Category Archives: audiences

This refers to types of audiences: pre-school, elementary school, middle school, high school; teachers, librarians, administrators, parent groups, professional groups, service organizations, families

9 Ways to Get Teachers to Love Your Author Visit

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What qualities do teachers look for in a visiting author? I decided to go to the source! I asked public school teacher and children’s author, Rebecca Langston-George, for advice. Rebecca is a past president of the Kern County Reading Association, host of the Young Authors’ Fair, which is, in my opinion, one of the best-run author fairs in the country. She has seen many authors and illustrators through the years and thus is in a perfect position to offer insights into what works and what doesn’t. Enjoy this guest post! — Alexis

 

For the past fourteen years I’ve been involved in Kern Reading Association, including the annual Young Authors’ Fair. YAF, as we call it, brings several children’s authors into local Kern County schools in California each year. I’ve met many fabulous children’s authors and have had the opportunity to view many school assemblies. Here are nine elements that I look for in an author presentation:

Enthusiasm: Wholehearted enthusiasm is important – and contagious; if the author is excited the audience will be excited. The author should be positive and show that he or she is happy to be there, and likes being around kids and teachers.

Relevant Presentation.  Have your content tie into the writing curriculum.  This helps justify to the principal the expense of bringing in an author and teaches kids writing is a process. It can be as simple as talking about your writing process. How do you go from an outline or some notes to a first draft? How do you get other writers to give you feedback? How do you edit based on that feedback? How does your final product differ from the early draft?  Teachers like for students to see that it takes time, practice and revision to write. 

Great Visuals: if you show up with a slide show featuring pictures of you 20 years ago and based on books that are now out of print, it looks like you couldn’t be bothered to update your presentation.  If you do a PowerPoint or other media presentation, your visuals should be large enough to be clearly seen in the back of the room. I hate when an author shows something on screen that no one can read and then comments “I know this is kind of small, but let’s see if we can all sing along . . .”  This shows that you know you have a problem with your presentation and you are too lazy to fix it. Imagine if teachers taught that way–showing math problems on the board that the kids couldn’t read.  No teacher can get away with that.  Why should an author think he or she can?

Controlled Q & A Segments: I’m okay with an author not having kids ask questions during an assembly, but doing a Q & A takes some skill. This is the segment where I often see the audience falter and the author looking frazzled.  It’s often hard for the author to hear the kids’ questions, and their questions are often repetitive or off-track or comments more than questions. Veteran authors will often ask teachers to get questions ahead of time, and then the author chooses which to answer. I’ve also seen authors who have some common FAQ that they just answer themselves: “I’ll bet you’re wondering where I get my ideas.  Raise your hand if you ever wondered where an author gets her ideas.”  And then he or she answers. 

Good Crowd Control: Being able to effectively and positively control an audience is big.  I love to see authors who teach kids a signal or use positive reinforcement.  Authors who make comments like, “teachers please control your students,” don’t get invitations to return. I’ve actually seen authors snap their fingers at teachers and point to children they want quieted. Not only is this very rude, but some children have issues that the author doesn’t know about.

Fairness. I want to see the author interact with the entire audience.  I regularly see authors who favor only one side of the room or only the front of the room, directing eye contact there, picking students there and never interacting with the other part of the audience. That brings up a lot of “That’s not fair” responses from kids. 

Audience Participation.  Too many people rely on lecture alone and fail to make kids part of the activity. But the participation needs to be appropriate.  Nothing will get you on the “never gets invited back” list quicker than whipping kids into a frenzy.  I’ve seen authors encourage one half of the room to yell something and then challenge the other side to yell it louder until everyone is out of control. Then the author wonders why the teachers can’t control the audience when the author wants it quiet for his or her presentation. 

Positive Off-Stage Presence. Have a great attitude even when you’re not on stage.  Everyone appreciates an author who can put on a great presentation, but sometimes the author’s attitude off stage determines whether or not the author gets invited back. The author who gave the best presentation I’ve ever seen and sold the most books at my school ever and was beloved by all the students will never be asked to return. He was surly and rude to all the staff, even going as far as refusing to speak to the coordinator during his visit. He made unkind comments about the quality of the luncheon we arranged and acted annoyed when asked to sign his books.  

Ability to Roll with the Unexpected. An author’s flexibility and graciousness are greatly appreciated. Teachers regularly have kids puke in class, have lockdowns, endure power outages, have technology issues, have surprise fire drills when someone pulls the handle for fun. Something unexpected may happen during your visit. It may be something your school host has no control over. If you can smile, be flexible and try to make the most of it you will be admired and respected. 

