Category Archives: author visit impact

A Simple, Successful Grant Program for Author Visits

Why Author Visits Matter: A Teacher-Librarian’s Love Letter

A Vibrant Author Visit Partnership: Giffen Memorial Elementary School & First Presbyterian Church of Albany

For years, various writing projects brought me to the New York State Museum on Madison Avenue in Albany, New York. Not once had I taken a left-hand turn onto Pearl Street on my way up the hill to the library. If I had, I would have bumped smack into Giffen Memorial Elementary School, a Title 1 school that is the largest in the city. Even still, from the outside, I wouldn’t have known Giffen’s juicy surprise: that it hosts a vibrant annual author visit program through a community partnership initiated by the First Presbyterian Church of Albany, New York.

I found out about this program by accident when Debra Fagans, Chairperson of Author/Illustrator Day, contacted me via email, asking if I’d be willing to promote the event scheduled for April 2015. I said I’d not only promote it, but that I’d love to be a part of it. I was delighted to be included with Katherine Paterson, James Earl Ransome and Lesa Cline-Ransome as a visiting author at their third annual event.

Bottom line: I traveled to Albany, had a blast, and was really impressed with this program. Why?
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Should Teachers Evaluate Authors’ Presentations?

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Not long ago, I received this email from a newly-published writer:

QUESTION: My first book just came out a couple of weeks ago. I’ve done a few presentations and have more lined up. I’d like to provide my hosts with some sort of evaluation form. I can make one myself, but it seemed like something I might find on your website. Any suggestions or resources would be most welcome.

ANSWER: Provide an evaluation form? It depends. A form is most useful to you
1) when you are trying out new material and want constructive feedback or
2) when you primarily want to gather testimonials to post on your website.

Once the kinks in your program are worked out, an evaluation isn’t necessary. And once you gather some juicy testimonials from teachers, librarians, administrators and parent-hosts, you may not need to keep requesting them. (You’ll get them spontaneously anyway from your host or from fan letters.)

What you ask on your form depends on what you want to know. I favor the “simpler is better” route. I have them rate my overall performance and ask two open-ended questions. You can find an example of my evaluation form here. For the best response rate, have your host collect these on the day of your visit.

Here’s what I ask on my rating scale:

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest, please rate the author visit listed above.
Poor Excellent
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

The author assembly / author workshop (circle one)
a) Met my expectations b) Did not meet my expectations c) Exceeded my expectations.

For open-ended comments, here’s how I phrase my request:

What did you like about this author and/or her presentations? What did you gain that you think you might be able to apply in the classroom?

Other comments:

Notice that I don’t ask, “What didn’t you like?” This can be addressed by respondents in the “other comments” section.

I also request respondent data. Some choose to be anonymous, and that’s okay. I’m most interested in their grade level or teaching assignment and what type of session they observed.

I observed the following programs: ____ Assembly ____ Classroom Q&A ____ Writing Workshop ___ Family Night
I teach grade(s) ________ City/State ______________________
Subject: ____________ Name (Optional) ________________

If you want more specifics on your performance, you might consider using this Performance Feedback Form, based on what teachers value in a presenter and their presentation. In general, it covers your demeanor, presentation specifics and audience engagement.

As to the question I asked in the title of this post, “should teachers evaluate authors’ presentations?” my answer would be, yes. When we’re in the field, authors are educators. The only way to find out if we’re on the right track with our presentations is to get feedback. Then we have to be prepared to make necessary changes to make sure that we are delivering quality services to our audiences.

5 Ways to Encourage Schools to Read Your Book Before Your Visit

Go Deeper: Multi-session Writing Workshops

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If you’re like me, we do school visits that are typically one-shot, Big Events. For example, my visits typically involve doing large-group assemblies and smaller writing workshops for upper-grade kids all on the same day. But here’s something I’ve done recently that I love: working with a single classroom in my local community over a period of time with primary school kids.

WORKING WITH FIRST GRADERS: In 2014, I took part in a creative collaboration with a seasoned first grade teacher, Kristen Nordstrom. We met at a conference and wondered if first graders would be able and willing to apply revision techniques to make their nonfiction writing “pop.”

Kristen scheduled me for three sessions with the kids in late spring. They were about to work on their African Animals project. Part of my role was to add “star power” to the mix — a published author who has worked through the exact same process that they were about to begin.

Session 1 (1:15 hrs): I demonstrated my research process with the class.

I showed them a photo of a horned lizard and had them generate wonder questions based on an image of the animal.
We practiced how to use those questions as a research guide.
I shared my rough drafts, the “final” piece, the revisions I had to make as requested by the editor, and the published article.
We generated examples of “juicy” verbs to catch a reader’s attention.

Session 2 (1:30 hrs): I visited the classroom 5 weeks later. In the meantime, Kristen was doing the heavy-lifting. She taught mini-lessons on verbs, similes and metaphors, research and drafting. I met with small groups and gave feedback on their works in progress. The purpose was to help them come up with attention-getting openings.

Session 3 (1:30 hrs): At my last visit, kids shared their final books with me and reflected on their writing and revising process. They were proud of their opening “hooks.”

To see the results, take a look at a short film featuring the young writers, filmed by older students:

This project led to Kristen and I doing teacher workshops for her school district and for the California Reading & Literature Project at California Lutheran University.

