Planning an Author Visit to Your Classroom

 

What could be more exciting for you, the new teacher, than having a "real live author" visit your classroom. Here's how to plan and prepare for an author visit.

Author Lisa Ard visits a class in Beaverton, OR - Lisa Ard

All teachers want their students to be good readers and good writers. But, as a new  teacher, have you given any thought to where all of those words in all those the books your students are reading came from? Have they? When you teach a new book to your class, do you make the connection between the words and the real true person who wrote them?

When you teach writing to your class, do you draw parallels between the words they write and the process they go through and the way published authors work - for in most cases, that process is very similar.

The possibilities for author visits abound, and some can even be arranged via higher tech options such as Skype and virtual author visits - thus opening your visit up to authors who are not in your local area - or even in the same country!

But, planning for an author visit is vital to its success. Here are some ways to make that visit meaningful for your students and a pleasure for your visiting author, too. There are many things to consider when deciding on an author. Do your students have a favorite author? Do you know of a local author who would love to talk with your class? Are you at a loss when thinking of the right person, and can use some help deciding?

In order to get some "real author" input, I was lucky to have a virtual visit with Lisa Ard, a Portland-based children's author who is also an experienced visiting author. Lisa does free author visits in the Portland area, and can also visit your class via Skype.

Lisa was willing to share some of her planning ideas with me - and now, with you:

"How do you go about setting up an author visit? First, you need to find an author. There are many websites and organizations that list authors who visit schools and I’ve included a list to get you started [see below]. You may also google ‘author visits’ for your area or ask your co-workers if they have a contact. Find the author’s website or school visit information. Consider these points when narrowing down your list:

• Choose an author that writes for the audience you teach (i.e. middle grade for elementary grades). Kids will be more excited by an author visit if they’ve read his/her books. Plus, authors want to meet their audience.
• Find out what types of visits they offer: in person or via skype; classroom or auditorium visits; Q&A or something meatier, like a writing workshop
• Your budget. Many authors charge for their visits.
• Availability and schedule"
  

Of course, once you've decided on an author - the next part is actually arranging for the visit. Will this be an in-person visit, a virtual visit or one done via technology like Skype? Your budget may dictate your choice, but all of these are all great ways to bring an author into your classroom.

After you've set the date, Lisa offers some additional tips to get ready:

"Now that you’ve found an author, made contact, and agreed on a date, it’s up to you to  make this visit a success – for you, the kids, and the author. Prepare the class or school using some or all of these tips:

• Advertise, advertise, advertise! Make sure every kid and every family knows an author is  coming to school. Write it up in the school newspaper. Send home e-mail announcements.
•  Put a poster up at school. Let the local paper know; they may show up to take pictures. Authors love publicity and kids do too!
• Read the author’s book in class. Have the kids prepare book reports, questions for the  authors, draw artwork to go along with the story… this extra activity builds excitement  around the author visit.
• Ask the author how you can help with book orders. Send home order forms. E-mail buy links for the author’s books. 
• Arrange a book signing after the visit. Kids love autographs and  owning a book all their own. And frankly, authors need this support from schools.
• After the visit, have the kids write thank you letters. Reading through readers’  letters  inspires authors to keep writing. Plus, it’s teaching good manners. If you and your class  enjoyed the visit, tell all your teacher and librarian friends. Help the author find more  school visits."

Now it is up to you - talk to your students and colleagues, plan your visit and have a
great time!

For more on arranging author visits, see the following resources:

• Lisa Ard is the author of the Dream Seeker series (ages 7-10) and the award-winning Saving Halloween (ages 9-12).
• My Little Bookcase Challenge: Meet an Author
• Authors by State
• Reading Rockets Video Book Interviews
• Skype an Author
• To read more about preparation ideas, look through Dan Gutman’s article The Perfect Author Visit.
  

Original copyright 2012 +Irene Taylor. Permission to republish  in print or online must be granted by the author of this blog in writing.