Rebecca Langston-George is a middle school language arts teacher, SCBWI Central-Coastal California volunteer, and children’s writer. She has two non-fiction children’s books forthcoming with Capstone Press: Fabulous Flappers: Dolled Up Styles of the 1920’s and 30’s will be out in January 2014 and English Rules! The Savvy Girl’s Guide to Language, Writing and More is scheduled for publication in September 2014. 

4th of July School Visit Lessons from Dad

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4th of July parade in Wakefield, Massachusetts. My dad, Ernest Francis "Tip" O'Neill, with his best friend, John Mahoney, sports his "flag" socks as they cheer a marching band.

It dawned on me the other day that so much of what I learned about doing school visits, I learned from my dad – on the 4th of July. And this was years before I even thought about becoming a children’s book writer.

I grew up in Wakefield, Massachusetts on a dead-end street with ten houses. At the upper end, through the little woods, was my elementary school. At the lower end, across the street, was a park called Moulton Playground. In the park was the West Side Social Club, the group that organized a 4th of July parade every year, and the park was where the bands, cheerleaders, majorettes, marchers, politicians, Revolutionary Patriots, and floats mustered before heading out on the parade route. My dad was a member of that club. And 4th of July was his favorite holiday.

So here’s what I learned from Dad:

Be prepared. We lugged picnic benches and beach chairs down to the bottom of our street early in the morning to save our spots for watching the parade. Today, I always arrive early at the schools I visit to scope out the layout and rearrange any furniture that needs moving.

Embrace crowds.Every year our backyard was packed with friends, neighbors, relatives and strays. Everyone was welcome. Today, my mantra is, the more the merrier in an audience. Something magical happens when an event is shared by many.

A sampling of the many of our friends who gathered in front of Mr. McIntosh's house to catch the parade.

 

Give people something to do. Whether the task was to bring food, champion the grill, keep the little kids busy, replenish plates, or clean up, everyone played a role in the success of the day. Today, I involve all audience members, whether in a group task or as individual volunteers, in my school visit assemblies, so that they all have a hand in the success of the event.

Do something a little surprising. Dad worked as a shipper in a clothing factory. He always bought a few (illegal) fireworks from the truck drivers coming up from the South. With these “surprises,” dusk on the 4th brought a bit of sparkle and flash. Today, the “sparkle and flash” I add to assemblies is a bit of music and group singing, which surprises audiences who expect a talking head.

Dad, Donna and Alexis

It’s impossible to fail. Dad planned a great day with all those friends, neighbors, relatives and strays. Everyone expected to have a good time when they came to our house. No matter the small glitches, nothing distracted from this. He knew that when you are among friends, you cannot fail. They want you to succeed. Today, I know that when I step in front of a room of kids and teachers, they are my friends. They like my books. They want me to succeed. And because of this, I know that I cannot fail.

Thanks, Dad.

And Happy 4th of July!

Proposing Sessions at Conferences

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I love going to conferences.Reading. Library. Social Studies. As an author, it’s the best way to meet dedicated teachers, librarians and decision-makers.

Sometimes, invitations are sent my way. For example, last week, I presented workshops at a summer literacy workshop for K-12 educators sponsored by the California Reading and Literature Project at California Lutheran University. My two sessions included teachers, principals, and even an assistant superintendent. These are my people! Influencers. Kid-lovers. And I had a chance to show them, using examples from my books, strategies for research and revision that I’ve learned from years of being a children’s author.

But you don’t have to wait for invitations. Be proactive. Make a list of national organizations that serve a population that would benefit from your book. Also search for contact information for their local affiliates (i.e for the International Reading Association, state affiliate is the California Reading Association and my county affiliate is the Ventura County Reading Association). Find out when they hold their conferences and submit a proposal. But don’t just focus on the reading and library conferences. Seek out organizations that relate to the content hooks in your book – math, science, history.

About proposals. When you submit a proposal independently to conference organizers, consider putting together a team. I used to evaluate proposals for a national conference for teachers. My boss leaned toward ones that had more than one presenter. Why? Because it meant more bodies at the conference, more income for the organization. So consider inviting a local university person, librarian or bookseller to moderate a panel of authors on a topic related to the conference’s theme.

