For Teachers

The Three Biggest Mistakes Authors Make on School Tours

By on August 8, 2012   /   For Teachers  

As a teacher, I spend 180 days a year with tweens and teens. I’ve observed students in many teaching scenarios, including while other adults (guest authors or newbie teachers) tried instructing or entertaining them. The sessions that tend to bore the kids and stress out the presenter fall prey to three mistakes—all of which come from not understanding the audience.

Teaching or presenting to tweens and teens can be an intimidating task. After all, kids can be honest—i.e., brutal—about whether they like your book, subject matter, or you, and/or are often noticeably uninterested in what adults try to share with them. As a veteran teacher, I mentor new teachers and student teachers who have some of the same fears authors bring along when entering the classroom or auditorium. The advice in the post is the same advice new teachers get. Even when an author may have some background experience working with large groups of kids, it’s important to note that no author’s presentation—just like no curriculum lesson—will ever go off perfectly or exactly the same each time; this is because each group of students is different. So in order to ensure that luck is on your side more often than not, you can prepare each presentation based on the needs of the audience rather than the topic.

There are three things to keep in mind any time you’re teaching or presenting to kids or teens—three big mistakes not to make:

Mistake 1: Thinking It’s About You/Your Book

But wait, didn’t the librarian or that teacher invite you to come to the school because their students love your book or they’re going to love your book? And don’t you have this great activity that will help    students learn the craft of writing or what makes compelling characters? This all may be true, but you need to remember that with tweens and teens, the entire world revolves around them—not you. (Unless you’re J.K. Rowling; but even then only some kids are persistently orbiting the Potter Universe.) There are likely to be students in attendance who are reluctant readers, who haven’t heard of you, or aren’t thrilled about your genre. So you have to do the heavy lifting: you need to figure out a way to make what you’re presenting seem connected to them and their world, to make it relevant for them. For example, when I teach junior high students about the elements of fiction each fall, I start with movies, not novels or short stories. Why? Because I know all of my students watched one if not one hundred movies over the summer. Movies are what the majority of them know and are passionate about when it comes to their experiences with “story.” When discussing fiction genres, we talk about music genres. When discussing conflict, we talk about sports and teams. Help the kids see that what they care about is actually connected to what you’re trying to explore with them, thus making it relevant. Figuring out how the content of your presentation relates to something teens already    care about will get them involved—which does wonders for author anxiety and your success in school tours.

Mistake 2:    Failure to Ask Questions

One of the best ways to get kids and teens involved and to help them make connections with your content is to ask them questions. There might be some trial-and-error on your part as you experiment with the right questions to ask, but teaching and presenting are just like writing: it takes practice to do them well, and that includes learning from previous attempts. Use both closed and opened-ended questions (yes/no answers and opinion-based answers, respectively). For example, recently I went to hear two of my author friends present at a library. In part of the program, they talked about books they were forced to read in school. One of them asked the simple question, “Anyone here ever been force to read a book they didn’t like?” Then he paused as many hands from the audience flew up, tightening the kids’ connection with the presenters. Later, as the duo started discussing heroes, they asked the group of tweens and teens “what makes a hero” and then took three to five minutes and let the audience do the teaching. From my seat in the back, I could see how engaged and attentive the kids were. Most of them had never read either of these authors’ books, but because the authors brought the kids into the presentation, their audience was hooked.

Mistake 3: Forgetting to Mix It Up

Remember that kids have limited attention spans. Each of us can focus on a task or subject for only a limited amount of time before our minds wander and we become distracted. I’ve even heard that companies like 3M and Google dedicate something like 15% of the employee workday to free time—knowing that employee concentration suffers otherwise. For tweens and teens, the magic number is also fifteen—ten to fifteen minutes, that is. Every ten to fifteen minutes you want to switch topics, move to a new activity, or change your instructional approach from lecture to discussion or from discussion to something hands-on, etc. Whatever you’re doing, figure out a way to break up your gig into ten-to-fifteen-minute segments.

Now it’s time to practice what I preach. You’re blog reading attention span is almost up. I hope these ideas help. Let me know what’s worked for you in reaching your audience. As a teacher and writer, I love to teach and I love to learn—everyone can improve their craft.