Carschooling - Tips for Parents and Homeschoolers

Carschooling by Diane Flynn Keith

Title: Carschooling 
Author: Diane Flynn Keith
Genre: Homeschooling, Teaching, Parenting Advice 
Publisher: Homefires, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Publication Date: 2009 
eBook: Available in paperback
Pages: 360

Have you ever counted license plates with your children, or practiced spelling words while you were driving to and from various appointments, soccer games, or friends’ houses? If so, you were engaging in a form of carschooling, a new way to make the most of those hours you spend driving around with your kids.

Diane Flynn Keith’s book, Carschooling, takes everyday car-related activities to a new level. Why not make the most of those hours spent in the car and give your child a carschool education while you are driving?

What is Carschooling?

I spoke with Diane Keith to get her perspective on her unique approach to learning. When asked, “What is carschooling,” Ms. Keith replied:

“Carschooling is the act of turning travel time into fun and engaging learning time.”

Carschooling is a great book for all parents – the homeschooler and the traditional schooler alike. It is divided into subject sections, each describing a variety of activities that parents can do with children while they are riding in the car. Games and activities are included for ages 4 though 17, and examples of age-appropriate “carschool curricula” are given at the start of the book.

But how did Diane Keith come up with the idea? She told me:

“My kids and I spent a lot of time in the car commuting to classes, field trips, the library, friends’ homes, the park, sporting events, enrichment activities – and running everyday errands. Sometimes, when my kids got bored they’d whine or complain. To calm them, I’d play an audio book or music. That almost always led to interesting discussions and it was clear they wanted to learn more. 

I began to search for activities, games, and resources we could use in the car to boost their knowledge of the world.  Because we homeschooled, I looked for resources that would help my children learn language arts, math, science, geography, history, social studies, and more.  I asked other parents what they did in the car to pass the time and tried their suggestions.  Over time, I realized we weren’t just homeschooling – we were learning on the road or ‘carschooling.’ Eventually, I compiled all of the ingenious ideas and fun resources into my book, ‘Carschooling’.”

Ms. Keith also addresses common and practical concerns such as car sickness, items needed to successfully carschool, organizational materials, and even which types of vehicles are more conducive to this unique educational method.

Car Games and Activities

Carschooling includes activities for all subjects typically required by national school curricula, from science and math to visual and performing arts, and even health and physical education. Ms. Keith also includes activities for “electives” such as current events, economics, and driver’s education and even some for “recess.”

Especially helpful at the start of each section is the list of subject area-specific tools needed to enhance the activities. For example, resources for the science section include such handy items as binoculars, cameras and film, rubber gloves, a journal, and the Periodic Table of Elements. Each section has similar suggestions that are specific to the subject area.

Rest Stop Olympics, How Do They Make That?, The Car Mechanic’s Cat, and Skeleton Hokey Pokey are just a few of the over 350 activities included. All are appropriate for use in the car, but many can also be adapted to other forms of travel, or just for some backyard fun.

Perhaps what is best about using Carschooling’s methods are the benefits for both parents and children. When asked, “What is the most important thing you’d want parents to know about using this method with their children? What are the benefits of using it?,” Ms. Keith replied:

“Carschooling not only makes your kids smarter, it improves your relationship with your children. Playing fun and interactive educational games in the car together, or having earnest discussions about provocative issues of the day, improves communication, builds trust and good will, and bonds families together in profound and heartfelt ways.”

Learning Resources for Parents

Ms. Keith includes a robust list of resources that parents can use to expand upon the ideas presented in the book. Many additional ideas are found at the Carschooling site as well.

Here are some of the Carschooling success stories that Ms. Keith recounted.

“The book is chock-full of stories from parents who have successfully used time spent in the car to engage their children in learning about every subject through fun games and innovative resources.  

One of my favorite stories is from the Hunt Family. On a 6-week long car trip they used a ‘Memory Box’ to help the kids record a history of their trip and instill an understanding of historical artifacts.  Each child had a shoebox and at each stop along the way, they were encouraged to find an item to put into their box as a reminder of the place they visited.