If you’re having difficulty breaking in, study past conference programs and contact the author presenters to see how they landed a session. Ask them for advice. Ask for advice, too, from local teachers or librarians.  What slant would appeal to them most? Authors sharing research techniques? Writing techniques? Revision techniques? Do a little digging and you’ll come up with some nuggets.

 NOTE: See related post on 01-01-13, Focus Your Gig-Getting Energies in the New Year   

(My thanks to Mary Cronk Farrell, author of Journey to the Top of the World: How One Woman Found the Courage and Commitment to Climb Mount Everest, for the inspiration for this post!) 

 

5 Things I’ve Learned About Doing School Visits: Kim Norman

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School visit season is over. Summer vacation is here. But keep your brain humming! Summer is a great time to reflect on what worked well for you last year and to think ahead to what you can implement in the next school year.  Here’s some advice from author and school visit expert, Kim Norman.

1. Sometimes kids forget why they have their hands up… and they are not offended if you tell them, “You can put your hands down now.”

 2. Even if the child posing a question has long, curly locks and a pink hair bow, I NEVER assume gender. Long-lashed boys with collar-length hair and pixie-haired tomboys in jeans can make gender a real guessing game. When I repeat a child’s question, (which I always do, to make sure everyone hears it) I no longer say, “He/she asked…” Now, I always say, “The question was…”

 3. Treats are not necessary. I used to offer treats (like stickers) for participation, but have found it’s unnecessary. After a few minutes, even “jaded” 5th and 6th graders are eager to participate. Also, the disappointment is too great for those who don’t win the treats.

 4. My presentations must be for the STUDENTS. I may toss in a rare occasional aside that teachers will enjoy, but I keep my interaction focused on the kids.

 5. Every school seems to have a clever “Mr. Jenkins” who knows how to make the microphones and projectors work. Mr. Jenkins is often at the other end of the building when you need him.

Kim Normanis the award-winning author of several picture books including TEN ON THE SLED (Sterling), IF IT’S SNOWY AND YOU KNOW IT, CLAP YOUR PAWS (Sterling), and I KNOW A WEE PIGGY (Dial). Kim has visited more than a hundred schools around the U.S. where she shares the joy of books and the humorous “horror” of her Evil Inner Editors. Her popular resource, Children’s Authors by State, provides a terrific service to teachers, librarians and parents who are hosting author visits.  

When a Volunteer Freezes

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 So, this kid waves his arm frantically. He is volunteering to come to the front of the school assembly to help out. I call on him and he pops to the front of the room. I put glasses on him as a costume. He turns to the audience – and freezes. There is no moving him. He’s my main character. And if my activity is to be successful, he has to move!

 The last thing I want to do is have a kid lose face in front of peers. So I have to think quickly of what to do.

 First I have to figure out, has the size of the audience scared him?

 I stand in front of him, blocking his view of the room. I whisper, “Do you want to do this part?” If he shakes her head, “No,” then I say, “Would you like to play another part instead?” If he says yes, I give him some smaller part to play. If he says, “No,” I ask, “Would you like to help me choose the person to take your place?” If he says, “Yes,” then I quickly say to the audience, that our volunteer “has decided to choose someone to take his place.” I then invite him to sit close by. This way, he can still feel part of the action and doesn’t have to do the long walk back to where his class is sitting.

 But what if the issue is that he has limited English?

 Again, with my back to the audience, I talk to him. I tell him not to worry – I’ll show him what to do. When we do speaking parts, I whisper the words to him and we repeat them together.

 And finally, what if the volunteer freezes but won’t relinquish the role?

 Let me tell you about this kindergartner . . .

 I was in a room with two classes of afternoon kindergartners together – about 50 kids. I had all the kids stand in a circle. The girl who volunteered to play a bully character, called Mean Jean, was to stomp around the circle wearing a crown and make mean faces at the kids. The kids were to act afraid of her. But when she got to the 12:00 position on the circle, she stopped, stood stock still and began to sob. I still don’t know what caused this – perhaps a classmate said something unkind to her? So I called her back. I asked if she’d like someone else to play Mean Jean. But she refused to relinquish the crown. She continued to cry. We were at an impasse. Then I asked if she’d like to choose someone to play the part with her. She nodded. So my two main characters had “twins” playing the roles and the tears disappeared.

 There is bound to be a time in your school visit experience when a volunteer freezes. But if you have a few strategies for thawing them, then the show can go on!

Signature Openings

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Even outgoing authors get butterflies before school assemblies or other presentations. A little anxiety is a good thing! But don’t let nervousness to derail the rest of your presentation.One way to avoid this is by having a signature opening.