WORKING WITH SECOND AND THIRD GRADERS: In 2015, I did a collaboration with another creative teacher, Kathi Byington, in her grade 2/3 combination class. They chose to do a biography project featuring American peacemakers.

Session 1 (1 hr.): Meet-the-author / research process introduction

Sessions 2, 3, and 4 (1 hr each): Students met with me in “we-are-all-authors” critique groups. We shared feedback. The goal was for each to produce a book to enter into the Young Authors’ Faire sponsored by the Ventura County Reading Association. http://www.vcrareading.org/ As with Kristen, Kathi did many lessons with students in-between my visits. I served more to reinforce and extend than to relay information.

Session 5 (1:30 hrs): Publication Party. We “launched” their books with treats. The kids talked with me individually about their projects and writing. The result was a deeper connection with these young writers than could have been accomplished in a single-day visit. The students invited me to their “Living Museum” and “ A Midsummer Night’s Dream” performances, and met me at the local Young Authors’ Fair.

Why not talk with a local teacher and see if you can forge a creative collaboration in the next school year! Or if you’re already doing this, please leave a comment below and share what you’ve been doing. I’d love to hear from you.

Author Visit Survey

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Dear Readers –

Are you a published author and a member of SCBWI? I have a challenge for you.
My goal is to get 1,000 teachers and librarians who have hosted author visits in the past to respond to a very brief Author Visit Survey at http://tinyurl.com/kzjnutv

How can you help? Send a short personal message along with this link to at least 10 (ten) of your past author visit hosts. http://tinyurl.com/kzjnutv

Why am I doing this survey? Because many teachers and librarians who want to host author visits have met with resistance to hosting one in their schools. As a result, I’ve been working on a study to provide statistics and stories to assist them in making a case for bringing authors and illustrators to their schools.

The study, which was piloted successfully in 2013, will gather data on what effects an author visit has on students’ attitudes toward reading writing and revision. Right now, I’m “taking the temperature” of anyone who has hosted an author visit at their school or library through this 5-minutes-or-less survey. http://tinyurl.com/kzjnutv

What’s in it for you? No one has ever done an empirical, quantitative study on author visits. Not only will you be helping contribute to this groundbreaking study that will benefit young readers, but this will give you an opportunity to connect again with your past hosts.

Need help framing your letter to hosts? Click here: Sample appeal to past school visit hosts

As of today, I have 177 responses to the survey. Will you help me push it up to the top?

Warmest best wishes,

ALEXIS

Weigh-In: Do Author Visits Make a Difference?

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Do author visits make a difference in the lives of kids?

We think they do.

And at the end of this post, I encourage you to weigh-in with an example.

Among writers, those who write for children are in a special category. We’re called on to motivate, inspire and educate students, not just to sell books. And many believe that our influence is long-term and durable.

Yet according to buzz among authors, many have been experiencing a decline in school visit invitations in the past couple of years. And teachers, librarians or parent volunteers have had to deal with resistance from administrators when proposing author visits to their schools.

Teachers and librarians feel that author visits make a difference and often share stories about the transformations they’ve witnessed among their students. But to be fair – especially in today’s tense testing climate — people who hold the purse strings want to know if the expenditure of time and money to bring an author on campus can pay off in terms of student gains or changes in behavior. A feeling isn’t enough.

To address this, Jo Anne Pandey, Ph.D., a faculty member at California State University Northridge in the Child and Adolescent Development department, and I began searching for empirical studies on author visits, but found none. So we designed a study to explore whether or not an author visit makes a difference in students’ attitudes toward reading, writing and revision. Our purpose was to find statistical data to offer schools about the value of an author visit. Our efforts have been endorsed by the Ventura County Reading Association.

To that end, we conducted a pilot study with fourth graders at one elementary school at the end of the 2012-2013 school year. The results were promising. First, a pre-test. Then one week following a one-hour author assembly, we did a post-test. The results of the pilot study showed that there were increases in student mean scores in reading interest, reading efficacy, writing interest, and positive attitudes about revision. Better still, increases were found to be statistically significant. Dr. Pandey shared details of the study at the International Organization of Social Sciences and Behavioral Research Conference in 2013.

The promising results have been encouraging enough to warrant an expanded study. In 2014-2015, we plan to conduct this study with 4th graders in 12 elementary schools in one school district (including Title I, fundamental and general schools) to see if these results are consistent across schools and a variety of author presentations.

What does this study mean to you as a presenter? It means that the results can give you one more compelling “convincer” in your arsenal of reasons for why it’s important for schools to host author visits. Schools provide assemblies throughout the year. Why shouldn’t at least one of them be an author visit, especially if that visit supports the schools primary goals of motivating students to read, write, and revise?

Educators have a gut feeling that the effect of an author’s in-person meeting with students percolates for years. But no one yet has done a quantitative study on the effect of these visits on children. This study can make history.

In the meantime, here’s how you can help us expand our study. We would like to collect your “personal triumph” stories about the impact of an author or illustrator visit on a student or school. While statistics are important, decision-makers also respond to stories!

Please share a story showing how an author visit had an impact on a school, library or individual child. Leave a comment below or contact me at info2@schoolvisitexperts.com.

School Visit Experts

Creating Programs That Kids, Teachers & Librarians Love