Each box contained a mishmash of items including rocks and feathers found along the way, as well as postcards purchased at souvenir stores. The children spent hours reviewing the contents and talking about each item. When they got home they considered burying the boxes, imagining an archaeologist in the distant future excavating their yard and discovering the priceless artifacts from their trip.”

Ms. Keith’s advice for parents using Carschooling:

“When using the games in ‘Carschooling’ remember these guidelines:

1. Games and activities are supposed to be fun for everyone.  Learning happens when it is desired by the learner. So don’t force it. If you’re not having fun, move on to something else.
2. Keep the rules to games as flexible as possible. It’s okay to change them to accommodate your children’s needs, interests, and imaginations.
3. Some children are comfortable with competitive games; others are not. Remember that competitive games can be turned into cooperative games by having everyone do the activity together. Set a goal within a specific time frame, and once it is achieved – everyone wins or gets a treat.

Encourage learning while building self-confidence in a fun and affirming way. Be on your kids’ side and recognize their accomplishments. When children experience success, it will motivate them to learn more. Above all, have fun learning in the car with your family.”

All in all, Carschooling is a great resource for parents looking to expand their children’s educational opportunities while making time spent driving around in the car both rewarding and productive.

Diane Flynn Keith is also the author of Papa's Pearls, winner of the Dan Poynter Global ebook Gold Award in the Parenting and Family Non-Fiction category.

Sources

Keith, Diane Flynn. Carschooling. (2009). Homefires.
Email interview with Diane Keith. (2013).

Copyright 2013 Irene Taylor. Permission to republish  in print or online must be granted by the author of this blog in writing.

Teach Your Students to Find their Inner Editors

 

With the rapid increase in minimally edited ebooks, teachers have a golden opportunity to teach real-time editing skills to their students. The world is rapidly filling up with ebooks - some great, some less than that, and many that are in sore need of an editor.

The next time you are previewing an ebook (or any book for that matter) for use with your class - instead of being put off by grammatical, usage or formatting errors - which can be rampant in today's glut of ebooks - turn this into a great hands-on, real life teaching and learning opportunity for you and your students. Have your students become the editors - ferreting out errors and discussing solutions for them.

Red Pen image by JJR

 Take for example a book where you notice many instances of possessive versus plural misuse. The rules for plurals are fairly simple:

1. The plural form of a noun indicates that there is more than one person, place or thing being referred to.
2. Generally, plurals are formed by added -s or -es to the word as in cat, cats; girl, girls; box, boxes.
3. Some words that end with a -y form their plural by changing the -y to -i and adding -es as in lady, ladies; city, cities; baby, babies.
4. There are also some irregular forms and exceptions that you can look up.
   

In contrast - possessive form indicates that the noun owns "something" and the apostrophe is used to for possessives:

1. Add -'s to the singular form of the word (even if it ends in -s) as in boy's hat; cat's food; book's pages.
2. Add -'s to the plural forms that do not end in -s as in children's books; men's hats.
3. Add just an apostrophe to the end of plural nouns that end in -s as in three dogs' bones; five boys' boots; several elephants' trunks.
4. Again, there are some additional apostrophe rules that you can look up.
   

One of the more common editing errors that students may find is the confusion as to when to use plural form, and when to use an apostrophe. To help make it clear, I usually tell my students to think of the apostrophe as a leash - joining the noun with that it owns. Here's an example:
The girl has a new blue dress. She owns the dress, so the correct form is:

The girl's new dress is blue. You use the possessive form here because the girl owns the dress.

Girl's is NOT plural - yet many times you will see this:

Three girl's went shopping. This is incorrect since girl's indicates one girl who owns something. In this sentence, the plural form is needed - not the possessive.

Using this example, if you find a book that contains many errors like this - set your students free to note where these types of errors occur, and how to correct them. Try to limit the 'hunt" for just one or two types of errors at a time to focus the lessons tightly.