 A signature opening means that you choose specific way to begin each presentation. Since the opening is something you are used to doing time and again, this can help calm your jitters. Here are some examples of types of signature openings

  • STORIES. Start by telling a story – not just “When I was a kid I loved to read,” but tell a specific story that demonstrates your passion for reading. People remember stories better than lists of rules or maxims.
  • IMAGES. You might click through a series of photos wordlessly before you begin, perhaps with some funny or unusual ones included. This shared experience bonds the audience and helps them anticipate your core program.
  • POLLS. Ask a question that all kids can answer such as “Where in the room are my kindergartners?” and then go on up through the grades. Or “How many of you love good stories?” Or “How many of you sometimes get stuck on what to write about?” Whether they raise their hands or not, the question itself requires kids to pause and think.
  • ACTIVITY. Engage the audience in an activity. If you’re comfortable getting kids to join in, have them join you for a song, a chant or just to clap along with something you perform.

 All of these techniques can help you capture the audience’s attention, but do what feels best to you. A signature opening can oil the gears of your presentation. Once you get rolling, it’s easier to stay rolling. Before long, the butterflies calm, and you’re into the core of your presentation, having a good time.

Scoping Out a School

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Before I visit a school, I explore the school’s website try to find out as much as I can such as

  • Location & directions (obviously)
  • School mascot
  • School colors
  • Upcoming special events
  • Total population
  • Minority population
  • Number of classes per grade level

 

This information gives me a feel for the approximate sizes of the audiences I’ll be seeing and how many handouts I’ll need for workshops. When I drop in a mention of the mascot or colors, this makes an instant connection with the kids. While I often get some of this information from my host, I just found out about a tool to use for demographics: SARC (the School Accountability Report Card).

 For SARC, public schools annually provide information about themselves to the community allowing the public to evaluate and compare schools for student achievement, environment, resources and demographics.

Taking into account your website search, your host’s information and SARC, these rich sources of data can help you prepare better for your school visit and help you make a stronger connection to your young audience as well as their teachers.

 To see examples forNew YorkandCalifornia, go to

New York 

https://reportcards.nysed.gov/

 California

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/sa/

 

4 Tips for Book Festival Presentations

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Book Festival Props

For outdoor presentations, blow up book pages to at least 16" x 20" and have kids help on stage

Book festivals offer big challenges to authors and illustrators when it comes to keeping the crowd focused and engaged in your presentation.

In school assemblies, you’re confident that the kids have a collective understanding of the school’s rules and are grouped by age. You can use a PowerPoint presentation to great effect.

But book festivals are open-air, multi-generational, noisy settings full of distractions and a fluid crowd. PowerPoint? Forget it!  A reading? It won’t engage enough of a crowd. Props? Better make them big so they can be seen. In short, you’ll have to revamp your presentation to suit the setting.

For my presentation at Feria del Libro in downtown Los Angeles, the stage was a small outdoor amphitheatre. Many of the festival-goers’ first language was Spanish.

 For color, I enlarged key pages of my book, Estela’s Swap, into poster-size images and laminated them. To engage the crowd, I invited kids to hold the posters on stage with the blank side toward the audience. Then I had the crowd sing a song that’s key to my story, “Cielto Lindo.” (While I don’t know how to speak Spanish, I can sing this song in Spanish!)

As I shared my book as a storyteller would (telling, not reading text), I tapped on kids to reveal the images for key points in the story. In the last scene, I had one child be the main character: she put on a bright orange Ballet Folklorico skirt and twirled.

To end, I had everyone – kids on stage and the audience – sing “Cielito Lindo” once more. This took about 15-20 minutes from start to finish, the perfect amount of time to keep a festival crowd’s attention.

 So here are 4 tips for successful Book Festival presentations:

1)     make your props big

2)     engage the audience in a group response

3)     use kids as volunteers

4)     keep the time limit short.

Click here for a list by state of Book Festivals and when they occur.

Focus Your Gig-Getting Energies in the New Year

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The number one question authors who want to do more school visits ask me is “How can I get more gigs?”

The simple answer is this: participate in activities where you are most likely to meet the people who are in a position to hire you. These people usually include librarians, teachers and teaching specialists, principals, curriculum coordinators, and parent group leaders. Also, booksellers often recommend authors to schools, so they are important contacts to have.