Bruce Eschler teaches junior high school students most of the year, writes speculative fiction for kids as much he can, and is hoping he’ll soon be done with his pesky doctoral program. He has occasionally been spotted at www.bruceeschler.com.

Back to Top

Summer Writing Prompts for Young Writers (and Readers!)

By on June 22, 2012   /   For Parents, For Teachers  
courtesy of Anjali Enjeti on Pinterest

 

Last year, a fantastic blog post called How to Be a Writer was making the rounds among my writerly friends. Those of us who are also parents seemed particularly interested, since the essay was as much about being a writer as it was about raising a writer. Under the question “What should you do to help your child pursue her dreams of becoming a writer?”, it included fantastic advice like:

  • First of all, let her be bored. Let her have long afternoons with absolutely nothing to do. Limit her TV-watching time and her internet-playing time and take away her cell phone.
  • Let her be lonely. Let her believe that no one in the world truly understands her.
  • Let her sit outside at night under the stars. Give her a flashlight to write by.

and then of course there was my favorite:

  • Let her fail. Let her write pages and pages of painful poetry and terrible prose. Let her write painfully bad fan fiction. Don’t freak out when she shows you stories about Bella Swan making out with Draco Malfoy. Never take her writing personally or assume it has anything to do with you, even if she only writes stories about dead mothers and orphans.

Fantastic advice, yes?

But I guess the question still remains, how do we teachers, parents, writers and readers concretely encourage our young people to love words and stories? (I mean, beyond the making sure our children feel lonely, misunderstood, in the dark, and are writing extraordinarily improbable romantic fanfic mashups!)

I’ve always believed that encouraging our children to read – read widely, and read a lot — is a sure fire way to raise writers and readers. That, and lots of fun family read-alouds (ideally with lots of fantastic voices!) But, this summer, along with spending long and delicious hours in our local library (before, after, and some days, both before and after going to the local pool) I’m going to try something new. Inspired by writer Anjali Enjeti, and her fantastic pinterest board of summer writing prompts for young people, I’m going to give my children daily summer writing prompts. (Full disclosure, Anjali recently invited me to write an essay as part of another great project in which she’s asking all sorts of writers the question, “When do you write?” She kindly agreed to publish my rant on Virginia Wolf, Star Trek, mothering, writing, intergalactic wormholes, and the time-space continuum. Brave woman, clearly.)

So, just today, we bought some notebooks for the kids – middle grade readers now both. We kept an eye out for line spacing, and ease of writing. Too often in the past, I’ve bought the kids gorgeous hard bound journals which are too hard to open and write all the way into the binding. But it was important to me that the kids feel excited, and recognize that the project was a chance for them to make their mark. A new (even inexpensive, spiral) notebook can be a sign that their mark counts.

I’m going to try to use some of Anjali’s prompts, but keep myself open to letting the kids suggest their own prompts. Although, my 7 year old daughter is already clamoring to try Anjali’s “Try writing a new ending to an old fairy tale.”

In doing some other research for prompts, I found this site of tips for summer or classroom journal writing, including great tips like: “Ask children to write their journal 20 years in the future. The journal entry date will be the same day and month as the the current date, however, the year is twenty years in the future. Kids will have to imagine and write about their future life. A nine-year-old will be writing as if he or she were 29.”

Although I’m not 100% sure what “pattern based writing” is, and if I approve of it (!), this site seemed to have some great prompts, including: “1.  My lazy days cause my parents to… 2. It gets hotter and hotter and hotter and pretty soon everyone is…”

And just to give you plenty of sites to chose from, here’s one more, which suggests prompts such as: 1. “Describe one time when you were brave.” 2. “Imagine you woke up and saw a dinosaur in your backyard. Write a story telling what you see and do.”and 3. “Write a story titled, “My journey on a pirate ship. You and your friends can star in the story.”

I imagine prompts could be readerly as well – Anjali’s suggestion to find a new ending to an old fairy tale could be used with any recently read and beloved book. Middle grade fanfic could involve new adventures with old favorite characters:  Judy Moody! Clementine! Harry Potter! Percy Jackson! Another readerly suggestion might be for a child write herself into a favorite storybook plot or setting – Narnia! Wonderland! Pioneer Times! The possibilities are endless.