Once students have had a chance to read and note corrections, hold a class meeting to review and discuss the possible changes.
This type of lesson will work with many different proofreading and editing topics. Think of what you have been teaching and set students loose to find examples that will supplement their instruction. Perhaps you have been studying punctuation in dialog, or correct capitalization, or confusing word usage. All of these are great topics to use for a lesson such as this. Ebooks seem to work best, as often they are only lightly edited, if at all, thus providing many examples for students to find.

This activity can also be used for practice in pure editing rather than in proofing text. Challenge students to find and rework passages with an emphasis on using more colorful language or to make generic passages clearer. Of course, students should never actually alter any of the author's work - time for a lesson on copyright and plagiarism - but creating their own phrases and descriptions from a given passage is good practice.

Don't let a poorly edited, but otherwise excellent story put you off. Show students that even "real" writers need editors, and set them on the path to releasing their own inner editors as they read.

References and Resources:

• Purdue Online Writing Lab
• Grammar Topics
• How to Use Proper Punctuation When Writing Dialog
• An example: Skye Rising: The Spirit Agreement
  

Copyright 2013 Irene Taylor.  Permission to republish in print or online must be granted by the author of this blog in writing.

Topics for Persuasive Speeches: Help for New Teachers

Speeches can be challenging. These lesson ideas teach students elements of a good speech, and how to brainstorm good persuasive speech topics, build confidence and practice critical thinking skills.

Teaching students how to give an effective speech is a part of many middle and upper grade curriculums, but this skill may be difficult for new teachers, especially if they haven't had much training in how to give an effective speech. New teachers can use the persuasive speech to teach students to overcome fear of public speaking, to think critically, and to find good persuasive speech topics to share with the class. Follow these steps to help students learn how to give an effective persuasive speech.

Topics for Persuasive Speeches

Students in middle school are ready for the challenges of learning to deliver a persuasive speech. Students in these grades have a lot on their minds, and they often want to convey these ideas to others in an effort to influence parents, teachers and peers to “see things their way.”
Introduce this lesson with a discussion and brainstorming session. List topics students feel strongly about that would make good speech topics. Some are:

• Food in the school cafeteria
• Curfews
• Homework
• Allowances
• Favorites – book, movie, rock star
  

Teacher Speech Demonstration With Example Speech

Once students have a list of possible persuasive speech topics, it is then time for a discussion on how to give a good speech. Teachers should lead a discussion about characteristics of a good public speaker and then model good speaking for students. A “what makes a good speaker demonstration” is in order, with the teacher modeling both an effective speech and one that is less well presented.

Characteristics of a Good Public Speaker

After the teacher models each example speech, have students create a list of what the teacher did well, or not so well, in each. In this exercise, emphasis should be on the way the teacher delivered the speech, not the content. Help students to generate a list of effective speech components including:

• making eye contact with audience
• speaking clearly and being easily understood
• presenting ideas in an organized and well thought out manner
• speaking loudly without mumbling or stammering
• engaging the audience
• including a good introduction, middle and ending to the speech
  

How to Write a Persuasive Speech

Next, have students select a topic from the brainstormed list. Help them outline their topics. Be sure to discuss two important details that need to be included in any persuasive speech outline – the need to be aware of both points of view on the given topic, and the need to use reasons supported by facts to convince the audience. Opinions may be strong, but they can’t be the basis for a good persuasive argument.

While students may not need actually state the opposing point of view, they do need to think about that so that they can create viable reasons for their own ideas. For example, if students are trying to persuade a teacher not to give homework, they need to think of why homework is given and what teachers use it for, and offer alternatives that teachers might use to meet those needs.

Be a Good Audience

Model giving and receiving constructive feedback by allowing students to critique the teacher’s speech first. Talk with the class about being a good audience. Just as speakers need to make eye contact, good listeners make eye contact with the speaker as well. They should be attentive and respectful of the speaker at all times.
Stress good listening skills and positive ways to give feedback. Teach students the cardinal rule for offering constructive feedback: say something nice first, before offering any kind of critique.