Look for opportunities to meet them where they gather – at workshops and conferences at the school district, county and state-wide levels. The best kind of involvement is doing presentations – either solo, duo or on a panel – where participants get a feel for your personality, presentation style and your books.

Concentrate on becoming known locally.  Even high-profile authors are feeling the funding pinch as many hosts are looking for local authors to save travel costs.

Schedule time to do an online search for professional associations. Find out when they meet and propose doing a workshop session. For example, I live in California, so here are some of the educational and literary associations, with their national counterparts, that I have been involved with (and most states will have similar groups):

Social gatherings are also great places to build relationships. For example, I attend some luncheons organized by teachers and librarians, especially those at which my friends are keynote speakers or who are receiving awards. These would include:

 Take time to find URLs for organizations, keep a database of conference dates and proposal deadlines, and strategize on where you can best focus your gig-finding opportunities in the coming year.

To get you started, here’s a link to reading associations in North America:

ASK ALEXIS: How Should I Shape My Workshop for Students?

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Image courtesy of digitalart/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My email inbox sees a steady stream of authors asking for advice on how to handle specific school visit situations. Since these concerns are the concerns of many, I thought I’d do a little “Dear Abby” here and post the question and my response in case this might help you, too.

 Dear Alexis,

I have a school visit set up for a local 6th grade language arts class. I thought I’d start with the publishing process and then talk a bit about where ideas come from. The teacher asked that I lead them into a Halloween creative writing assignment, so figured I might give them a couple different images to choose from. Just how much can I shove into 30-60 minutes? I was afraid if I talked about details as well, that it might be one subject too many. What do you think?”   — Happy-But-Anxious

 Dear Happy-But-Anxious,

First, congratulations on trying out new material in this one-class-dose at a familiar school. When you do this, it gives you a chance to get feedback from the teacher in a supportive environment and to tweak your presentation before you do it at another venue.  This builds skill and confidence.

 Now – about the workshop. A workshop is different from a school assembly in that it engages students in a hands-on experience to teach a specific strategy that students can apply to their work. In terms of pacing, think in chunks of time.  How many minutes will you devote to each segment of your session? Possible sequences (60-minutes, 45-minutes) might look like this:

 SEQUENCE for 60-minute session (ideal time)

10 minutes:    Introduction to you and your works

15 minutes     Activity Part 1: Model the strategy with the students

15 minutes:    Activity Part 2: Have students apply strategy independently

10 minutes:    Group Share

5 minutes:      Wrap-up & Next Steps

5 minutes:      Q & A

 

SEQUENCE for 45-minute session

5 minutes:      Introduction to you and your works

10 minutes     Activity Part 1: Model the strategy with the students

10 minutes:    Activity Part 2: Have students apply strategy independently

10 minutes:    Group Share

10 minutes:    Wrap-up and Q & A

 OPENING: The kids will want to know about you and your upcoming book, so it’s a good way to start and build rapport.

 ACTIVITY Part 1: Plan to focus on ONE thing and do it thoroughly. For example, rather than talk about where ideas come from, why not do a couple of different exercises that will have them actually generating ideas. Using photos as prompts is a great technique. You might call this exercise the “Idea Bank” (and in your case, it might be the “Halloween Idea Bank.”) They will make “deposits” into this bank that they can “withdraw” from when they need to.

 It always helps to model what you want the students to do, so, you might begin this segment by observing a photo together and have them generate ideas as a group.

 ACTIVITY Part 2: In the next step, give them another photo and have them generate ideas independently. You can show one photo on a big screen to the whole class, give a photo to small groups, or give out individual photos.

 GROUP SHARE: Invite students to share some ideas they’ve written down. (Make this voluntary.)

 WRAP-UP and NEXT STEPS: Quickly review the technique you demonstrated and extend this by sharing other specific strategies that you have used to generate ideas for your books or magazine articles.

 In addition to generating the Halloween Idea Bank, you might have students produce an opening sentence, a slice of dialogue, or a dramatic closing sentence to prime the pump for future writing. But by teaching them the bigger strategy of how to generate ideas, they will be better equipped to create stories later.

 Q & A: If you have time at the end, invite them to ask you about your work. This helps build a bond, writer-to-writer, and lets students know that their struggles are normal.

 Finally, by blending the “you” part (you as a writer and your book) and the “them” part (giving them a strategy they can apply to their writing) you’ll produce a satisfying session.

 Good luck!

 If you have a question, send an email to alexis@SchoolVisitExperts.com and put “Ask Alexis” in the subject line.