The only other ‘rules’ I’ve thought about is to have my kids write every morning, when everyone is fresh. Perhaps 15 minutes after breakfast before the day really gears up. Otherwise, I’d like to keep it as low key and enjoyable as possible. I’ll probably write along with the kids too!

Have you, dear MUF readers, had experience with summer writing prompts? Do you have any favorites you use?

courtesy microsoft clip art

 

Sayantani DasGupta has her summers off from her “day job” teaching graduate school – which means lots of time with her 9 and 7yo kids during the days, many hours at the local library and swimming pool. She tries to squeeze her writing in to the long summer nights – but imagines she might actually write a bit WITH the kids this summer too!

Back to Top

Authors Visiting Schools: thinking outside the box

By on January 28, 2011   /   For Teachers  

There are some good resources online about the basics of an author school visit and here are two of them.

ABCs of Author visits

http://www.sellingbooks.com/the-abcs-of-author-school-visits

scbwi resources

http://www.scbwi.org/Pages.aspx/The-ABC-s-of-a-Successful-Author-Illustrator-Visit

Rather than restate what’s already available, I’d like to look at the variety of school visit experiences an author might try or a school might ask for.

1. The whole school presentation

When most people think of authors visiting schools the image of an auditorium full of kids listening to an author tell the tale of how a story became a book is what comes to mind. Usually the author brings a power point presentation and sometimes, interesting objects for students to look at. Often there is reading aloud and almost always some time for Q & A.

2. The large group writers’ workshop

Here an author teaches a full classroom of students a writing lesson. It usually draws on an element from the author’s books and involves a writing exercise from the students. It usually works best to have a topic you’ve discussed with the teachers ahead of time and a writing activity every child in the room can feel successful with. Poetry often works particularly well, but any writing topic can succeed if it’s well taught.

3. Small group writers’ workshop

A more in-depth and longer writing workshop works best with a smaller group of students who either volunteer or are chosen for the experience because of their avid interest in writing.

4. The demonstration lesson

This works well with small and large groups and has the advantage of not requiring the students to bring their own pencil and paper and produce individual writing. A demonstration might show how an illustrator creates a character, or how a writer maps a plot using audience participation and usually a white board, smart board or document camera.

5. The author interview

This format allows more participation from students who plan the interview ahead of time and take turns asking questions. It works well with Skype. In a very large school, recording a video of the author reading and students interviewing the author for later viewing may be the most practical way to use an author’s time.

6. The author luncheon

Some schools have a tradition of inviting a small group of students to have lunch with the author and interact in a much less formal way. It can be a great place to run a few story ideas by them or get immediate feedback on a scene the author is working on. Often the children chosen are avid writers so it’s also a perfect venue to ask them to tell you their favorite stories.

7. The non-writing workshop

Sometimes authors will offer a workshop on a subject that pertains to their book and suits a school’s curriculum. It might be anything from drama to history. I know an author who has considerable expertise in historical costuming who brings in clothing from the historical era of her book and talks about how what people wear informs us about the way they live. Fascinating!

8. Family Literacy Night

Another option is an evening event for students and parents that highlights the authors books and the student’s writing. It can be an opportunity for promoting read aloud at home, family story telling, the writing and collecting of letters, or the keeping of diaries. Sometimes this involves author Q&A, snacks, games, or an art activity.

9. The author-in-residence

This is an ambitious and very time-consuming project both for a school and for an author, but it can be the most rewarding experience of all. With a daily visit over one week or one day visits stretched over a few weeks, you have the opportunity to develop the kind of trust with young writers that makes real writing growth possible. Solid teaching experience and an enthusiastic school is essential.

10. The personal visit

The best place for beginning writers to start out is with a single classroom visit where the teacher is a personal friend. The format varies from a simple reading plus a little Q&A to a writing lesson, organized by the teacher and assisted by the author. Here’s a place an author can learn the ropes of working with children and get honest and kind feedback from a trusted source.

I hope this gives you some idea of the range of possibilities. I’ll be following this post up in a few weeks with specific things an author can do to prepare for a school visit and then one more post on how schools can gain the most from their visiting author. I’ll also like to do a round-up of school visit questions, so if there’s something you’ve always wanted to know about school visits, leave me a comment and I’ll follow up later today or over the weekend.

Back to Top