In a few hours I’m
doing a school visit to a middle school. I’m doing one presentation for 7th
graders and one for 8th graders. These presentations are for students who
signed up to attend because they are interested in hearing an author speak.
Then I am doing a
meeting/presentation with the school’s young writers group—a group of 8
students who voluntarily meet twice a week for a writers workshop with one of
the school librarians. They have each sent me a sample of their writing, which
I’ve read and responded to.
I think it is
pretty cool that this school, Tanana Middle School, values writing and stories
enough to make part of a visiting author's time meeting with a small group of
writers.
At my own school
I’m keeping it pretty low-key, i.e. not using my job to promote my book. I’m
quietly making the rounds and doing short presentations for teachers who ask
and am doing that on my own time.
The
Intermediate Resource Teacher is using Surviving Bear Island with a group of
five fifth graders. I started them off by giving a short presentation and then
reading them the first chapter and now they each have a copy of the book and
are reading it as a group.
A third grade
classroom was doing a book-making project and I visited them and we talked
about what is involved in publishing a book.
What type of author visits
either from a student, teacher, or author perspective have you experienced? I’d love to hear about
them in the comments below.
Thanks for stopping
by.
I've only observed one for my kiddo's class quite a few yrs back. Author Sneed Collard came and spoke about his book One Night in the Coral Sea, and spoke and showed slides of how he researches for his books. I thought it was very informative, but had wished it was a little more interactive. Hard for third graders to sit for this long. Overall, I think the children were pretty excited to meet him.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Brenda!! I think interactive things are wonderful. I am a teacher and that's the way I try to teach.
DeleteHi, Paul. I am set to visit some classes in Vienna in May. International schools are really exciting. Different curricula, kids from all over the world. During the Egyptian revolution, I did class visits at the British and American schools all over Cairo since, as you can imagine, it was hard getting authors to come to Egypt. I really was a captive guest.
ReplyDeleteCaptive guest. Yes, I guess you were! I've worked with a bunch of international students over the years so I can imagine what fun it would be to be working with them in their home countries!
DeleteHope all your presentations went well today, Paul. I think it's great for an author to work with a small group of kid writers.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Michael!! I had a great time today. Students had interesting writer-questions!! And the writing they turned in to me was really good!
DeletePaul, this is so timely for me as I have my 1st school visits booked in June (gulp!) and just came back from a fabulous 4-day workshop at the Highlights Foundation on capturing the Spotlight: Getting the Gigs (booking and presenting at schools). I'll be meeting with an after school creative writing group for 7-8 graders but also doing an assembly for 5-6 graders. I plan to do a simple interactive theater scene for the assembly on the 3 nuggets of storytelling. Any advice on doing assemblies? (my son says 'don't be boring!') I hope your day went well! With your teaching experience and wonderful book I am sure you were a big hit.
ReplyDeleteDonna, given the workshop you just attended you probably know more than me about this topic. :-)
DeleteIf you are doing any question and answer time, I invite the teachers or librarians to have their students think of questions they might want to ask ahead of time. That way kids have the opportunity to not have to just think on the spot but can give some thought to what they might want to ask a writer.
I've been pretty comfortable with my MG visits, but next year I will have a PB and that's a whole new kettle of fish... I will have some work to do to create a whole new presentation.
ReplyDelete