Students Give Speeches and Critique Each Other

Once students have completed their outlines, have them begin to practice their speeches. Encourage the use of note cards, but do not allow students to “read” from a prepared text of the speech.

Have students work in pairs to fine-tune both their arguments and their speech making skills. Each student in the pair can use a rubric of sorts to give his partner feedback. Some questions to consider:

• Did the speaker make eye contact?
• Did the speaker speak clearly?
• Did the speaker speak loudly?
• Did the speech have a good beginning, middle and end?
• Were ideas presented in a clearly understood manner?
• Was an opposing point of view considered?
• Was the speech convincing?
  

Once students feel confident, have them present their short speeches to the class.

A public speaking class for kids is an important part of any middle grade curriculum. Teach students the elements of a good speech, help them brainstorm good persuasive speech ideas and guide them in the delivery of the speech. Use a rubric to give feedback and help students improve as they practice public speaking in school.

Copyright 2012. Original copyright 2009 Irene Taylor. Permission to republish  in print or online must be granted by the author of this blog in writing.

All the Ways I Screwed Up My First Year of Teaching...

All the Ways I Screwed Up My First Year of Teaching - Katrina Ayres

...and How You Can Avoid Doing It, Too, by Katrina Ayres.

OK - those of us who have been teaching for a while can remember plenty of mistakes we made when we were starting out - all in the name of our inexperience, our excitement and our commitment to our new careers. Even brand new teachers have had enough time in the classroom by the time they have their own students - student teaching, practicums, subbing - to remember a few less than successful moves.

Veteran teacher Katrina Ayres has taken the mistakes she made during her first year of teaching and turned them into a humorous look at all of the ways good teachers can go wrong. All the Ways I Screwed Up My First Year of Teaching...and How You Can Avoid Doing It, Too is open and honest - a quick read that is very enjoyable and not the least bit "preachy"!

Ayres recounts many of her first-year experiences while she was teaching in a school in rural Hawaii on the island of Molokai. What makes this book a great resource is that Ayres not only recounts humorous - and familiar - mistakes, she also includes advice for the new teacher on how to avoid making the same ones. At the end of each chapter, she addresses her "new teacher self" with great tips offered through the lens of an experience.

Ayres conquers many things that the overzealous new teacher may encounter - from overplanning and concentrating more on the glitz than the substance - to discipline, student boredom and the infamous "W" word (how to tell students that they are wrong).

One theme that runs throughout the book is the focus on teaching rather than on the trappings of teaching. Ayres remembers how easily new teachers can be blinded by the creation of beautiful materials, and lose sight of the fact that real teaching involves actual teaching. The message: new teachers should not spend their precious time focusing in all of the cute and pretty materials that aren't essential to the lesson at hand.

She talks about how to keep your "teacher cred," how to handle the overwhelming amount of planning time new teachers face, how to work with colleagues, and the ever-unpredictable nature of kids - especially in school. Ever-appreciative of the help she got along the way, Ayres remembers and thanks the many colleagues, friends and students who helped her out along the way - offering help, guidance, support and as Ayres says, "picked me up, dusted me off, patched me up, and gave me the tools I needed to succeed..."

All the Ways I Screwed Up My First Year of Teaching is an excellent resource for the new teacher, and a fun read for us veterans as well. Read it, laugh, and learn. I'm betting you'll see yourself in many of the situations Ayres describes - and appreciate her candid advice on how to do better the next time.

All the Ways I Screwed Up My First Year of Teaching is available in many eBook formats at
Smashwords, and in paperback at Createspace.

Katrina Ayres has created videos, webinars, and books to help teachers become better at what they do. She can be reached through her website, Positive Teaching Strategies.

Copyright 2013 Irene Taylor. Originally published on December 2, 2012. Permission to republish in print or online must be granted by the author of this blog in writing.