with the use of personi-
fication. The water is rushing, jumping up and wrinkling all
suggests human qualities.
Really like this poem.
Linda”
This was a poem that I had rewritten several times. Linda’s
comments may not have been something I specifically used
for the final product, but they were comments that helped
me to trust my use of descriptors to bring about images for
my audience. It can be hard to tell if something brings out a
picture for someone else the way it does for me, and she
was able to give details of how I met my goal. This was
very helpful.

12. Part Two: Feedback and Reflection
Me-to-Peer Comments:
Post 1.6 to Cheyenna Eversoll Duggan:
Cheyenna wrote- Honestly, as cliché as it is, the biggest
obstacle that affects my stories is time. My 15 month old
daughter keeps me darting back and forth, finding sippy cups,
finding binkies, finding new ways to induce napping and I
rarely am able to shower solo let alone write and write long
enough for the ideas to find their way into my mind already
bursting like a piece of luggage that no matter how long you
sit on it, your undies and sleeves of shirts still spill out the
sides. A lot of times after I have finished my school work it is a
battle between write, sleep, write, sleep. Usually, sleep wins by
a landslide. Sometimes I get a few silent moments while my
little girl is jamming away to “The Wiggles.” Love it—the few
moments and the jamming away. I should really be more pro-
active with these moments instead of laying on the floor with
my feet up on the wall and my pupils dialated as I zone out.
I guess I have stories I would like to tell, but won’t allow
myself. I would like to tell a story about a little girl who spends
most of her time in the closet, behind her clothes, sitting on a
bucket of stuffed animals and daydreaming. That’s about as far
as I have gotten with it. I have the image, but where she is
going with this act and how it affects her everyday life, not
sure yet. I will have to ask her more about her life later, when
writing finally wins over sleep.
I responded: “Write down little ideas about the girl. Why does
she hide? What gets in her way when she wants to day dream?
Think about small questions at a time. It might take longer to
make a story, but small parts add up to big ideas.”

13. To me, time cane be a horrible thing to fight when wanting to
write. Most of my best work seems to come to me when I can’t
sleep at five in the morning. I will have a complete children’s
books pop out of my head, rhyme and all and my response from
people is phenomenal. I think the worst thing we can do when we
have an idea for a story we’ve gotten some inspiration for is to
give up just because it’s hard to get started. I wanted to assure
Cheyenna that every lit bit counts. She later was able to write out
a good start to her story so I feel like my words helped.
Post 3.7 to Christine Herbert:
Christine wrote:
“A poem is....
A short rope.
Entwined with meaning,
Filled with fibers,
A beginning and an end,
Attached to being.”
I responded: “I like it. It might flow a little better if the
period after rope is a comma. It seemed to create a deep stop.
I don't know if you did that to create a feeling of how short it
could be, but if it is attached to being you may want it to
have a little bit more of a lasting feeling to it.”
Sometimes the slightest change to a poem can make it flow
better. I try hard to pay attention to my punctuation so it adds
meaning to a poem. Paying attention to this factor in the
work of others helped me pay more attention to it in my own
work. Overall, reading the work of my classmates made me
inspired and sometimes left me in awe. They have some real
talent.

14. Philosophy of Children’s Literature-
When I started out the semester, I had a love for reading
and writing and language in general. I had very specific
reasons for loving Children’s Literature. However, through-
out the semester I have found myself broadening my under-
standing of Children’s Literature and its uses. Previously, I
had mentioned that writing something down on a piece of
paper gave me the chance to write and rewrite until I got to
say exactly what I wanted to say in the way I wanted to say
it. This is a blessing sometimes because there are a lot of
situations in life that you don’t get to handle in the way you
first wish to. But that is the special thing about books for
kids. We will all make mistakes in life, some of which we
will live to regret, but books give us a chance to experience
things as children in a way where we can get to know our-
selves without making the kind of mistakes you can’t take
back.
My philosophy of Children’s Literature still includes the
fact that books are a very special way of connecting to peo-
ple, but initially, I only thought of those stories that were
completely positive in nature. By positive, I mean stories
that included happy endings, or happy events in general.
However, my perspective has changed. A child can connect
to any story that breathes truth into their lives. It doesn’t
have to be about something happy-go-lucky to be fit for
children. It just needs to speak of something a child can
wonder about or have trouble getting through in order to be
meaningful. Children’s Literature is literally a window to
the soul and I feel blessed to be part of it in any way I can.

15. Part Three: More About the Author
Author’s Note
Most of the time, my writing is inspired by children. For
this collection, I found myself considering some of the
more challenging parts of childhood. My poems center
around problems like getting out of bed, understanding
the ability to grow, and how fleeting childhood can be.
My short story is a reflection on what it is like to have a
first love at a young age. There are many hiccups in life
as we grow up, and so I find that, although my favorite
parts of childhood are the giggles and smiles, there are a
lot of hard parts too that deserve to be described in a
way a child might be able to connect to.
Biography
Kristie Sheridan was born in Glendale Heights, Illinois
in 1981. She lived there for most of her life where she
was the middle child of three. Although she was blessed
with many talents, she found that she loved playing with
language at a young age. As she grew, she found a love
for teaching children as well. As an adult, she combined
her two biggest passions to create literature for children.
After teaching at risk children in Chicago for the first
four years of her career, she grew to have a soft spot for
children that felt misunderstood and needed a reason to
dream. It is because of this that she continues to write
stories and poems that connect to the feelings children
often feel like they need to hide. With her work, she
strives to show all children that they deserve to have a
voice.

16. Reviews
“I really like Oh, Sunlit Day. I think it describes all of us. So
cute!”
~Janet Sheridan
IBCLC Nurse and Mom
“A talent to be shared with the world.”
~ Joseph DePaola
IT Technician and Dad
“Nice story. Flows very nicely. It’s brave to share real life
situations with people.”
~Danielle DePaola
Nurse Technician and Mom
“The start of a great collection.”
~Mike Schneagas
Salesman and Kid at Heart
“Always so creative! You’ll go far!”
~Sherry Bowers
Teacher and Mom